Embodying Justice in the Built Environment: Just and Equitable Land Use Transitions in Advancing Carbon Neutrality consists of a guide and workbook for local governments, community organizations, and other government agencies and advocates seeking to center justice and equity as they work toward shifting land use and zoning to achieve carbon neutrality. This is the second guide in a series. The first guide is Embodying Justice in the Built Environment: Circularity in Practice.

What is the Embodying Justice Framework? Embodying Justice is a continuous process that recognizes and remedies past and present harm within the built environment while working toward just futures. Embodying Justice requires cities to carefully and comprehensively examine regulations, programs, and practices that affect the way that land is used, stewarded, and developed, and their impacts on justice. Embodying Justice means actively addressing harms, past and present, built into spaces around us. It is an ongoing process of repair and imagination, where cities recognize how policies and planning have caused harm, alongside committing to more just policies and programs in their place. This work requires looking closely at how land is used, who gets to shape it, and who benefits. Embodying Justice asks cities to rethink the rules, programs, and everyday decisions that impact neighborhoods. How we move forward must be centered in community power through care, stewardship, and use.

About the Guide and Workbook A team of researchers, with the support of community leaders, reviewed and analyzed the land use section of the City Policy Framework for Dramatically Reducing Embodied Carbon, which details 52 policies for achieving carbon neutrality goals. While considering the prevalence of injustice and inequity embedded in land use and the built environment, the analysis was then developed into a conceptual framework that forefronts justice and equity principles. This guide and workbook supports community organizations in identifying opportunities for engagement and change, recognizing that creating just, equitable, and carbon-neutral cities requires action beyond local government alone. Designed to accompany CNCA’s City Policy Framework, it expands cities’ capacity to shape climate-conscious land use transitions rooted in justice and equity. Through practice stories and interactive targeted questions, this guide and workbook aims to prompt meaningful discussions among agencies, stakeholders, and communities.