Just transitions, and justice in the governance of climate transition more generally, have over the last decade developed as an influential policy concept and governance concern. Just transitions have acted as a projection space for visions of a profoundly different society, but have also been used to undercut climate policies and social change altogether. At the same time, the just transition has shifted shape repeatedly and appears in the process of being superseded by other policy priorities. This Special Issue explores the emergent, dynamic career of the just transition as a multifaceted policy project. It brings together seven studies, largely rooted in European contexts, that show how justice in transition governance is being ‘done’—constructed in multiple settings, built on, dismantled and reconstructed. In this editorial, we use the metaphor of assemblage to bring the different contributions to the Special Issue together and embed them in the wider just transitions literature. We outline how diverse actors are involved in assembling the just transition and how they are, simultaneously, constructed as part of the just transition: Whilst some actors are cast as central, others are pushed to the margins. We also highlight how we, as researchers, contribute to this process of assembling and how the interaction between academic rationalities and our own normative aspirations might lead to conceptual developments that, perhaps ironically, render the just transition an impossible political project. The editorial concludes with a call for reflexivity in our critical engagement with just transitions and other, similar policy projects.

This essay describes the nature of community and public engagement at the Mistra Environmental Communication program, an eight-year program, based in Sweden, focused on how communication shapes sustainability transformations. The paper describes the critical, engaged, and change-oriented approaches that guide the program's work, outlining collaborative practices, and formats developed with a range of societal partners. The program chooses to use the vocabulary of community co-creation and collaboration to describe its work rather than the language or research translation, to draw attention to the ongoing, iterative, and fundamental nature of the program's engagement. Iteration itself is understood as a longitudinal, relational, and evolving process. The essay uses an example of engagement with Swedish sustainable fashion brands that rely on organic cotton suppliers in India to illustrate the iterative, co-created, and collaborative nature of the program's work.

The current political condition is challenging to policy-making. While social groups subscribe to competing truth claims, institutions for settling disputes lose legitimacy. Post-truth signifies political situations where truth-controversies and destructive emotional expressions are commonplace. There is disagreement on how to address the post-truth problem. While some scholars propose increasing the public's capacity for fact-checking, others focus on repairing the ruptured social fabric. We study how facilitators of collaborative processes in Sweden facilitate communication between actors with competing truth claims. We identify three facilitation strategies: Recognising identities and emotions, Agreeing on facts and Establishing a legitimate process. Based on these findings, we suggest how facilitators and policy-makers can assess if and how a post-truth problem is developing in their practice and how they can tailor facilitation strategies for policy-making that combines the three strategies. The study contributes with ideas for improving policy-making across different world views in times of post-truth politics.

Through the Just Transition Fund, the EU aims to support regions that face unemployment and declining welfare due to the green transition, primarily by supporting diversification of the economy. In northern Sweden, the fund targets the steel industry. We investigate how the allocation of the Fund is understood and justified by the EU, Swedish national-level authorities, the steel industry, and residents, including workers, to support a sector not at direct risk of closure and already dominating the regional economy. Our study finds that the following assumptions underlie this allocation: that the green transition means reducing emissions; and that achieving justice in transition means supporting large industries, such as the steel industry, to secure regional jobs. Taken together, justice in transition is framed as climate-change mitigation support for high-emitting companies to ensure regional welfare. Described as rational and effective, actors at all levels view this as a logical choice for allocation. This frame is challenged, however, as residents fear that prioritizing large-scale industrial development risks deepening local injustices, through deteriorating public services, increasing local tensions around S & aacute;mi land rights, shortages of housing and labour force, and growing power asymmetries between industry and municipality. Our study shows what 'justice' and 'transition' are made to be in the implementation of the Just Transition Fund in northern Sweden, and how these reflect but also diverge from the overarching narrative of the European green transition.

A growing interest in the justice implications of sustainability transitions among politicians and other decision-makers as well as researchers has given rise to a wealth of case studies, analyses and theorisations of justice in transition governance. Many of these provide much-needed insight into the roles of (in)justice in processes of societal change, suggesting that the translation of justice into practice reaches far beyond the distributive question of who needs to be compensated or supported. In this discussion piece, we take a discursive perspective to unpack some of the tensions arising from the complex, normative aspirations of a just transition and show how discursive performances of the just transition and its negotiation in concrete policy terms hinder the realisation of its visionary potential. To do so, we synthesise findings from seven empirical studies to examine the discursive structures and strategies that interact in the making of a 'just transition' in Scotland and Sweden. In particular, we explore three sites of discursive struggle that represent, as we argue, fundamental challenges around justice in transition governance, namely questions related to (i) justice for whom, (ii) compensation and a focus on distribution instead of recognition, and (iii) justice versus (carbon) effectiveness of governance interventions. Our analysis traces how these sites of struggle are constituted by an interplay between discursive manifestations of both 'justice' and 'transition' as well as closely related concepts such as 'freedom', which together work to stifle a more diverse, open, and change-oriented societal debate on the meaning of a just transition.

In the last decade, storytelling has been popularised as a method for societal sustainability transformations. With this growing popularity, there has also been a rapid increase in those identifying as storytellers. Perhaps because storytelling for sustainability has an innocent ring to it, it has not yet been studied from a power perspective. However, as it is fast-spreading and has explicit change purposes, it is important to clarify assumptions about knowledge, power and change. This article offers a first step towards understanding and evaluating the wide variety of applications behind the label of storytelling for sustainability. We perform a frame analysis of how storytellers describe their storytelling for sustainability. Our findings demonstrate that the label of storytelling for sustainability encompasses fundamentally different ideas about whose knowledge counts. The article raises critical questions that can help assess the legitimacy and appropriateness of different applications of storytelling for sustainability.

Sustainability research is increasingly based on inter- and transdisciplinary research approaches (IDR and TDR). In this article, we examine how grant terms (used in grant proposals for IDR and TDR projects) are put into practice. We analyzed three research projects to study how TDR and IDR are performed and why, and what we can learn for sustainability research. From a feminist perspective and using a conceptual framework including empty signifiers, comfort words and non-performativity we explore the difficulty of performing the terms, and the risk that they remain merely grand terms, promising and useful for proposals, but not guiding everyday research practice. Based on the analysis, we present seven patterns that complicate performing the terms. We suggest that these patterns can be helpful for other researchers developing their TDR and IDR research practice.

Communication is an integral part of natural resource management and sustainability transformations, and questions on how communication helps or hinders the development of more sustainable relationships between people and their environments have become increasingly urgent. This special issue directs our attention to the processes and outcomes of such communication and explores what a focus on communication makes visible and accessible for practical as well as academic analysis. The twelve articles collected in this issue examine a wide range of contexts and practices of environmental communication, here understood as the joint construction of meaning related to environmental and sustainability issues. In this editorial, we propose five conceptual lenses that, as we argue, are crucial for an in-depth engagement with environmental communication. Together, these provide us with an understanding of communication as arising from manifold interactions that are shaped by and shaping disagreement, power relations and, more generally, the interplay between structure and agency. We examine the contributions to this special issue in light of these conceptual lenses and highlight how the twelve articles help us to understand the role of meaning-making in environmental management and sustainability transformations. We conclude with suggestions for future work, identifying spaces for further conceptual development and empirical scrutiny as well as scope for new ideas on environmental communication to gain in importance and influence.

Nudging is increasingly used in the design and planning of houses, neighbourhoods and districts with the intention to promote sustainable behaviour. Nudging, when used well, can serve as a tool for changing individuals’ behaviour, but it cannot, nor has it been designed to, facilitate the critical thinking and collective action needed to address urgent sustainability challenges. The purpose of this study is to investigate how pragmatism’s interest in social interactions can complement nudging’s focus on individual behaviour. To test these ideas in practice, we develop an approach for planning that combines the two modes of thinking - The Sustainability Walk - to be used in the planning of places that are to promote sustainable everyday practices. We draw lessons from developing The Sustainability Walk by using the learning history method and participant observation. We find that pragmatism offers possibilities to amend nudging’s focus on individual behaviour by providing tools for forming a community of inquiry consisting of experts as well as citizens. However, we also learn that planning cultures of conflict avoidance, hinder the practical application of the idea of such pragmatist inquiry across different ways of knowing.

Social media and other platforms have become an essential part of outdoor activities as they influence how nature is experienced and engaged with, but also what good nature is seen as. In this article, we explore how social understandings of nature and digital technologies are mutually performed. Using the empirical case of nature selfies—an archetype of imagery on social media platforms—posted on Instagram, Facebook, and Tripadvisor, and a small participatory "breaching experiment" aimed at collecting "ugly nature selfies," we analyse and interrogate nature/society relationships displayed online within the platform contexts of attention economy and affordances. We conclude that nature selfies reinforce the desirability of consuming "beautiful" nature, while attention economy and platform affordances limit the possibilities for alternative nature/society relationships to be developed and promoted.

In both policy-making and academia, the realisation is growing that transitions striving for sustainability have to be just to be socially accepted. This insight has given rise to institutionalised approaches to a "just transition" – but also beyond these, justice is a key challenge in the governance of sustainability transitions. In this paper, we examine how justice arguments are being used in national-level discourses of transition governance in Sweden. Analysing 121 policy-related documents from 2019 to 2021, we found that justice was discursively treated in a way that essentially stifled change. Political actors attempted to trump each other's justice claims rather than to genuinely engage with them. Justice concerns that would not serve re-election, such as solidarity across social boundaries, were almost absent from the material. Based on these findings, we critically explore how justice arguments contribute to politicizing transition governance in particular ways, rendering some policy options impossible.

Although social-ecological fisheries research is growing, comparatively little attention is paid to fisheries in urban environments. We aim to address this imbalance, because as cities expand worldwide, we expect urban fisheries to become more widespread and important in providing food/nutrition security, recreation, community well-being, and other benefits to fisheries stakeholders and urban dwellers across spatiotemporal scales. This paper contains a first analysis of the economic and sociocultural provisions, trade-offs, and dilemmas associated with urban fisheries to yield insights for sustainable management and planning of urban blue space. To address these objectives, we use the metacoupling framework, a method for assessing human–nature interactions within and across adjacent and distant fisheries systems. We use examples from multiple countries and data from the United States to illustrate how urban fisheries encompass flows of people, money, and information across multiple spatiotemporal scales and provide nutritional, recreational, social, and cultural benefits to fisheries stakeholders. Throughout the world, urban fisheries are influenced by wide-ranging human needs (e.g. food provisioning, recreation, aquatic resource education) that generate social-ecological effects within and beyond cities. Our analysis yields insights for developing holistic, metacoupling-informed management approaches that address the diverse social-ecological objectives and trade-offs involved in sustainable development of urban fisheries.

When planning sustainable districts, planners mediate between the knowledge claims of citizens and experts. The planning strategies nudging and participation provide contradictory ideas about how planners can perform this mediation. We analyse handbooks for the two strategies, guided by the question: whose knowledge counts? These handbooks provide citizens, experts and planners with varying degrees of authority. While nudging positions behavioural experts as holding authority, and citizens are central in participation, planners feature in the background in both strategies. We show how these seemingly apolitical strategies are actually value-laden. Implementing them literally will undermine planning for urban sustainability.

This conceptual paper introduces the notion of algorithmically embodied emissions to highlight how everyday choices facilitated by commercial algorithmic information systems such as commercial search engines, social media and recommender systems contribute to the climate crisis and other forms of environmental destruction. The proposed concept is developed by integrating terminology from the fields of information studies, critical algorithm studies and environmental impact assessment, and by examining a strategic selection of examples. Through the examples, the authors show that semantic interpretation of queries as well as the information architecture involve normative dimensions with implications for the climate crisis and other forms of environmental destruction. The paper proposes a terminological framework that integrates conceptual considerations from environmental impact assessment, environmental communication, information studies and critical algorithm studies to articulate how algorithmic information systems are co-constitutive of environmental harm. The paper further suggest to extend environmental impact assessment to include algorithmic harms in order to take into account how responsibility and accountability are distributed among different actors with profoundly different conditions and opportunities to exercise them.

This article presents fishing in the city for food (FCF) as a trenchant example of urban ecology, and the ways in which urban dwellers use, interact with, and depend on urban blue spaces. Our literature review demonstrates how FCF is studied in a diverse body of scientific publications that rarely draw on each other. As such, FCF and its relevance for sustainable and just planning of urban blue space remain relatively unknown. Using the literature review, a survey of FCF in European capitals, and examples from FCF in Stockholm, we demonstrate how attention to FCF raises pertinent and interrelated questions about access to water, food and recreation; human health; animal welfare and aquatic urban biodiversity.

Purpose – Through geographical indications, the European Union aims to stimulate economies, especially in lagging rural regions, and to help consumers recognise and locate quality products from specific regions. The highly uneven distribution of geographical indications, and with that the unequal benefits of this policy, have been identified and discussed in the scientific literature on food and rural development. Design/methodology/approach – Using a statistical analysis of the distribution of geographical indications, the paper tests the validity of several theoretical explanations that are offered in the literature for the uneven spatial distribution. Findings – From this assessment, the paper concludes, amongst others, that common single-cause explanations for the uneven distribution of labels in Europe have weak explanatory value. Rather, the uneven distribution is based on a complex set of causes, with different effects at national and regional level. Moreover, the findings highlight that in contrast to its aim, the policy does not seem to benefit especially lagging rural regions. Originality/value – The analysis of the uneven distribution of labels in Europe offered here suggests that a distinction should be drawn between the mechanisms resulting in regional food products versus the mechanisms resulting in regional food labels, such as geographical indications.

Abstract The opportunities available to start up a successful farm business structure the future of European farming. As fewer farm daughters and sons are projected to take over the family farm, there is increasing policy and academic interest in new entrants and the challenges they meet when they start their farm. This study focuses on new entrants that immigrate to Sweden. This group can be considered an extreme case of new entrants, as key resources (land, local networks, family labour support and farm specific knowledge are usually lacking for these farmers). Based on interviews with immigrant farmers in the Mälardalen region, we present the different ways they get access to economic, cultural and social capital. These insights are valuable for policy aimed at helping immigrant farmers starting up.

PurposeThrough geographical indications, the European Union aims to stimulate economies, especially in lagging rural regions, and to help consumers recognise and locate quality products from specific regions. The highly uneven distribution of geographical indications, and with that the unequal benefits of this policy, have been identified and discussed in the scientific literature on food and rural development.Design/methodology/approachUsing a statistical analysis of the distribution of geographical indications, the paper tests the validity of several theoretical explanations that are offered in the literature for the uneven spatial distribution.FindingsFrom this assessment, the paper concludes, amongst others, that common single-cause explanations for the uneven distribution of labels in Europe have weak explanatory value. Rather, the uneven distribution is based on a complex set of causes, with different effects at national and regional level. Moreover, the findings highlight that in contrast to its aim, the policy does not seem to benefit especially lagging rural regions.Originality/valueThe analysis of the uneven distribution of labels in Europe offered here suggests that a distinction should be drawn between the mechanisms resulting in regional food products versus the mechanisms resulting in regional food labels, such as geographical indications.