Just Transition in 2024: A Year in Review

We held a series of successful trainings for Familias Unidas por la Justicia, Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, the Environmental Justice Communities Against Plastics Coalition, and United Steelworkers using our newly updated and expanded program Tools for Systemic Change Toward a People’s Economy.

We also facilitated a Just Markets training for Líderes Campesinas and spoke on panels about just transition at the Indigenous Environmental Network’s 18th Protecting Mother Earth Conference!

We began a series of conversations with our friends at the Labor Network for Sustainability to kick off a chain of powerful meetings between EJ and Labor representatives in the lead up to COP30 in Brazil. The planning team has grown to include Taproot Earth, Chisholm Legacy Project, United Steelworkers Local 675, Familias Unidas por la Justicia, and many more!  The first planning meeting of labor and EJ reps took place during New York Climate Week, and the second meeting took place in Pittsburgh.

We strengthened our relationship with the International Alliance of Waste Pickers by holding just transition workshops for IAWP, GAIA and BFFP in Asia and supporting the first IAWP Congress with just transition policies.

We participated in the Global Plastics Treaty process to ensure that it centers frontline workers and Indigenous, people of color, and low-income communities. We co-organized the first meeting of EJ, Indigenous, and Labor reps and collaboratively presented a just transition intervention in the negotiations.

We strengthened relationships between the Environmental Justice Communities Against Plastics coalition and Teamsters Local 350 by helping to organize a tour of San Francisco Recology and attending the Teamsters Western Region Waste Division Meeting alongside other members of EJCAP.

We learned a lot from Mother Earth Foundation’s Zero Waste Academy in the Philippines and helped center just transition strategies and principles at the Philippines National Waste Worker Alliance Magna Carta meetings in Manila.

This year, we welcomed Lara Aumann as our new Administrative Assistant and Fernando Tormos-Aponte as our new Policy Lead! Lara and Fernando have been integral to strengthening our capacity to serve workers and communities at the frontlines and fencelines of unwarranted toxic trespass.