A Framework for Developing Environmental Justice Indicators
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper provides an easy-to-read and sound approach to EJ and how to capture EJ dimensions using indicators. In doing so, authors apply key stages and criteria of social empirical research. I suggest to address the following aspects:
- When first mentioning restorative justice, please link it clearly to procedural justice (introduction, p.1, line 45). This term is not that easy to understand (outcome-related justice).
- Top-down and bottom-up-approach: Please explicate how these two approaches can complement each other or interact with each other, e.g. in an iterative process.
- The EJ indicator framework implies causal processes (as shown by arrows), while illustrating how to combine indicators. Please illustrate how long-term processes could be traced using composite indicators, how the contribution of causal agents could be assessed over time, how restorative justice / corrections could be captured in composite variables.
- I understand correlational epidemiology does not mean causal associations, but still you will assume causality when building such indicators (even if you cannot prove it in every local setting). It might be a solution to refer to epidemiological studies providing the evidence needed, particularly if you do not have the health data at a relevant spatial scale at your disposal.
- The figure 3 includes more examples of indicators “eg.”-than given in the text. Not all of them are in green colour – not sure what this means.
- The indicator list in the supplement encompasses objective and subjective indicators. This yields different qualities of data that are complementary and not necessarily congruent (as shown for noise exposure and noise annoyance). This should be considered in the EJ indicator framework. Perceived fairness and recognition is an important issue for procedural justice, too.
- Procedures, also in the indicator list in the supplement, are not only related to prosecutions and inspections, reports and alike. I think it would help stakeholders if examples included procedures both within and outside the remit of environmental protection agencies like urban regeneration programmes, noise abatement planning plus the relevance of (dis-)proportionate participation.
- In figure 3: What does “(-ive)” in the box “Environment” mean? Harmful-ive? Livable-ive?
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper concerns the issue of developing environmental justice indicators. An example list of evidence-based measures for developing EJ indicators was also provided. It was anticipated that the framework and list of EJ example measures will provide guidance for efficiently developing locally relevant EJ indicators. Remarks: The manuscript is well-prepared. Line 213: “Error! Reference source not found.” messages should be replaced by the correct references. By the way, these messages appear in many places along the text. They should be corrected; The manuscript should present the value added with respect to existing knowledge. Please indicate some perspective.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
