Jo Verrent, director of the UK based organization Unlimited, recently wrote this text about climate justice and disability. Klimakultur thanks Jo Verrent and Unlimited for letting us republish the text here.
(Klimakultur is arranging a webinar with Jo Verrent on Friday, January 10th 2025, 12.00 - 13.00 CET, more info and registration here).
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Going green? I’m ashamed
A frank confession from Jo Verrent, director Unlimited, on navigating climate justice and disability.
Environmental action is critical for the survival of our planet. It’s also part of our organisational responsibilities passed down to us by our funders and fundamental to my personal beliefs as a human. Yet my overriding feeling when it comes to green issues and green action is guilt.
Guilt and shame.
- Every time I plug in any of the energy guzzling loop systems, microphones, and boosters that work with my hearing aid – or change its non-recyclable batteries yet again.
- Or when I get a taxi from the train station to the venue because I just can’t make the 10 minute walk without using up all my energy reserves for that day.
- Or when I pop my medications out of their many blister packets, or put my non-recyclable injection pen in the sharps bin each week.
- Or when I’m too tired to cook and turn to pre-chopped frozen veg, processed food, or a takeaway.
- Or when I fly to Europe and ignore the slow travel options, so I can get to my hotel more quickly for a lie down.
I could go on.
Compared to other (non-disabled) people I create more waste, burn more carbon, take up more resources, and cost more money. This is what I need to have access to what others take for granted. A lot of the time, people can look at their options and make choices that help the planet. But when I try to do the same, I often feel like there aren’t any good options to choose from.
And it doesn’t stop there. My energy to look for those greener solutions – if they were there – is reduced.
To attend things, engage, and take part in activities, I already have more work to do than many of the people attending. I must check that access will be in place. It often isn’t so I have to do work to make it so. And before that I must check that I can find access to travel to the events. All of this takes energy – energy that I just don’t have (thanks, energy-sucking chronic illness).
I don’t usually talk about any of this, for fear of being seen as someone who isn’t doing enough, doesn’t care enough, isn’t committed enough.
I know that as a disabled person, many of my options are the ones that draw frowns from the environmental lobby. Not often from individuals though, oh no. Most people one on one are great. Most understand, they get it.
“Disability justice is climate justice!” “You must have the access you need.” “Disabled people are disproportionately impacted by environmental issues – you have the right to have your access, it's ok.” I hear these all the time.
But this isn’t what the apps, toolkits, and websites say. In simplifying their message to make it actionable, we lose that nuance. Instead of “it’s ok” – I get crosses and not ticks, red options and not green. The guidance materials don’t get it – they either ignore my experiences or, worse, make it clear that they aren’t the choices I ‘should’ be making. Labelling my behaviour as negative. Bringing on the guilt. Bringing on the shame.
What can we all do to change this? And yes, I mean ‘all’. This is not just my issue to solve, and I’m fed up being treated as though it is.
Here’s my three suggestions for how things can improve:
1. We all need to centre disabled people within all green discussions and debates. And not just disabled people – global majority people, those with lived experience of homelessness, of migration, of poverty – all those who keep being seen as marginal to the issues. We are the ones for whom global warming, flooding and climate change are having a disproportionally large impact. We should be centred, not ignored.
2. All apps, toolkits, guides, websites, and campaigns need to give space up front for people to explain why things might need to be done differently. Some of us will use more carbon and others less. Let’s push those who create such tools and systems to do more and do better. They need to not stigmatise us so the guilt and shame can be reduced. Let’s get our lobby on and start complaining rather than passively accepting our experiences not being centred.
3. We need to start thinking about climate justice in a holistic way that fully includes disability justice. Research on net zero approaches is already showing the heavy cost to certain groups carrying the burden, and argues that reaching net zero will only succeed if it’s done fairly – which, right now, it often isn’t.
So what are we going to do to stop the guilt, stop the shame?
At Unlimited, we’re looking into practical ways to support our staff with decision making – balancing access and environmental action.
For example, we’ve created a new set of questions to ask ourselves before we travel anywhere and yes, they ask if we really need to travel, but they also ask about our access requirements and fatigue levels. They help us maximise the impacts of trips, and minimise the barriers we experience. This helps me feel like I’m interrogating our behaviour and taking action, even if the action is different to what many organisations might do.
We’re also talking to other disabled-led organisations so we can support and learn from each other as we navigate this journey. If any of this resonates, it would be great to know about other solutions we can put in place. As we know all too well in the disability movement – it has to be ‘nothing about us, without us’, including in the cultural response to climate emergency.
About Unlimited:
"Unlimited will commission extraordinary work from disabled artists until the whole of the cultural sector does. This work will change and challenge the world."
