Equity

The equity impact area addresses the fairness, impartiality, and inclusivity of the CCAM by examining how impacts are distributed across different population groups, regions, or generations.

The distribution of CCAM’s potential benefits and burdens can vary across demographic groups, geographical areas, and time periods. For example, the impacts experienced today may differ from those that will affect future generations. Identifying these disparities is important for determining whether CCAM’s impacts can be considered equitably distributed.

Equity refers to the consistent and systematic fair and just treatment of all individuals, recognising that people have different needs and require different levels of support and resources to ensure their rights are realised. This includes individuals from underserved communities historically excluded from such considerations.

The focus of this impact area is on the distribution of impacts, extending beyond the average impact across an entire society or nation. The disparities used in this impact area are:

• Population group disparities happen when impacts are not evenly distributed. Some groups may experience greater benefits, while others face more burdens than others. Examples include different groups differentiated by age, income, gender, (dis)abilities, technology access, digital literacy and adoption of CCAM, etc.
• Regional disparities can arise from factors such as CCAM service areas, the location of labour markets, and the areas where materials are sourced for constructing these systems. Considerations include whether production and operations are conducted sustainably and whether the benefits are equitably shared across locations.
• Temporal disparities occur when decisions made today produce different outcomes over time. For example, variations in material usage, infrastructure changes, and emissions (e.g. climate change) may impact current populations differently than future generations.

The Equity impact area focuses on the main components of equity in CCAM (see the next figure):

• Distribution effects among population groups (e.g. based on income, age or (dis)abilities).
• Distribution effects among regions (e.g. urban, sub-urban, and rural areas or countries).
• Distribution effects across time periods (e.g. present-day vs. future generations, intergenerational justice).
• Identification of disparities between population groups by examining the factors that distinguish affected populations.

Main components of the equity impact area.