Methodology for Urbanism

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Just Transition

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Theory explained

Just
transition

Leaving coal, oil and gas is necessary. But someone loses a job, someone gains a profit, someone decides, and someone lives next to the new mine. A just transition asks who pays, who decides and who is heard.

Where it comes from ↓Four questions ↓Is it a theory? ↓
Feeds the report
Theoretical framework
and evaluation
Where it comes from

From workers’ demand to global agenda

“Just transition” began as a labour movement demand. Environmental regulation and industrial restructuring should not make workers and their communities carry the costs of changes made for society as a whole (Newell & Mulvaney, 2013). The idea has since travelled into international agreements, national laws and EU funds.

1970s–1990s
Trade unions

In the United States, trade unionists in the oil and chemical industries, notably Tony Mazzocchi, argued that workers should not pay for environmental regulation with their jobs.

2015
ILO guidelines

The International Labour Organization adopts guidelines for a just transition: decent work, social protection and dialogue between governments, employers and workers (ILO, 2015).

2015
Paris Agreement

The preamble asks parties to take into account a just transition of the workforce and the creation of decent work and quality jobs (UNFCCC, 2015).

2018
Silesia Declaration

At COP24 in Katowice, a coal region in Poland, governments endorse the Solidarity and Just Transition Silesia Declaration.

2020
German coal exit

Germany legislates to end coal power by 2038 at the latest, with support for coal regions such as Lusatia.

2021
EU Just Transition Fund

The European Union creates a fund to support the regions most affected by the move to climate neutrality.

Close to home: Groningen. Decades of gas extraction caused earthquakes that damaged thousands of homes in the province of Groningen. In 2023 a Dutch parliamentary inquiry concluded that the interests of Groningen’s residents had been systematically ignored in favour of gas revenues (Parlementaire enquêtecommissie Aardgaswinning Groningen, 2023). Ending gas extraction is part of the energy transition, but it does not by itself repair those harms. That is the gap a just transition asks about.

Four dimensions of justice

Four questions to ask of any transition

Researchers have widened the idea from workers to everyone affected. They ask four questions (McCauley & Heffron, 2018). Watch the same invented transition through each question in turn.

One transition, four questionsAn invented scene: a coal plant closes, a mining town nearby, a new wind farm owned by a distant investor, a city, and a mineral mine elsewhere. Four questions appear in turn: distribution (profits flow to the city, jobs are lost in the town), procedure (residents and workers missing from the decision table), recognition (the town’s mining identity and skills) and restoration (polluted land and extraction moving elsewhere).COAL PLANTclosingMINING TOWNworkers, families, local shopsNEW WIND FARMowned by a distant investorCITYmineral mineelsewhere1 · DISTRIBUTIONWho gets the jobs and profits? Who loses income?profits flow to the cityjobs lost here2 · PROCEDUREWho sits at the table when the closure is decided?decision table: ministry · energy firm · investorempty chair: residents and workers3 · RECOGNITIONWhose history, identity and knowledge count?a mining identity, pride and skills4 · RESTORATIONWho repairs past harm?polluted land, damaged healthextraction moves elsewhere

Figure 1. One transition, four questions (animated, 20-second cycle). Invented scene for teaching.

Distribution

Who receives the benefits and who bears the costs of decarbonisation?

Look at: Jobs, energy bills, land values, profits, pollution, noise.

Procedure

Who takes part in decisions, and with how much real power?

Look at: Who sits at the table, who sets the agenda, who can say no.

Recognition

Whose identities, histories, needs and knowledge are taken seriously?

Look at: A mining town’s pride and skills; the experience of tenants; Indigenous land claims.

Restoration

Who is responsible for repairing past environmental, economic and colonial harms?

Look at: Polluted land, damaged homes, health effects, extraction moved to other countries.

Which question is it?

Read each situation, decide, then open the card.

A new wind farm is owned by a distant investor; local residents get the noise but none of the income.
Think first, then open +
Distribution
It is about who gets the benefits and who carries the costs.
The closure date of a power plant is negotiated between the ministry and the company. Workers hear about it in the news.
Think first, then open +
Procedure
It is about who takes part in the decision.
Retraining plans assume former miners will happily become call-centre staff, ignoring their skills and identity.
Think first, then open +
Recognition
It is about whose identity and knowledge are taken seriously.
Former mine sites stay polluted after the mines close, and nobody is made to clean them up.
Think first, then open +
Restoration
It is about repairing harm done in the past.
Battery minerals for the European transition are mined in places with weak labour and environmental protection.
Think first, then open +
Distribution and restoration
Costs move along global supply chains to other places, and past patterns of extraction repeat.
One term, four uses

What kind of thing is it?

When you read “just transition”, check which of four things the author means. Mixing them up is a common source of confusion in reports. A review by Wang and Lo (2021) found the term used as a labour concept, a justice framework, a socio-technical approach, a governance strategy and a public narrative.

Political project

Asks: What protections do workers and communities need during decarbonisation?

Draws on: Labour and trade-union movements

Normative framework

Asks: What would make a transition just?

Draws on: Distributive, procedural, recognitional, restorative and intergenerational justice

Explanatory approach

Asks: Why do transitions produce particular injustices?

Draws on: Political economy, transition theory, institutional analysis and geography

Governance framework

Asks: How should institutions organise a just transition?

Draws on: Social dialogue, participation, social protection, regional policy and public investment

Is it a theory?

A powerful idea, not yet a unified theory

There is no single, settled “theory of just transition” comparable to the multi-level perspective or Rawls’s theory of justice. A theory should name its concepts and explain, through clear mechanisms, why particular outcomes occur. Most just-transition research does something else.

What the field supplies

  • principles for judging whether a transition is fair;
  • typologies of justice, such as the four dimensions above;
  • descriptions of the groups affected;
  • policy recommendations;
  • case studies of success or failure.

It tells us which questions to ask.

What is still missing

A consistent explanation of which institutional arrangements produce just outcomes, under what conditions, and through which mechanisms.

A 2026 review calls just transition an “emblematic concept”: politically powerful because it can unite very different actors, but open enough to carry different meanings (Wibeck et al., 2026).

Why this matters for you. Because the term is so open, it can be attached as an adjective to almost any green policy. A report that calls its strategy “just” without saying just for whom, decided by whom and at whose expense is using the word as decoration.

Drawing a line

Minimum boundaries

To stop the term meaning anything at all, Kortetmäki et al. (2025) propose two non-negotiable boundaries. A transition counts as just only if it brings society back within the ecological ceiling, especially for climate and biodiversity, and keeps vulnerable people from falling, or staying, below a social minimum. Within those two lines, communities can pursue their own visions.

Just transition boundariesA band between an ecological ceiling at the top and a social minimum at the bottom. A line for society’s emissions comes down below the ceiling. In the first phase, some people, shown as dots, drop below the social minimum: an unjust transition. In the second phase everyone stays above it: a just transition. After Kortetmäki et al. (2025).beyond the ecological ceiling: climate and biodiversity limits overshotbelow the social minimum: people left without a decent lifesafe and just spacetimeemissions brought downUNJUST TRANSITION: emissions fall, but some people fall below the floorJUST TRANSITION: emissions fall and everyone stays above the floor

Figure 2. Just transition boundaries (animated, 16-second cycle). Drawn after Kortetmäki et al. (2025).

Compare this with the doughnut of Raworth (2017), which also places a social floor beneath an ecological ceiling. The boundaries turn that picture into a test for transitions.

What a stronger theory would need

Five pieces to connect

A convincing theory of just transitions would have to connect five elements. Newell and Mulvaney (2013) show why: energy access, dependence on fossil fuels, livelihoods and responsibility for climate change produce real conflicts between legitimate claims.

Five elements of a stronger theoryFive elements appear one by one at the corners of a pentagon: transition, justice, power, space and time. The pentagon then draws itself and the corners connect, forming a theory of just transitions.TRANSITIONwhat system changes?JUSTICEwhich principles apply?POWERwho controls what?SPACEwhere do costs land?TIMEwhose present, whose future?a theory ofjust transitions

Figure 3. Five elements of a theory of just transitions (animated, 12-second cycle).

1

Transition

What system is changing, and through which institutions, technologies, infrastructures and practices? See the socio-technical transitions page.

2

Justice

Which principles apply, and how do we decide when they conflict? Cheap energy for poor households and fast closure of a mine can pull in opposite directions.

3

Power

Who controls property, investment, knowledge, infrastructure and political decisions?

4

Space

Where do benefits, costs and environmental burdens land, including along global supply chains and between core and periphery?

5

Time

How do we weigh today’s workers, communities harmed in the past, future generations and urgent ecological limits against one another?

Using it in your Q3 report

Evaluate, explain or prescribe?

Before you put “just transition” in your theoretical framework, decide what you want it to do. Each purpose needs a different set of theories.

A

To evaluate fairness

Use the four dimensions, and the minimum boundaries, as criteria to judge your strategy. This is the most common use in Q3 reports.

You need: a theory of justice with clear criteria.

B

To explain injustice

Explain how the transition in your region produces winners and losers: through land, infrastructure, ownership, investment and unequal political voice.

You need: a theory of transition plus a theory of power and space.

C

To prescribe governance

Propose how institutions should organise the transition: who decides, who pays, who is protected and who repairs.

You need: a governance or planning theory, grounded in the other two.

Our view. Just transition is at present a contested normative and analytical framework, supported by several theories of justice, political economy and socio-technical change. It has not yet consolidated into one coherent explanatory theory. That incompleteness is productive. For spatial planning, the opening is to explain how transition benefits and harms are produced in space, through land, infrastructure, property, investment, governance and unequal political voice: how institutions spatially organise justice and injustice during systemic change.

References

The texts behind this page

International Labour Organization. (2015). Guidelines for a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies for all. ILO. https://www.ilo.org/publications/guidelines-just-transition-towards-environmentally-sustainable-economies Accessed on: 10 October 2026.

Kortetmäki, T., Timmermann, C., & Tribaldos, T. (2025). Just transition boundaries: Clarifying the meaning of just transition. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 55, 100957. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2024.100957

McCauley, D., & Heffron, R. (2018). Just transition: Integrating climate, energy and environmental justice. Energy Policy, 119, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2018.04.014

Newell, P., & Mulvaney, D. (2013). The political economy of the ‘just transition’. The Geographical Journal, 179(2), 132–140. https://doi.org/10.1111/geoj.12008

Parlementaire enquêtecommissie Aardgaswinning Groningen. (2023). Groningers boven gas [Groningers above gas]. Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal.

Raworth, K. (2017). Doughnut economics: Seven ways to think like a 21st-century economist. Chelsea Green.

UNFCCC. (2015). Paris Agreement. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf Accessed on: 10 October 2026.

Wang, X., & Lo, K. (2021). Just transition: A conceptual review. Energy Research & Social Science, 82, 102291. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2021.102291

Wibeck, V., Jaku, A., Lee, S., & Linnér, B.-O. (2026). The widening scope of just transitions research: A review of an emblematic concept. Environmental Policy and Governance, 36(1), 181–193. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.70040

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Socio-technical transitions
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The theoretical framework