Affiliated Projects

The project will study concepts of Just Transitions, policies, initiatives and strategies. It investigates the factors influencing understanding of Just Transitions, as well as strategies of labour activities and environmental NGOs. It investigates the emergence of key ideas, debates and strategies in the trade union movement in a variety of economic, institutional and climate policy frameworks. Key research questions include:

How do labour policy actors perceive the challenges of climate change and decarbonisation?
What do they consider to be a “Just Transition”?
What associated visions of a just and sustainable future have they developed?
How do these concepts and initiatives relate to governments' efforts to achieve climate neutrality?
How do labour policy actors participate in shaping structural change?
What role(s) does the state in particular play in this?
Which influencing factors shape the strategies of labour policy actors?

Researchers in the Centre for Employment Relations Innovation and Change have embarked on a research programme that considers how climate crisis and mitigation, decarbonisation, and net zero will impact the world of work.

We study the transformation process towards a new social-ecological organisation of the economy with an interest in how it will affect workers, and how workers can shape this transformation. That this transformation is fair and just for workers and communities is not only a political demand, but a principle guiding this transformation.

We are a group of researchers with a background in employment relations, sociology of work, economics, and engineering, interested in shaping this Just Transition in the UK. We collaborate with the Yorkshire and Humber Climate Commission, trade unions, think tanks, and businesses.

This project enhances the evidence base to inform policymaking for building a regional just transition (JT) with a focus on the skills, training and redeployment of workers in high-carbon sectors in Yorkshire & the Humber. It extends existing research on JT practices to improve specific data on how jobs and skills needs in the region are changing, the support needed by businesses and workers to adapt to meet the challenges of low-carbon transitions in the region and the mechanisms needed to ensure worker voice is embedded in related policymaking.

Societies are facing big transformations. Academic research can help policy-makers to solve some of the related problems. This Competence Centre aims to provide knowledge and expertise that can be accessed in the short-term to help inform policy-making. Working with social and political stakeholders, we co-design research around climate change and work, decarbonisation and just transition. The Competence Centre is funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation.

Please get in touch if you want to discuss any research.