Working for Environmental Justice
“We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental. Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature.”
-POPE FRANCIS, LAUDATO SI’ #139
The Right to a Clean and Healthy Environment
The Franciscan Action Network launched its first environmental justice campaign in 2022: “Working for Environmental Justice.” Each year, FAN’s network is invited to learn and take action to impact change in a new area of environmental justice. The 2025 campaign and fall webinar series will focus on the “right to a healthy environment” and the Green Amendments Movement. Join us!
What if your right to breathe clean air or drink safe water were as sacred as your right to speak freely? Green Amendments make that vision real, embedding environmental rights directly into state constitutions so that care for creation is not an option, but a promise.
As federal protections grow more fragile and communities face the escalating impacts of pollution, climate change, and environmental injustice, these state-level constitutional rights provide a lasting safeguard. Green Amendments ensure that no one, especially our most vulnerable, is left unprotected. For the Franciscan Action Network, this movement is a living expression of faith in action. Protecting creation means defending human life and dignity, and securing a healthy and safe planet not just for ourselves but for generations to come.
Webinar Series: The Right to a Clean and Healthy Environment
November 6, 2025: The Right to a Clean and Healthy Environment with Franciscans International
December 2, 2025: The Green Amendments Movement
January 2026 (TBD): Case Studies and Success at the State Level
What is a Green Amendment?
Green amendments guarantee every person’s right to clean air, pure water, and a healthy environment, and it’s written directly into a state constitution. Green Amendments grant citizens the ability to hold the government accountable for environmental protection and are a tool for environmental justice, aiming to ensure that environmental decisions do not disproportionately harm communities of color, low-income communities, or Indigenous communities. Unlike traditional environmental laws, green amendments are intended to be self-executing, providing a constitutional basis for challenging government actions that harm environmental health. Green Amendments also help to advance environmental justice by granting communities overburdened by pollution the legal standing to insist that the government prevent actions that infringe upon their right to clean water, clean air, and a healthy environment.
– Green Amendments are a type of environmental rights amendment that liken rights to clean air and water to rights to free speech and religious expression. They serve to emphasize environmental health and safety as part of basic civil liberties (National Caucus of Environmental Legislators).
– a constitutional right to pure water, clean air, stable climate, and a healthy environment
– placed in a state’s Bill of Rights – making them permanent and enforceable
– self executing – meaning they do not require new laws in order to become effective
– makes governments trustees of natural resources for both present and future generations
What is environmental justice?
Environmental justice is “the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people” in environmental policies, procedures, and legislation (EPA). Environmental justice acknowledges that all people have the right to a healthful climate and environment, while recognizing that communities of color and/or low-wealth continue to suffer the disproportionate effects of environmental degradation due to systemic racism. A “just transition” to a sustainable future is essential; the construction of this future must be done in an inclusive manner that leaves no one behind. As Franciscans, we are called to stand with communities on the front lines and work for environmental justice.
In 2022, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution A/76/L.75 recognizing the universal human right to a healthy and sustainable environment (R2HE). According to Franciscans International, this encompasses clean air, safe climate, safe and sufficient water, healthy and sustainable food, non-toxic environments to live, work, study, and play, and healthy biodiversity and ecosystems. Read more in Franciscans International’s September 2024 publication, “The Right to a Healthy Environment: From recognition to implementation”.
Green Amendments are self executing provisions added to the bill of rights section of a constitution to ensure government authorities are protecting environmental health. Green Amendments also help to advance environmental justice by granting communities overburdened by pollution the legal standing to insist that the government prevent actions that infringe upon their right to clean water, clean air, and a healthy environment.
Additional Resources:
What is Environmental Racism? Robert Bullard interview from EarthBeat on YouTube
What is Environmental Racism? From King 5 Seattle on YouTube
Since 2022, FAN has hosted a series of educational webinars about prominent cases of environmental injustice, with speakers from the affected communities and local advocates. We encourage you to learn more about environmental injustice in the U.S. by watching our past webinars and utilizing the accompanying resources (here).
What states have Green Amendments?
Worsening environmental threats are pushing communities to increase efforts to make a healthy environment a constitutional right. States vary on where in the constitution these environmental rights amendments are proposed. Many states are following the lead of Pennsylvania (1971), Montana (1972), and New York (2021) by placing the language in the Bill of Rights, and are including other elements that meet the definition of a “Green Amendment.”
Four other states—Hawaii, Rhode Island, Illinois, and Massachusetts—have constitutional protection for the right to a healthy environment, but such language does not exist in their bills of rights and thus limiting the level of protection.
More than sixteen states have introduced Green Amendment legislation. The scope and specific language varies state to state. These states include: Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia. In Florida, while there is a Green Amendment on the table, it is limited to “the right to clean and healthy waters.” In Delaware, proposed Green Amendment legislation was tabled in October 2022.
Learn more from the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators (here).
* Created by Franciscan Action Network, October 2025.
For more updated information please visit Green Amendments for the Generations.
Who is leading the Green Amendments Movement?
Green Amendments for the Generations (GAFTG)– national campaign, founder Maya K. van Rossum
“The goal of the Green Amendments For The Generations is to advance a Green Amendment movement that sweeps the nation and secures for all people constitutional recognition and protection of their inalienable rights to pure water, clean air, a stable climate and healthy environments. We seek to inspire and support pursuit and passage of self-executing, environmental rights amendments in the Bill of Rights section of every state constitution across the U.S. and ultimately at the federal level. Once accomplished, we will work with communities to ensure their strong and meaningful implementation and enforcement.”
Earth Law Center– advocates for ecocentric governance and legal rights for nature
“Earth Law Center’s mission is to advance ecocentric laws, policies, and governance for the well-being of the Earth community. Our vision is of a world where Nature and humans flourish together with care, resilience, and reciprocity for present and future generations of all species. Our aim is to mitigate the effects of climate change, biodiversity loss, and degradation of ecosystems and to restore a flourishing Earth community on behalf of present and future generations of all species.”
National Caucus of Environmental Legislators (NCEL)– state lawmakers advancing action
“The National Caucus of Environmental Legislators’ mission is to empower a nonpartisan network of legislative champions to protect, conserve, and improve the natural and human environment. NCEL’s vision is state leadership that advances a clean and healthy environment for all.”
Our Children’s Trust– represents young people in global legal efforts
“We work to protect the Earth’s climate system for present and future generations by representing young people in global legal efforts to secure their binding and enforceable legal rights to a healthy atmosphere and stable climate, based on the best available science.”
Why now?
As federal protections grow more fragile and communities face the escalating impacts of pollution, climate change, and environmental injustice, these state-level constitutional rights provide a lasting safeguard. They ensure that no one, especially our most vulnerable, is left unprotected. For the Franciscan Action Network, this movement is a living expression of faith in action. Protecting creation means defending human dignity, and securing a healthy and safe planet not just for ourselves but for generations to come.
How is FAN involved with the Green Amendments Movement?
Green Amendments embody Franciscan values: care for creation, human dignity, and justice for all. They affirm that a clean environment is not a privilege but a shared right grounded in respect for God’s creation. Through our partnership with organizations like Franciscans International, we echo a global call for the recognition of the right to a healthy environment as a universal human right.
In the fall of 2025 and spring of 2026, FAN will host a series of educational webinars to educate and resource our network to take action in their states and beyond.
Contact Nora Collins, Director of Campaigns and Creation Care, for more information (ncollins@franciscanaction.org).
Past “Working for Environmental Justice” Campaigns (2022, 2023, and 2024)
Since 2022, FAN has hosted a series of educational webinars about prominent cases of environmental injustice, with speakers from the affected communities and local advocates. We encourage you to learn more about environmental injustice in the U.S. by watching our past webinars.
“Environmental Racism in Diverse Regions in the United States” (Fall 2024)
“Awakening to Environmental Justice” (Spring 2024)
“Working for Environmental Justice” (2023)
“Confronting Environmental Racism” (2022)
Keep Current on Creation Care!
Do you want to help protect our national forests? Do you want to work for environmental justice? Do you want to defeat plastics pollution? FAN curates the latest news for you! Sign-up for The Current, FAN’s monthly environmental advocacy newsletter, which features relevant online action items, news headlines, and event listings.
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