The role of environmental justice in sustainable development in China

Abstract

This study drawing concepts from the fields of sociology, organizational behavior, and marketing examines residents' perceptions of justice in relation to environmental development. Although prior research raised issues related to environmental development from the justice perspective, very little is known about how residents perceive justice related to environmental development. Therefore, our study examines residents' perceptions of justice and how those perceptions influence the relationship with the government. More specifically, the study proposes that four types of justice (distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational) are related with the residents' trust in the government, which predicts their intentions to support for future projects and the government. To test the proposed model, we collected data from residents of four cities in China that were going through environmental development projects. The results of the study show perceptions of distributive justice and interpersonal justice have a significant positive effect on the residents' trust in the government and the environmental development. The study also finds that trust in the government and trust in the environmental development are positively related with residents' intentions to support the government and additional environmental developments. Our finding, however, does not support that either perceptions of procedural justice or perceptions of informational justice are important in the Chinese context. Implications of the study are presented.