Financing a Just Transition

The Financing a Just Transition programme started in 2018, designed to identify the role that finance can play in connecting action on climate change with inclusive development pathways. This builds on the commitment within the Paris Agreement on climate change to support a just transition for workers and communities. Our first major report was ‘Climate change and the just transition – A guide for investor action’, published in 2018 with Harvard’s Initiative for Responsible Investment, the International Trade Union Confederation and the Principles for Responsible Investment.
Launch of the Just Transition Finance Lab – February 2024
The team has since built up considerable experience and expertise in the practical financial implications of the just transition in different sectors and regions, which culminated in the launch of the Just Transition Finance Lab in February 2024. The Lab is hosted by the Grantham Research Institute and is designed to be a world-leading centre for experimentation and excellence in the financial solutions needed for a just transition to a net zero and nature-positive economy. You can read all about its objectives, projects and people on the separate Lab website: https://justtransitionfinance.org/.
As well as showcasing the team’s work on the just transition from February 2024 onwards, the Lab website contains our back catalogue of relevant publications and commentaries dating from 2018. This earlier work on the just transition also continues to be available in the Publications and News sections of the Grantham Research Institute website.
Key projects and publications, 2018–2024
Projects
- Investing in a just transition – global project
- Investing in a just transition – UK project
- Banking on a just transition
- Financing a Just Transition Alliance
- Place-based Climate Action Network (PCAN)
Selected publications and commentaries
- The just transition: transforming the financial system to deliver action
- Submission to the United Arab Emirates Just Transition Work Programme topics for the dialogues
- Mobilising global debt markets for a just transition
- Making transition plans just: how to embed the just transition into financial sector net zero plans
- Just Transition: Shaping the Delivery of the Inevitable Policy Response
- The Green+ Bond: How EU Sovereign and Corporate Issuers could deliver Green Sovereign Bonds with Social Co-Benefits
- Financing the just transition beyond coal
- Lessons from COP26 for financing the just transition
- From the grand to the granular: translating just transition ambitions into investor action
- Towards a Just Transition Finance Roadmap for India: Laying the foundations for practical action
- COP28: The irresistible rise of the just transition
- MDBs can drive transformative change – now the G20 must inject urgency and sustain its support
- A rethink of finance is required to make climate action fair
- What does Article 2.1(c) of the Paris Agreement mean for central banks?
- India: becoming a sustainable finance maker
- Sustainable central banking: clear green water between the Fed and the ECB?
- Here’s how to mobilize finance for a just transition and net zero
- Where are the people in transition finance?
- How a just transition can speed up the race to net-zero
- No one should get left behind
- Developing a finance roadmap for the just transition in South Africa and India
- How could sustainable finance help avoid an emerging market sovereign debt crunch?
- Why governments need to issue just transition sovereign bonds and how they could do it
- What is the cost of climate reform?
- The future of coal in a carbon-constrained climate
- Post-Covid recovery packages must quicken the pace to net-zero carbon emissions
- Time for finance to turn down the heat
- Earth Day 50 – sustainable finance: the road ahead