Environmental inequality in Austria: do inhabitants’ socioeconomic characteristics differ depending on their proximity to industrial polluters?

Abstract

This is the first study to examine the existence of environmental inequality related to industrial facilities in Austria. Using distance-based methods, socioeconomic characteristics of inhabitants living in 1.0 km buffer zones around the 247 polluters registered in the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Registry are compared with those of inhabitants living elsewhere in Austria. While in Vienna no clear signs of environmental inequality can be found, in the rest of Austria people living in close vicinity to industrial sites are more often unemployed, have lower education levels and most notably, are twice as likely to be immigrants. Moreover, a logistic regression shows that the disparities concerning immigrants cannot solely be explained by other socioeconomic characteristics. The results of this study add to the evidentiary base concerning environmental justice disparities in Europe and suggests how application of distance-based methods can facilitate cross-national comparisons.

Keywords

• environmental justice
• environmental disparities
• polluting industrial facilities
• migrants
• pollution disparities
• environmental deprivation