Track Chairs

Saurabh Biswas, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
saurabh.biswas@usask.ca

Agnieszka Stefaniec, Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, United Kingdom
 a.stefaniec@soton.ac.uk

Keyvan Hosseini, School of Healthcare Enterprise and Innovation, University of Southampton, United Kingdom
k.hosseini@soton.ac.uk

Goals and Objectives of the Track

Just transitions are broadly understood to be pathways and process that cumulatively move societies towards sustainable development goals while being uncompromising on the rights of individuals and communities. The concept of just transition has its roots in the trade union movements, equitably placing the protection of worker’s interests and their communities as a key dimension of techno-economic change. Environmental damage to local biodiversity, health, food and water systems were progressively recognized as additional aspects of justice among those bearing the burdens of unsustainable infrastructures. Finally, with climate change effects from emissions and land use changes of large-scale industrial activity and unsustainable development, the climate burden and related human rights concerns have become an unavoidable to pursuing just transitions.

Encompassing environmental justice and energy justice in its diverse forms, just transitions are therefore a multi-level question of fairness and equity in developmental processes of moving towards a post-carbon society. Situating technological change withing the context of the economy and environment, just transitions pose the overarching questions of fairness and equity from multiple lenses like ethnicity, income, gender, etc., transcending the so called developing and developed economy label.

Just energy transitions, as an area of research and policy making has attracted the interest of researchers, civil society, policy makers and businesses. However, by no means is it a stand-alone domain of interests and has deep interdependencies. Agriculture, water resources, built infrastructures and urbanization, rural revival and sustenance, digital technologies are some of the several domains interconnected with just energy transitions, with their own vibrant bodies of dedicated work on just transitions.

In this track, we invite a broad variety of scholarly and practice-oriented work which demonstrates the breadth and depth of contemporary issues, findings, and methodological advances in just transitions. The submissions may relate to the theme of just energy transitions, which has been a core focus of this track in the past. However, submissions concerned broadly with justice and equity questions in any technological and economic transitions are equally welcome. The objective of this track is to encourage a transdisciplinary cross-pollination of ideas and approaches between sector focused studies of just transitions and develop a comprehensive understanding of justice and equity from a sustainable futures standpoint.  

An indicative list of topics with prominent justice and fairness concerns, which have previously been presented under this track are:

• Energy poverty and efficiency
• Renovation of buildings and other infrastructure, retrofitting and clean energy technologies
• Public transport and mobility, accessibility, affordability, and availability of transport choices, safety, health impacts of air pollution, private vehicles electrification
• Smart cities and transparency, inclusion and affordability of smart solutions
• Carbon pricing schemes, green investment
• Jobs versus environment problem, green jobs provision, re-skilling of workers
• Inclusive and citizen-centric governance.
• Data, Artificial Intelligence and society

Today, the global community is at a crossroads on the question of just transitions, with scholarship and civil society movements underscoring the urgency to act on justice and equity concerns as a precondition for sustainable futures, while political shifts and corporate interests are not simply reversing course but actively undoing progress. Acknowledging this societal shift, the track also welcomes reflections and analysis on the underlying the political economy of resistance and power dynamics in just transitions. This may include submissions covering topics like:

• Social/Public acceptance of technology and innovation
• Protests and social movements for just transitions
• Power and corporate influence in just transitions
• Politics of just transitions
• Risks and vulnerability in just transitions

We encourage authors to submit an abstract which they feel is appropriate for this track and may have not been listed above.

Length and content of the proposed abstract to the track

Each proposed abstract (in connection to an area pointed out above) of between 300 and 500 words (including all aspects),

1. shall be best organized (without headlines) along usual structure: introduction, methods, findings or results, and discussion/conclusions.
2. does not need but can include references.
3. shall provide a final section indicating
   1. how the proposed abstract relates to the sustainable development goals SDGs and SDG-targets (e.g. “SDG +Target: 14.1.”).
   2. briefly how the proposed contribution relates to the theme of the Conference ‘Sustainability and Beyond’

Potential publication channels

Depending on the number and quality of contributions, publication opportunities will be explored, including an invitation to publish in Environmental Development Journal.