Environmental Justice with Organic Basics

Organic Basics is a popular European brand that creates mindful and sustainable organic clothing and accessories. As part of their ongoing efforts for sustainability and engagement with social justice issues, they commissioned me to create a piece focusing on environmental justice. The illustration is inspired by the community of Reserve in Louisiana, USA, nicknamed ‘Cancer Alley’. The town’s poor, majority African American residents are subjected to toxic fumes from nearby chemical plants, resulting in their risk of cancer being 50 times the national average.

In order to practice environmentalism, we must recognise that some communities are disproportionally effected by issues related to the environment than others. These communities are often people living in the Global South, but also include largely poor people of colour, black and indigenous communities on our doorstep in both America and countries in Europe. This is called ‘environmental racism’, a concept used to describe the fact that environmental injustice intersects with racism.