In 2023, Motu Economic and Public Policy Research published A Guide to Just Transitions for Communities in Aotearoa New Zealand—a report that stands as both a comprehensive resource and a carefully crafted reflection of inclusive, community-informed work. Commissioned by the Just Transition Partnership team at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, this guide was designed to equip communities and organisations with the tools for leading their own just transition processes in response to challenges such as climate change, technological advances, employment shifts, and the transition to renewable energy.

To build the guide, Motu convened a core team of over 25 experts and practitioners, as well as facilitating an open dialogue with a broad cross-section of community members, including Indigenous Māori voices.

We spoke with Catherine Leining, Motu Policy Fellow and project co-leader, to learn how the development of the guide was rooted in care, respect, and collaboration—and how the process itself stands as a powerful model of co-creation across different cultures.

Who was involved in creating this guide? 

We wanted the development of the guide itself to be a just transition process, so the team consisted of diverse researchers, just transition practitioners, and academics. This included a wonderful group of what we would call kaupapa Māori researchers—people who were experts in mātauranga Māori, the traditional knowledge of Māori.

In addition to that, a critical element was that we held an open dialogue that included non-governmental organisations and community organisers, local government officials, and other stakeholders, to help inform the writing of the guide. We wanted this to represent community needs in New Zealand, because those of us who were writing the guide were researchers or practitioners—we couldn’t cover the diversity of community voices.

Combining dialogue and research processes is something we’ve done a lot at Motu, and it’s been a successful model. It takes time and resources, but it really pays off. If the guide doesn’t have buy-in and if it’s not authentic, then no one’s going to use it.

The people who participated in the dialogue were fantastic: community activists, representatives from environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs), climate people, non-climate people. We received phenomenal insights from them into the challenges we had been wrestling with as a team since the very beginning.

One person shared the idea of appointing a guardian of the principles in a just transition process… I was so touched by that concept; my whole worldview shifted.

How did the dialogue feedback influence the guide? 

Our initial goal was to have a section written by Māori for Māori that would speak specifically to the needs of Māori communities that are dealing with challenging transitions. But when we did that and floated it past the group of people in the dialogue, everyone felt “othered”. It was understood that this is universal wisdom, that it applies to all New Zealanders. It needs to be integrated throughout.

So, we came up with the image of a braided river. We wanted the themes of the Māori worldview, te ao Māori, to be woven throughout the guide as with a braided river. It was important that mātauranga Māori (traditional knowledge), the Māori language, te reo Māori, and the use of Māori case studies were incorporated throughout as part of this fabric—this weaving of Aotearoa New Zealand. That was where we landed, and it felt right.

The participants engaged wholeheartedly and provided fantastic quotes, some of which made it into the guide. One person shared the idea of appointing a guardian of the principles in a just transition process. This would be an individual tasked with asking regularly throughout the process whether we are being true to the values and the principles that we agreed as a group at the beginning. I was so touched by that concept; my whole worldview shifted.

What are the key takeaways from this guide?

With vision and leadership, disruptive changes can become just transitions. We have this choice about how we respond to a disruption, and we can choose to lead it in a way that creates just outcomes for people.

It is also important to note that there is no single definition of just transition in Aotearoa New Zealand, nor internationally. The term emerged from the international labour union movement, but it’s now applied more broadly. One of the key recommendations in our guide is that every process can and should choose the definition that works for it.

We asked ourselves as authors: what right do we have to decide on the correct definition of a just transition? We cannot speak on behalf of a Māori community or coal workers on what a just transition means for them. It’s up to each process to come up with a definition that resonates with them.

That said, we identified four core features of a just transition, rather than a definition:

• They restore and rejuvenate mauri (life force) to bring social, economic, and environmental systems and supports into balance.
• They address injustices.
• They are inclusive and based on shared principles, values, and visions.
• Their outcomes support oranga (wellbeing) for all.

So a just transition should restore and rejuvenate mauri, which in turn will bring the human and the more-than-human worlds together. It’s about bringing social, economic, and environmental systems and support into balance. To me, the concept of mauri has a spiritual element, an environmental element, and a social element— and that is a beautiful contribution to the global understanding of just transition.

The guide was published in 2023. What next steps would you recommend for expanding or updating the guide?

In the guide and in every presentation we’ve given, the project team said that we would strongly support further resources that are tailored to groups with more specific needs and relationships. A key example is Māori communities, where such a guide could address the challenges of recovery from colonisation at the same time as embracing just transition in other contexts.

Creating a Māori-driven guide for communities would require a completely different process that is guided by tikanga (customary values and lore). We thought this would be enormously valuable.

The guide’s full title is “A guide to just transitions for communities in Aotearoa New Zealand | He puka arataki whakawhitinga tika mō ngā hapori i Aotearoa.”

The guide and supporting research materials can be downloaded from Motu’s website. The guide is also available in PDF and HTML formats from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment website.

Reproduced with permission by Motu Economic and Public Policy Research Trust on behalf of the Just Transitions Aotearoa Group. All rights reserved.

Catherine Leining is a Policy Fellow at Motu Economic and Public Policy Research, a non-profit research institute based in Wellington, New Zealand. Natasha Kettle is an electrical engineer, policy officer, and international guest lecturer dedicated to advancing a just and sustainable energy transition.