The following article is authored by Sebastiano Sabato.

• Achieving a socially just, green transition requires strong and comprehensive welfare policies.
• Welfare states should perform four main functions: i) acting as social benchmarks for green policies; ii) enabling the green transition through social investment and by reducing the ecological footprint of social policies; iii) providing buffers for the most vulnerable; and iv) creating consensus for the transition and managing the related conflicts.
• Since the publication of the European Green Deal, an EU framework – comprising legislation, funding, and guidelines –  for a just transition is gradually emerging.
• The emerging EU framework for a just transition mostly focuses on the benchmarking and enabling functions of welfare states, and should be further developed to be more comprehensive. 
   

​

In December 2019, the European Commission (2019) published the European Green Deal (EGD), a growth strategy aimed at making the economy and societies of the European Union (EU) environmentally sustainable by reaching climate neutrality by 2050 and ensuring the protection, conservation and enhancement of the EU’s natural capital. With the EGD, the achievement of climate and environmental objectives – that is, the promotion of the so-called "green transition"– has gained a central role in an overarching, multiannual economic strategy of the European Union. The EGD, part of the EU strategy for the implementation of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, relies on the assumption that – with the right policies in place – economic, environmental and social progress can be achieved simultaneously. However, the European Commission also recognises that such synergies should not be taken for granted, but "careful attention will have to be paid when there are potential trade-offs between economic, environmental and social objectives" (European Commission, 2019: 4). In particular, the EGD refers to the social impacts of the green transition and stresses the need to ensure a "just transition" that leaves no one behind (ibid.).

Since the publication of the EGD, the notion of a "just" or "fair" green transition has gained in importance at the EU level, and a number of legislative initiatives including the objective of promoting a just green transition have been adopted or proposed since then. These include: 1) the setting-up of a Just Transition Mechanism and a Just Transition Fund (JTF) to support those territories most dependent on economic sectors with a high carbon footprint (European Union, 2021a); 2) the proposal to create a Social Climate Fund (SCF) (European Commission, 2021) – currently being discussed by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union – to address the social and distributional impact of the new EU emissions trading system for buildings and road transport envisaged by the Commission in its July 2021 "Fit for 55 Package" (a series of measures aimed at achieving a reduction of net greenhouse gas emissions in the EU by at least 55 percent by 2030); and 3) some provisions of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), the main instrument through which the EU is providing financial support to help Member States recover from the Covid-19 crisis (European Union, 2021b).

All in all, an EU framework for a just transition is gradually developing, which is encouraging a series of EU-level policy orientations and instruments aimed at ensuring that the EU and its Member States can exploit the opportunities deriving from the green transition while addressing and cushioning the related social challenges. Having been widely used in various academic and policy-making contexts, however, the notion of a just transition is becoming a "contested concept" (Stevis et al., 2020), with blurred conceptual boundaries and open to diverse interpretations (McCauley and Heffron, 2018; International Labour Organisation, 2015; Newell and Mulvaney, 2013). The EGD also suffers from such ambiguities and gaps (Laurent, 2021; Sabato and Fronteddu, 2020) when it comes to proposing concrete policies for a just transition and to explaining how welfare states should respond to the challenges of the transition.

Regarding the integration between a green transition and social policies, "transition-proof" welfare states could serve four main functions during the green transition to ensure that it is "just" (Sabato et al, 2021; Sabato and Theodoropoulou, forth.). First, the principles and rights embedded in welfare states can contribute to policies for the green transition by defining social criteria and objectives to be considered and respected while designing and implementing these policies (benchmarking function). Second, welfare policies can facilitate the achievement of the objectives of the green transition (enabling function). Social investment policies can do this if they are targeted towards the provision of skills needed for a greener economic model or aimed at facilitating the transition of workers between economic sectors. In addition, welfare policies can also contribute directly to the green transition if these policies (and the related social infrastructure) are purposely designed to reduce the ecological footprint of the welfare state, for instance through carbon-neutral services. Third, social protection and assistance policies providing income protection (e.g., unemployment and minimum income schemes) can act as buffers, ensuring that all citizens are protected and/or compensated during the green transition and tackling any transition-related increases in inequalities. Finally, welfare state institutions could be used to build a consensus on the green transition or to manage the associated conflicts (consensus building/conflict management function). This is the case of both social dialogue structures and broader instances of civic dialogue.

When looking at key EU initiatives for a just transition through these analytical lenses, the emerging EU framework for a just transition appears unbalanced in terms of the "welfare solutions" proposed and should thus be further developed. [1] On the one hand, both the benchmarking and enabling functions of welfare states are fairly developed in policy instruments such as the JTF, the SCF and the RRF. All of these indeed mention measures to ensure fairness of "green policies" (e.g., making sure that initiatives for improving energy-efficiency of residential buildings are accessible to the most vulnerable households), to enhance workers’ skills in line with the needs of a greener economy and to reduce the environmental footprint of social infrastructure (e.g., by including schools and hospitals in programmes for the improvement of energy efficiency of public buildings). On the other hand, the buffering function of welfare states is almost absent from EU just transition policies, with the exception of the SCF, which includes the possibility of providing temporary direct income support to vulnerable households and transport users. Finally, the role of social and civic dialogue as a means to build consensus on the green transition and to manage related conflicts is mentioned in the EU just transition policy initiatives. However, the requirement to involve stakeholders in these initiatives appears not stringent enough, being mostly framed as a simple recommendation to the Member States.

Have you seen?
Protecting the climate without causing energy poverty 
Wanted: a low-carbon and fair reset
Workdays for future? How labour market policies can promote a climate-friendly world of employment
Welfare systems should be made independent of GDP growth 

References

European Commission (2021), Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Social Climate Fund, COM(2021) 568 final, Brussels, 14 July 2021.

European Commission (2019), The European Green Deal, Communication from the Commission, COM (2019) 640 final, Brussels, 11.12.2019.

European Union (2021a), Regulation (EU) 2021/1056 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 June 2021 establishing the Just Transition Fund, Official Journal of the European Union, L 231/1, 30 June 2021.

European Union (2021b) Regulation (EU) 2021/241 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 February 2021 establishing the Recovery and Resilience Facility, Official Journal of the European Union, L 57, 18 February 2021.

International Labour Organisation (2015), Guidelines for a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies for all, Geneva, ILO.

Laurent, E. (2021) ‘The European Green Deal: From Growth Strategy to Social-Ecological Transition?’, in B. Vanhercke, S. Spasova and B. Fronteddu (eds.) Social Policy in the European Union: State of Play 2020. Facing the Pandemic, Brussels: European Social Observatory and European Trade Union Institute, pp. 97-111.

McCauley D. and Heffron R. (2018), ‘Just transition: integrating climate, energy and environmental justice’, Energy Policy, 119, 1-7.

Newell P. and Mulvaney D. (2013), ‘The political economy of the ‘just transition’’, The Geographical Journal, 179 (2), 132-140.

Sabato S. and Fronteddu B. (2020), A socially just transition through the European Green Deal?, Working Paper 2020.08, Brussels, European Trade Union Institute (ETUI).

Sabato, S. and Theodoropoulou, S. (forth./2022), ‘The socio-ecological dimension of the EU’s recovery: further traction for the European Green Deal?’, in Vanhercke, B., Sabato, S. and Spasova, S. (eds.), Social Policy in the European Union: State of Play 2020, Brussels: European Social Observatory and European Trade Union Institute.

Sabato, S., Mandelli, M. and Jessoula, M. (2022), ‘Towards an EU eco-social agenda? From Europe 2020 to the European Green Deal’, in M. Schoyen, B. Hvinden and M. Dotterud Leiren (eds.), Towards Sustainable Welfare States in Europe, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Stevis, D., Morena, E. and Krause, D. (2020), ‘Introduction: The Genealogy and Contemporary Politics of Just Transitions’, in Morena, E.  Krause, D. and Stevis, D. (eds.), Just Transitions: Social Justice in the Shift Towards a Low-Carbon World, London, Pluto Press, pp. 1-31.

Notes:

….

Sebastiano Sabato is a researcher on European integration at the Brussels-based  European Social Observatory (Observatoire social européen  - OSE). His current research interests include EU socio-economic governance, comparative social policy, policies for the socio-ecological transition, and industrial relations.

The facts, ideas and opinions expressed in this piece are those of the authors; they are not necessarily those of UNESCO or any of its partners and stakeholders and do not commit nor imply any responsibility thereof. The designations employed and the presentation of material throughout this piece do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.