The Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) is an action-oriented research collaborative and network dedicated to advancing the Environmental Right to Know (ERTK). To us ERTK means:
People should be able to know and make decisions about environmental concerns and maintain rights of consent, refusal, and self-determination in environmental decision-making.
The collection and stewardship of environmental information should equip people, communities, and workers to protect their health and support the flourishing of surrounding ecosystems.
All people, especially minoritized communities who experience disproportionate harms, should have equitable access to comprehensive and legible environmental information in order to seek redress for harms and build relations of responsibility and accountability.
To do advance the ERTK, we:
Document, contextualize, and analyze current changes to environmental data and governance through transdisciplinary and collaborative work;
Foster the stewardship and expansion of public knowledge through participatory civic technologies and infrastructures;
Create new communities of practice to enable government and industry accountability; and
Promote models and tools that emphasize community participation at all scales.
