PAD is a Budapest-based organization responding to the interlinked challenges of environmental harm, social injustice, and marginalization through research, culture, and collective action. Founded in 2016, we are a pioneering actor in Central and Eastern Europe, addressing the structural inequalities that shape access to resources, services, and representation in both rural and urban environments.
We operate through a combination of research, policy analysis, education, advocacy, and socially engaged art grounded in research. Rather than starting from fixed tools or solutions, we begin with concrete environmental and social challenges and develop our methods through dialogue with those most directly affected. Our approach is always context-driven, participatory, and collaborative.
What is Environmental and Climate Justice for us?
We understand environmental justice as the right of all communities—regardless of geography, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status—to live in healthy environments and access quality public services. These include clean and affordable water, safe housing, liveable public spaces, resilient infrastructure, and climate-adaptive use of natural resources. Equally, we advocate for a fair distribution of environmental burdens and responsibilities, aligning our work with the principles of climate justice that prioritize those least responsible yet most affected.
Our work is grounded in an intersectional understanding of inequality. We work to expose and transform the deep-rooted systems—economic, spatial, and cultural—that sustain exclusion and harm. Across every field of activity, we strive to co-create knowledge, amplify underrepresented perspectives, and drive systemic change that is imaginative, just, and lasting.
Why do we work with art?
Artistic practices and socially engaged creative methods help us to make complex social and ecological processes visible and relatable. They enable active participation, create new forms of dialogue, and translate research into tangible and accessible experiences for wider audiences. Whether through reframing how poverty is represented, making ecological processes understandable, or creating shared spaces for reflection, art expands the ways we can engage communities in transformative change.
Who do we collaborate with?
Since our founding, PAD has partnered with municipalities, grassroots groups, researchers, and cultural institutions to design policies, landscapes, and narratives that put equity and ecological regeneration at the center. We are always looking for collaborators who are ready to engage with complexity, build trust locally, and commit to long-term change—whether through research, policy, advocacy, art and design, or creative practice.
What We Do
Research and research-based advocacy
Socially engaged art projects
Education and awareness raising
Participatory planning and local interventions
Climate adaptation strategy and concept development
Policy networking and strategic consultancy
Expert consultations, concept development, and project implementation
Our Causes
PAD’s work is rooted in intersectional environmental justice. We explore the entanglements between social inequality and ecological transformation across diverse territories, with the aim of building more just, resilient, and caring futures. Our initiatives unfold across three interrelated thematic clusters:
PAD’s work is grounded in environmental justice and unfolds through a range of interdisciplinary practices. We focus on how inequality and ecological harm co-produce one another — and how this plays out across space, infrastructure, representation, and land use. Our initiatives are organized into three interlinked thematic clusters:
Territorial Peripheries and Environmental Inequality
We investigate how spatial segregation, infrastructural exclusion, and environmental harm reinforce systemic injustice. Through participatory research and community-centered interventions, we amplify local voices and challenge the unequal distribution of public services, health, housing, and mobility.
Regenerative Landscapes and Ecological Transformation
We engage with landscapes shaped by agriculture, industry, tourism, and extractive practices — including water-based and post-industrial territories. Together with local actors, we co-create regenerative land-use strategies, climate-adaptive interventions, and site-specific planning processes rooted in care and equity.
Imagination and Representation
We use cultural and artistic tools to reframe how inequality, ecological crisis, and marginalization are seen, understood, and debated. Through socially engaged art, public pedagogy, visual research, and storytelling, we support new ways of perceiving and responding to systemic challenges.
PAD provides services for both the non-profit and for-profit sectors, including local governments, research and cultural institutions, community-based organizations, and companies committed to meaningful environmental and social engagement.
We offer participatory and transdisciplinary methodologies to support strategy development across research, education, communication, policy, and spatial or community planning. Our work is grounded in social inclusion and environmental justice, guiding the co-design of collaborative, locally grounded processes.
We help design impact measurement systems, ensure transparent and credible reporting, and offer strategic guidance to avoid greenwashing and strengthen long-term sustainability performance. PAD also provides corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability consulting, with a focus on aligning initiatives with the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and broader ESG standards.
Our Services
We specialize in
Participatory planning and action research
Transdisciplinary concept development and project design
Policy analysis and strategic consultancy
Education, training, and awareness-raising campaigns
Community and arts-based engagement
CSRD and ESG alignment, impact evaluation, and reporting advisory
Implementation of sustainability-focused projects, including:
▪ green area regeneration
▪ socially inclusive infrastructure
▪ waterfront rehabilitation
Conceptualization and coordination of public programs and events
Development of tools, publications, and products that support environmental and social engagement
We bring a multidisciplinary team and a strong commitment to equity, transparency, and real-world impact to every collaboration—whether with a small community or a multinational company.
Who help(ed) our work
LILI ALMÁSSY / JUDIT CSATLÓS / DOROTTYA CZINKI / DÁNIEL BOZZAI / ÉVA BUBLA / LÁSZLÓ DARÁNYI / BENCE FÜLÖP / KÁROLY GOMBOS / KITTI GOSZTOLA / OLIVÉR HORVÁTH / RÉKA IMRE / HENRIK KIEFER /ÁDÁM KOBRIZSA / ZOLTÁN KOCSIS / BÁLINT JASKÓ / DÁNIEL MÁTÉ / FLÓRA MADÁCSI / BARNABÁS NEOGRÁDY-KISS / DÓRA MURVAI / LEA NOVÁK / JÚLIA RÁCZ / AMIN REZAI MOHAMMED / NIKOLETTA LAKATOS / KRISTÓF LÁGLER / CARLOS PEREZ ROJAS / BALÁZS SZELECSÉNYI / TÜNDE VARGA / SÁRA VARGHA / DÓRA VAJAS / ÁGOTA FRIDERIKA VISNYOVSZKY / ZSÓFIA VIZI
Team
DIÁNA BERECZ – director, cultural and visual anthropologist
LUCIE CHUCHMAKOVA – project manager
DINA DARABOS – head of finance, project management
DR JUDIT DOBÁK – cultural anthropologist, urban economist and system engineer
GERGELY PAPP – head of research, geographer and cultural anthropologist
DALMA PSZOTA – communication manager
DR ANDRÁS ZLINSZKY – ecologist
Board Members
DIÁNA BERECZ – Director / LUCIE CHUCHMAKOVA / DR JUDIT DOBÁK / DR MAREK SZILVÁSI / GERGELY PAPP