Over the past year the Commission has worked closely with a research team led by Dr David Drabble (Tavistock Institute of Human Relations) and Dr Kirsten Jenkins (University of Edinburgh) on a project to inform its advice on the approach to monitoring and evaluation (M&E) for just transition. Their first report was published in December and can be accessed here. Following the publication of the final element of this work, a detailed case study of Grangemouth, David and Kirsten shared reflections on their experience researching these topics.

What are the main things you have found out through this research? Can you summarise this in a way someone could understand who had very little prior knowledge of the subject?

KJ: The Just Transition is highly complex and cross-sectoral, with lots of disagreement about its focus and boundaries. Our research process started by cutting through the complexity – uniting Scottish Government thinking on the Just Transition with that of the Just Transition Commission – in order to set out priorities and boundaries. With this common language that sets out the ultimate aim for the Just Transition, we were able to establish outcomes to aim for and the mechanisms that enable them. The main lesson was that discussion and collaboration is key to establish the core approach, and that the tensions and trade-offs that will inevitably stem from such a complex transformation cannot be understood without appropriate data, monitoring and evaluation.

DD: I’d agree with that, the Just Transition is really complex! The complexity comes from the number of levels and dimensions that you need to consider when making the low carbon transition as fair as possible. From place to place and sector to sector, the groups that will be affected are going to be different. Island communities and inner-city residents will be affected by the transition in different ways. This made it difficult for us to come up with an overarching framework. Because we took a broad, collaborative approach, which tried to consider all sectors and residents in Scotland, we were able to identify broad outcome areas that really seemed to cut across nationally: addressing inequalities, empowering communities, supporting jobs and skills, and improving the environment.

Were there things you discovered while carrying out this research that particularly surprised you? 

DD: As someone quite new to this area, my biggest surprise was how little concrete work has been carried out worldwide on the Just Transition. When we were looking for what might work, there were very few examples of programmes that had been delivered, evaluated and reported on that we could draw upon for the framework. In many ways, the thinking and scholarship around Just Transition is more worked through than the practice – which made it very handy to work alongside Dr Jenkins! Given that we are in a climate emergency and that the low-carbon response should be as fair as possible, it was more than mildly worrying how little action has taken place.

KJ: Dr Drabble and I have very similar thinking here, too. Although there have been decades of discourse around a Just Transition and over the last few years, a surge in academic research in this area, the actual monitoring and evaluation landscape is still very embryonic. Our work has revealed the importance of causal pathways – understanding the link between the presenting problems, mechanisms, outcomes, and aim(s). Well-meaning policy is often developed without a clear view of these interactions, and so we hope revealing them informs best practice in Scotland and beyond.

What were the most challenging aspects of this research for you? 

KJ: Although the discourse of Just Transitions is advanced with lots of stakeholders referring to it as a priority, there have been very few attempts globally to set out monitoring and evaluation frameworks for it (she says repeating a core message from our work). As such, thinking around appropriate measures and data is very limited. This is even more the case when it comes to discussions of how to measure procedural elements like “empowerment”, “engagement” and “participation” – all of which are seen to be critical for a Just Transition, but don’t have ready metrics or proxies. The most challenging aspect was to advance thinking in this area in particular.

DD: As Kirsten says, the lack of outcomes, measures, and data relevant to the Just Transition in Scotland was a huge challenge. That also meant that we had to get more creative than I had expected. We had to make a lot of extrapolations, discuss key concepts in minute detail and always hold the whole framework at once. This was a particular challenge when we came to the data matching: the data available nationally was often not adequate to measure some of our outcomes, which meant we had to readjust the framework or propose new data be collected.

Carbon emissions can be measured relatively easily in a way most people agree on, but the fairness of major economic and social change is much harder to quantify. Do you think it’s still worth trying?

DD: It’s certainly worth trying to put numbers to the Just Transition, but it also important to recognise where numbers can’t describe something well or where they might even be unhelpful. For example, we found good quantitative measures for many of the measures for inequality; fuel poverty and child poverty can be measured well and there is good data which goes down to the local level. On the other hand, some community outcomes, such as participation in decision-making, were almost impossible to measure with numbers. Worse, adding quantitative measures actually risks making consultation a tick-box exercise. So, whilst it’s worth trying to find numbers, it’s important to also recognise where numbers may be unhelpful.

KJ: It’s absolutely worth trying, yes, though with Dave’s caveat that not everything can be readily quantified. Here there are tensions and trade-offs. The Just Transition discourse often refers to what ought to be – empowered communities, for instance – yet describing what an empowered community actually looks like is very challenging. On the other hand, indicators that are easy to describe – e.g., X% improvement in X indicator – tend to make clearer political statements but hide a lot of context and potential concerns. Key for me is finding the most appropriate data possible and where it doesn’t exist, advocating for its collection.

Your research proposes Scotland establish an M&E framework for just transition that would include interim targets aligned with emissions reduction up to 2045. Have other countries tried anything like this before?

KJ: In many ways, Scotland is a world-leader in Just Transition thinking. Whilst other countries have started to develop thinking in this area, Scotland’s approach is one of the most advanced globally. We position the alignment of Just Transition thinking and emissions targets as key. Whilst many stakeholders consider that the Just Transition and action for climate change might be in tension with each other – where, for instance, climate action must be taken slowly to prevent potentially negative financial impacts on communities – there is possibility for them to go hand-in-hand and to provide significant co-benefits.

DD: Scotland does appear to be ahead of the curve in commissioning this framework. We couldn’t find any real comparators to borrow from when developing this work. I would mention that the EU is doing some good work through the Just Transition Mechanism. But in comparison to a supra-national body like the EU, Scotland has the advantage of being smaller and having the engagement and leadership from a number of public bodies, including the Just Transition Commission. Setting agreed-upon Just Transition outcomes feels like an important step in assigning accountability for making the Just Transition happen. Without doing so, there’s a danger that the fairness of low-carbon transition is no one’s responsibility.