Overview of the Green New Deal Virginia’s Social Justice & Health Disparities Working Group 

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The Green New Deal Virginia is designed as a series of policy changes that will fundamentally change the way we work and live.  The GNDVA will ensure the right for all Virginians to clean air, clean water, clean soil, and healthy food.

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The Social Justice and Health Disparities Working Group's goal was to identify and create transformative strategies and public policies to mitigate environmental and systemic injustices in order to improve health, equity, and liveability outcomes for Virginian’s, and to ensure an equitable and just transition that leaves no workers or communities behind.

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The climate crisis doesn’t discriminate, but our culture does.  Today, marginalized communities of color are disproportionately affected by the consequences of climate change.  The GNDVA ensures an equitable and just 100% renewables plan in which no community is exploited or left behind.  The damage caused by the Climate Crisis must be mitigated.

 

It should be noted that the Social Justice and Health Disparities Group will not only be proposing stand-alone legislation, but will also review legislation proposed by other working groups to ensure all of our GNDVA policies are vetted through an equity lens.

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The workgroup focused on the following priorities:

 

• Environmental Justice

• Removing barriers to ensure access to quality jobs, fair pay, community services for all, particularly returning citizens and victims of state sanctioned violence.

• A living wage that adjusts with inflation.

• Abolishing the "Forever barring" misdemeanor and felony labels through a statewide codified equitable expungement process.