Engaging Communities in the Just Transition: An Urgent Update of the Place-based Approach

This session will feature a solutions-focused dialogue among policy practitioners, officials, civil society organisations, and researchers at all scalar levels, with strong audience participation. It will explore how place-based sustainability transition initiatives can more effectively empower affected local communities. Drawing on findings from the Horizon Europe project DUST, which, while acknowledging achievements of the Just Transition Mechanism, highlight the limits of existing measures to engage local people, the session will explore what works—and what doesn’t—for community participation, and offer fresh thinking on making transition policies more democratic and effective.