8. Expand Justice40’s reach
Establish 40 percent as a floor, not a ceiling, and expand Justice40’s reach to include other sectors.
To realize Justice40’s transformative vision, the administration should consider ways to expand the initiative’s reach beyond its current scale and scope. These could include establishing the 40-percent goal as a floor, not a ceiling; incentivizing federal agencies and funding recipients to maximize the benefits directed to “disadvantaged” communities; and extending the Justice40 mandate beyond the initial seven areas to encompass all federal investments.
Institutionalize Justice40 to ensure that it outlives the current administration.
As an initiative established by executive order, Justice40 risks losing support with future administrations. The federal government should take steps to institutionalize Justice40 to ensure that its principles and goals continue to be applied irrespective of changes in executive leadership. Some ways to do this include designating Justice40 coordinators or managers within each of the relevant federal agency offices and implementing formal equity scoring for all projects to institutionalize Justice40’s principles, perhaps led by the OMB. The administration could also request that Congress pass legislation that codifies the federal government’s commitments to Justice40’s goals, and encourage states, localities, and tribal governments to do the same.
Expand Justice40’s framework beyond whole-of-government to “whole-of-market.”
Achieving Justice40’s goals requires that the federal government not only model the behavior needed to advance equity, climate action, and economic health, but also create the necessary conditions for the private, non-profit, and philanthropic sectors to actively engage in these solutions. Ensuring that all sectors are aligned with Justice40’s goals is critical to securing progress and requires “whole-of-market” efforts that extend beyond the current “whole-of-government” approach. These efforts could include incentives for businesses to engage in advancing equity, climate action, and economic health, combined with clear, meaningful, and enforced consequences for poor behavior; a revision of tax rules to incentivize philanthropic investments in solutions and divestments from harm; active collaboration with philanthropic organizations interested in co-funding relevant projects; and encouraging local governments and community-based organizations implementing Justice40 projects to collaborate with third sector institutions (such as green banks, community development financial institutions, foundations engaged in impact investing, land trusts, and more) to maximize the impact of their work.
Move beyond unlocking resources to real healing and repair.
The recommendations outlined in this playbook offer ways for the federal government to position the Justice40 Initiative for success within the bounds outlined in Executive Order 14008. But true justice requires moving beyond unlocking resources and reducing barriers to enabling real healing and repair from current and past harms. This necessitates, as a first step, both investing in solutions and divesting from harms. For example, it is contradictory and counterproductive for the administration to invest in climate action and environmental justice while simultaneously continuing to subsidize the extraction of oil and gas and approve permits for drilling and fracking on public and tribal lands. Beyond aligning all federal investments and activities with Justice40 principles and goals, the administration must consider ways to repair past harms, which may include providing reparations for communities who have been forced to endure interrelated and compounding environmental, health, and economic burdens for decades if not centuries. Engaging members of these communities as experts (and not as constituents or research subjects) in Justice40 projects and shifting power to enable them to lead can also help repair the history of exclusion and ultimately work toward a form of restorative justice.