Towards a framework articulating justice and development for evaluating just transition policies

What the paper says

Abstract The article advances debates on just transition by addressing both conceptual and practical dimensions of justice and development. It proposes an integrated evaluative framework that bridges justice and development perspectives, which are often treated separately in the literature. – Drawing on the capability approach, the framework links normative evaluation with participatory co-production, thereby supporting the design of more transformative just transition policies. Based on an extensive review of the literature, the article identifies seven dimensions of a comprehensive conception of social-ecological justice – distributive, epistemic, restorative, planetary, intergenerational, ecological, and procedural – and distinguish two ideal types of development – growth-driven development and social-ecological development. We argue that the extent to which the dimensions of justice are realised, both in number and degree, determines the scope and depth of shifts from growth-driven to social-ecological development and thereby shapes the transformative potential of just transition policies. The article applies this framework empirically through an evaluation of the International Labour Organisation’s approach to just transition. By grounding the analysis in a capability-based conception of justice and development, our framework positions co-production as central to processes of transformation that seek to be just. As part of this co-production process, the article calls for a more engaged and ethically grounded scholarship that contributes actively to the collective pursuit of just and sustainable futures.