FY 2023 – FY 2024 Pollution Prevention Grants: Environmental Justice in Communities

Description

This grant opportunity is announced under the authority of the Pollution Prevention Act of 1990 and is funded by IIJA. EPA is announcing a two-year competitive funding opportunity for awards to eligible entities, including: the fifty states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, any territory or possession of the U.S., any agency or instrumentality of a state or tribe, including colleges and universities, and federally recognized tribes and intertribal consortia. Applicants are strongly encouraged, but not required, to develop partnerships where they can strengthen their ability to provide P2 technical assistance to businesses in disadvantaged communities, which are communities that are marginalized, underserved and overburdened by pollution.The goal of this grant opportunity is to address environmental justice priorities and improve human health and the environment in disadvantaged communities by providing P2 technical assistance to businesses (e.g., information, training, expert advice) on source reduction, also known as pollution prevention (P2). Implementing P2 approaches can help businesses reduce the use and release of hazardous substances that can adversely impact human health and the environment while at the same time help businesses save money by reducing their resource use, expenditures, waste, and liability costs. P2 approaches can particularly address harmful chemical exposures and impacts on human health and the environment in disadvantaged communities. Therefore, EPA views these grants as a component of the Biden Administration Justice40 Initiative, which is designed to assure that 40 percent of the overall benefits of certain Federal investments flow to disadvantaged communities.To allow a greater number of disadvantaged communities to benefit from the results and lessons learned from projects funded by these grants, EPA is requiring recipients to develop P2 case studies on approaches that address environmental and human health concerns in disadvantaged communities, where the approaches are new, not widely known or adopted, or where the recipient believes detailed information on the project could support more widespread project replication. Recipients must develop at least one case study during the grant period. Case studies submitted by recipients will be used to build and share a body of knowledge about P2 approaches to address human health and the environment in disadvantaged communities that could be implemented by other enterprises. In addition to case studies, EPA also encourages other means to document and widely share projects and lessons learned through the technical assistance provided through these grants (e.g., outreach, training, and videos). Guidance for developing these case studies can be found in Appendix B.

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