Making just transitions work - lessons for business leaders

The greatest economic shift of our age - the decarbonisation of the global economy - is well underway and already shaping business access to capital, workforce availability, policy alignment, and long-term competitiveness.

One of the biggest challenges businesses face in implementing a just transition is the lack of real-world examples to guide them.

This report aims to fill that gap with lessons from four in-depth cases of real-time just transitions in action across diverse contexts and sectors, to help businesses identify:

• the opportunity just transitions present to enter new high-growth markets;
• the investor and regulatory confidence that flows from meaningful engagement with affected communities - and the subsequent social licence for business operations;
• the business risk mitigation that comes from embedding climate and social resilience into operations and supply chains;
• and the transformational potential of decarbonisation for innovating entirely new people- and planet-aligned structures and systems

The cases explored - spanning agroforestry, renewable-powered value chains, community-led housing, and post-coal local economic diversification - and the people at their centre, show that just transitions are are a catalyst for growth, innovation, and long-term competitiveness.

The report builds on JUST Stories - a global project from the Institute for Human Rights and Business (IHRB) that is finding and telling stories of people working together to advance just transitions. Visit JUST Stories to read the deep-dive multimedia features and find out more about the stories and perspectives of the people involved in these net zero transitions.