Principles for Environmental Justice in Technology: Toward a Regenerative Future

TL;DR

This paper proposes the EJIT Principles as a framework to guide technological development towards social and ecological justice, emphasizing interdependence, repair, and community self-determination for a regenerative future.

Contribution

It introduces the Environmental Justice in Technology (EJIT) Principles, extending environmental justice into technology design to promote equitable and sustainable innovation.

Findings

EJIT principles serve as a values infrastructure for just technology.

Framework resists extractive defaults in technological systems.

Supports collective efforts for equitable technological transformation.

Abstract

This paper introduces the Environmental Justice in Technology (EJIT) Principles, a framework to help reorient technological development toward social and ecological justice and collective flourishing. In response to prevailing models of technological innovation that prioritize speed, scale, and profit while neglecting systemic injustice, the EJIT principles offer an alternative: a set of guiding values that foreground interdependence, repair, and community self-determination. Drawing inspiration from the 1991 principles of environmental justice, this framework extends their commitments into the technological domain, treating environmental justice not as a peripheral concern but as a necessary foundation for building equitable and regenerative futures. We situate the EJIT principles within the broader landscape of environmental justice, design justice, and post-growth computing, proposing them as a values infrastructure for resisting extractive defaults and envisioning technological systems that operate in reciprocity with people and the planet. In doing so, this article aims to support collective efforts to transform not only what technologies we build, but how, why, and for whom.