I love @SamSmithITUC’s contributions, but we should acknowledge that even getting a shared understanding of what constitutes a ‘just transition’ is an uphill battle. That means education plays a critical role - bringing people into this, building capacity at a conceptual level.
And then there’s the obvious second dimension to that education - which is creating skills to enable individuals to succeed and have meaningful employment in a low carbon world.
The biggest challenge is maintaining and creating decent jobs, and the second biggest challenge is making sure people are supported in transition (unemployment insurance, pension, health care, social services). Education and skills are key to making sure that people are ready for the new jobs or jobs that might change. We know all about skills, apprenticeships, and reskilling in the trade union movement. Good employers prioritize this.
A2: A just transition requires mass, systemic change – a big challenge, indeed! This starts with an acknowledgement that we must work together to pool resources, investments and brainpower to create integrated solutions. Capability-building is a must have, as is building trust.
An opportunity is pre-competitive collaboration. Many entities within the same sectors often have similar goals. Going it alone isn’t always the best path towards impact. For instance, the Global Self-Care Federation recently launched the Charter for Environmentally Sustainable Self-Care, the first industry-wide climate action resolution by the consumer health sector. One focus area is plastics and packaging – enabling the industry to work together across the value chain to create scalable solutions, like innovative packaging and improvements in recycling infrastructure.
As I referenced in the first question, we also should move away from thinking about the environment and social issues separately. For instance, we need to think of the environment as a social determinant of health beyond the core five. The work being done to become climate neutral is helping community health. We need to start being more overt about this. We know that climate change has caused a lot of health issues like respiratory illnesses, heart disease and allergies, and that people in underserved communities are most vulnerable. We need to start talking about the environment as a health issue and how the actions we take collectively can create a healthier world.
Lastly, we need to look closely at unique community needs. Solutions aren’t one-size-fits all for every LMIC. At Bayer, we continually do ethnography work to understand unmet medical needs, habits and cultural norms so we can develop tailored programs and self-care solutions.
Pearson’s business model, products and services and customer channels enable us to access millions of learners throughout the world. We need to leverage this position to drive more learning and education solutions for more people. We have a particular focus on increasing access to learning - offering more people more learning opportunities through more products, often at a more affordable price point.
Education and skills pave the road ahead but there’s plenty of materials available that never get used. Building on what @simonconnell was saying earlier about SMEs. We work with a large contingent of entrepreneurs leading small and medium sized enterprises in low-income markets. We know how hard they’re working and how little time they have so every interaction we have with them is distilled to its most valuable and impactful version. This manifests in two ways worth highlighting today: first, we foster collaborative peer to peer learning whenever possible, it saves introductions and explanations; secondly, we tailor engagements to be as highly relevant and specialised as possible while maintaining an open door to a network of support.
One of the greatest challenges is ensuring that we look at the bigger picture and don’t get sucked into the ‘issue of the day’ - because there are a lot of issues that need to be considered and they are often interlinked.
So for example, ‘sustainability’ for some at the moment (especially within our industry) seems to be just about carbon and plastics, and there is a tendency to become obsessed by the bottom line figures (e.g. co2e and use of virgin plastics). These are of course very important, but if we demonstrate our impact by only focusing on these numbers, we fail to consider the other impacts and we risk making those knee-jerk decisions that have unintended consequences on people’s livelihoods. So for me, credible data and research and effective communication skills play a vital role in ensuring more people (especially marginalized groups) are aware of the issues and are able to participate in making informed decisions.
Here’s an example of union training programs NABTU Apprenticeship Readiness Program – United Way of Southwest Alabama… In some countries, governments provide these programs; in others, it’s a labor-management partnership.
A skilled and qualified workforce is needed to accelerate a just and inclusive clean energy transition in low to middle income countries, with a particular focus on solar-powered technologies that support climate adaptation and resilience. Delivered with the support of Engineers Without Borders UK and funded by UK aid and the IKEA Foundation, Efficiency for Access Design Challenge has already supported more than 200 students from 30 universities in 14 sub-Saharan African and Asian countries, helping them to develop core competencies and giving them a clear pathway for entering the energy access workforce around the world. For example, one Challenge participant went on to work with Smarter Grid Solutions and another started a PhD to further his Design Challenge project.
I would also agree with Simon - a lot of companies (and thank you to Sam for her inputs!) have come to understand (or be introduced to) Just Transition from an energy transition perspective which is relatively straightforward as a concept from within that framework.
During the year, the Efficiency for Access Design Challenge team led 28 webinars and training sessions, which focused on key issues in energy access. Students also have the opportunity and funding to test their ideas by creating prototypes of their designs. Through this, they can consider real-world applications and determine what is necessary to transform their project from an idea into a solution to the challenges that some of the world’s most vulnerable people face. Students can also attend career conversations and networking events to learn more about potential careers in and beyond the solar-powered appliance sector.
In last year’s Challenge, students’ submissions demonstrated a real commitment to fostering low-carbon development and enhancing social inclusion. A couple of the teams created solar-powered electric cookers, which can reduce indoor air pollution, one of the biggest contributors to cardiovascular disease in the global South. These technologies can also free women from the burden of collecting firewood and give them time to engage in income generating activities.
Really enjoy this and especially the difference between making deals and buying deals, and the need for a variety of financial solutions (including blended finance) as part of that because there are different risks to be priced and managed.
Closer to home, the fuel poverty alleviation programmes we support in the devolved nations have helped to improve SME supply chains and increase skills. In Scotland, our partner WarmWorks has run a successful apprenticeship scheme as part of the Warm Homes Scotland programme.
Maybe the UN needs to do more to publicize what Just Transition is!
Just to follow up here and bring in @b.curran2, there has been substantial growth in supply chain finance programmes with a climate focus, such as Walmart’s Gigaton programme. These often use a multinational anchor and offer economic incentives to smaller suppliers in their value chain who reduce their emissions and thus help contribute to climate goals. There is an implicit co-benefit to that climate action in terms of supporting the health of SMEs, but to comments further up the page it takes effort (and intent) to demonstrate impact, validate co-benefits and understand in aggregate how actions like this at a financial product level aid a just transition.
And see this powerful video about Just Transition and informal women workers from our affiliate SEWA Sarojben - YouTube
will watch with interest - just transition for informal workers will be big piece of the puzzle…
I defer to your expertise working in the sector right now. I was reflecting on some concerns when I was working on a sustainable trade finance guarantee product innovation 2 years ago.
It is fantastic that these tools are now being mainstreamed and agreed on the benefits to SMEs (if structured in the right way).
We have a relatively short supply chain (farmer>processor>retailer) and we already work closely with a lot of the key stakeholders - so it wasn’t too difficult for us. But I can imagine it would not be so easy for some of the longer, more complex commodity chains with less transparency.
Thanks Justin, because the energy sector has so many emissions it’s the front line for climate action and also Just Transition. As we start to get into technologies and alternatives for other sectors, such as agriculture, construction, transport … I expect that we will also see what the transition pathways for workers look like.