Justice, direction, responsibility

The framework is organised around three core questions: what is at stake, and for whom; what kind of change is being pursued; and who is expected to act, and on what grounds? It is intended to support reflection and dialogue among and between researchers, policymakers, and other relevant actors, rather than prescribe a particular transition pathway.

Sustainability transitions involve normative and political choices. 

Transition policies are often framed in terms of technical feasibility, costs, benefits, or environmental effectiveness. They also involve choices about what should change and whose interests are considered. These questions become particularly pertinent in an international context, where domestic policies can create impacts and trade-offs across borders. The JDR framework helps make these choices explicit.

Different transition pathways involve different choices and trade-offs. 

Different transition pathways reflect different assumptions about what constitutes desirable or feasible change and about how costs, benefits, risks, and opportunities are distributed. The JDR framework helps identify these underlying assumptions, and examines how they shape the transition options under consideration. It helps make visible how different pathways may create different implications not only domestically, but also across countries, sectors, and generations.

Responsibilities extend across actors and borders. 

Many transition challenges cannot be addressed through domestic action alone. The JDR framework helps analyse how responsibilities are understood and allocated across actors, sectors, and countries.

The JDR framework supports reflection rather than prescribing outcomes. 

The report combines conceptual discussion, reflection prompts, and illustrative examples to support practical application of the framework. It does not identify a single ‘best’ transition pathway or determine what constitutes a ‘just transition’. Instead, it provides a shared structure for examining different perspectives, supporting more transparent analysis and informed dialogue about sustainability transitions in an interconnected world.