Implementing climate justice in Boston’s Building Performance Standard

Abstract

Boston’s Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO) provides an early example of how contestations around climate justice are already shaping cities’ implementation of climate action on the ground. As a landmark in equitable implementation efforts, BERDO highlights important challenges in putting climate justice into practice, including working within a program’s scope and scale constraints, translating justice goals into bureaucratic processes, and managing the potential weaponization of justice claims.