What is a Just Transition and Where Are Its Seeds Taking Root?
Introducing the Just Transition storytelling inquiry by the Generative Journalism Alliance
This inquiry was carried out by the Generative Journalism Alliance (GJA), a global community of storytellers and systems-change practitioners. Between August 2024 and May 2025, we interviewed changemakers working at the intersection of environment, justice, and community transformation. The inquiry explored how people across diverse geographies and movements understand and engage with the idea of a “just transition.”
What is a just transition - and why does it matter now?
We asked a wide range of people rooted in transition work: What does the phrase just transition mean to you? What might it make possible, and what risks does it carry? What examples from your own practice feel aligned with its principles?
Our inquiry sits inside the belief that humanity can still transition towards sustainable, liveable, and equitable systems, but only by centering justice and care for those historically and presently excluded by human-built structures. Whether this marginalisation is due to race, class, gender, disability, or other systems of oppression, these stories reveal how justice must be at the heart of transformation.
Among the questions we asked:
What does a just transition mean to you personally or politically?
What kinds of projects, partnerships or practices are already living out this idea?
What would it take to truly connect local, neighbourhood-level change to global systems transformation?
What’s the best thing that could happen if this idea were embraced more widely?
What invitations might you extend to others?
Over the coming weeks we’ll share stories from across the globe, each one an entry point into how just transition is being lived, felt, challenged or redefined.
Highlights include:
A food sovereignty initiative in the UK linking land justice with intergenerational organising.
A South Asian network bringing together trade union voices and climate action.
Indigenous-led frameworks for planetary care that resist colonial “green” transitions.
→ Browse the first stories here – Coming Soon
Our Learning
This inquiry deepened our belief in the power of generative journalism to surface wisdom not through extraction, but through co-witnessing. Generative interviewing helped participants articulate not just ideas but emotional, spiritual and strategic dimensions of what a just transition could be. What emerged were not polished visions, but layered, alive, and sometimes contradictory truths, each offering a piece of the bigger picture.
We also learned that just transition is not a fixed goal - it’s a relational process, and that language itself can become a barrier or bridge. For some, “just transition” is a useful term; for others, it’s seen as institutional jargon or a placeholder for deeper, rooted struggle.
The practice of listening deeply, asking open-ended questions, and holding space for emergent meaning allowed us to gather a constellation of stories that both critique and illuminate.
Crucially, we saw that a generative approach invites reflection as much as direction. Rather than trying to solve or summarise, it points us toward the future with humility and care.
→ To explore more about this inquiry, our methods, and the GJA, visit us here.