From Territorial to Environmental Cohesion

Despite being steeped in the language of sustainable development, current conceptions of territorial cohesion are broadly silent on the practice of environmental protection. This paper criticizes this omission, suggesting that environmental cohesion is an integral part of territorial cohesion, reflecting territorial cohesion’s concern with balance and co-ordination while drawing on the objectives of the environmental justice movement. We suggest that while environmental cohesion is not currently scheduled for addition to the three cohesion pillars, the importance of achieving environmental balance and equity can be characterised as part of territorial cohesion’s inchoate claim. Framing environmental cohesion as a concern throughout the territory of the EU, by placing it squarely within the remit of principles of territorial cohesion and solidarity, empowers individuals and communities as well as places. If through funding or delineation these spatial units are conceptualized as EU places then examples of best practice in one part of the region provides political and philosophical leverage to argue that standards should be the same throughout. The very idea of EU places is underpinned by understandings of cohesion and solidarity extending throughout the territory of the EU. Environmental cohesion can provide a means of comparing and improving environmental conditions between places