Operationalizing accessibility in environmental sustainability efforts: Challenges, barriers, and opportunities

Abstract

There is growing recognition of the need to move towards climate justice in response to the climate crisis; that is, ensuring mitigation and adaptation responses centre equity, and promote the inclusion of marginalized or otherwise ‘equity-deserving’ groups, including people with disabilities. Despite this recognition, there is little empirical research exploring the intersection of disability in sustainable developments, and even less addressing the practical challenges and opportunities to operationalize a sustainability-accessibility mindset within existing organizations. Drawing from a systems perspective and the human rights model of disability as well as an empirical case study, this paper explores practical challenges and considerations of integrating accessibility into environmental sustainability projects through a critical reflection of our own experiences implementing a tactile and visual information system for multi-stream waste disposal units in public spaces. This article presents an illustrative example of the challenges and barriers of bureaucracy, corporate structures, and the shift of mental models that need to be considered in the implementation of promoting the inclusion of visually impaired individuals. We argue for an intersectional approach to environmental sustainability that addresses these challenges and barriers, and that is compatible with the disability rights motto, “Nothing about us without us” and the need for inclusive design for collaborative impact.