Green and sustainable social work: Environmental justice, social justice and ecosocial interventions

Abstract

This article introduces an approach within social work called green social. It is argued that this approach has a critical potential in its ability to respond to urgent issues concerning people’s current and future living conditions. It is further argued that in addition to its traditional involvement in problematic distribution of resources, social work can act upon linkages between social issues and issues concerning environmental and climate crisis when integrating areas of knowledge from other disciplines. Such linkages imply a revision of the construct ”person-in-environment” that traditionally denote a delimited notion of environment as the ”social environment”, thereby disregarding the biophysical environment that human beings are a part of. The article discusses concepts such as ”sustainable welfare”, ”de-growth” and ”transition” and presents examples of so-called ecosocial interventions while also making an argument for strengthening community work in Sweden.