Community, Environment, and Justice Research Group

The Community, Environment, and Justice Research Group (CEJRG) is a group of faculty, students and community members with a common interest in creating a just and environmentally sustainable local and global community. Our mission is to engage with the intersections of environment, community and justice through research, action and collaboration. With our research we seek to generate empirical and practical knowledge that informs community-based efforts to climate change mitigation and adaptation with an awareness of and value for environmental justice.

Key Areas of Research

• youth engagement
• fostering engagement in sustainability and creating a culture of sustainability
• environmental and sustainability justice
• green buildings, regenerativity and wellbeing
• climate change adaptation
• other sustainability-focused topics, such as cross-sector collaboration

CEJRG has been engaged in a variety of other projects and topic areas that do not fit perfectly in one of the focus areas above. We have, for example, explored the collaboration among environmental organizations in Waterloo region and develop a model for community-university partnerships. We have also made contributions to the literature on community psychology, environment and global climate change more generally.

Contributions

We support local environmental organizations and programs in:

• Conducting evaluations;
• Planning and implementing events;
• Strategic planning and program development; and
• Grant writing.

We participate in and facilitate regional, provincial, national, and international efforts of collaboration and networking in order to create pro-environmental transformative change at multiple levels.

Our group is closely connected to the Viessmann Research Centre, part of the evolvGREEN innovation hub located in the evolv1.

Members

CEJRG experiences success from the collective effort of our team, funders, and community partners and collaborators.

Our Team

CEJRG is led by Manuel Riemer, MSc, PhD, research group director, Department of Psychology, Laurier.

Faculty

• Joel Marcus, Faculty of Administrative Studies, York University

Funders

• SSHRC
• CIHR
• MITACS
• P&G Centre for Business and Sustainability
• Laurier Office of Research Services
• The Viessmann Group
• Sustainable Societies Consulting Group
• Industry Canada – Office of Consumer Affairs
• Ministry of Innovation, Science, and Research, North Rhine-Westfalia, Germany
• David Suzuki Foundation

Community Partners and Collaborators

This is a combined listing of current and past community partners and collaborators.

Canada

• Sustainable Waterloo Region
• Building Owners and Managers Association of Canada (BOMA)
• Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo
• Faculty of Administrative Studies, York University
• Sustainability Office, Wilfrid Laurier University
• The National Research Council
• The Accelerator Centre
• EY Canada
• The Cora Group
• The Region of WaterlooThe City of Waterloo
• The City of Kitchener
• The City of Edmonton
• Waterloo Region District School Board
• David Suzuki Foundation
• My Sustainable Canada
• Pulse Energy
• Sustainable Societies Consulting Group
• REEP
• Reduce the Juice
• ElevenX
• Scius
• Stuart Olsen

Germany

• University of Applied Sciences Bochum, Germany

Uganda

• Makerere University, Uganda
• Joint Energy and Environment Project (JEEP)
• Greenwatch
• India – Accordion Title #4
• St. Xavier College, Mumbai
• Centre for Environmental Research and Education

Bangladesh

• University of Dhaka
• Bangladesh Youth Environmental Initiative

United States of America

• Western Kentucky University, Institute for Citizenship and Social Responsibility

New Zealand

• University of Auckland, Department of Psychology
• Auckland City Council