Winning coalitions for just transitions: Insights from the environmental justice movement

In recent years, attention within the sustainability transitions literature has focused on the politics of deliberately accelerating sustainability transitions. One core strand of this research has been to understand the role of coalition-building in supporting or undermining decarbonisation efforts. This scholarly work has clear synergies with the on-the-ground environmental justice movement, yet to date there has been limited exchange between this new literature and environmental justice movements. This perspective paper addresses this gap through examining three core areas of important and meaningful overlap between the environmental justice movement and the scholarly literature. These synergies centre around the praxis of building coalitions, understandings of power and appreciation of justice. In the context of climate breakdown, and the need to accelerate transitions to more just and sustainable futures, this perspective paper aims to lay the groundwork for more meaningful ex-change between the scholarly literature and on-the-ground environmental movement.