New frontiers and conceptual frameworks for energy justice

By Benjamin Sovacool, Matthew J. Burke, Lucy Baker, Chaitanya Kumar Kotikalapudi, H. Wlokas. 2017

656 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article explores how concepts from justice and ethics can inform energy decision-making and highlight the moral and equity dimensions of energy production and use. It defines “energy justice” as a global energy system that fairly distributes both the benefits and burdens of energy services, and one that contributes to more representative and inclusive energy decision-making. The primary contribution of the article is its focus on six new frontiers of future energy justice research. First is making the case for the involvement of non-Western justice theorists. Second is expanding beyond humans to look at the Rights of Nature or non-anthropocentric notions of justice. Third is focusing on cross-scalar issues of justice such as embodied emissions. Fourth is identifying business models and the co-benefits of justice. Fifth is better understanding the tradeoffs within energy justice principles. Sixth is exposing unjust discourses. In doing so, the article presents an agenda constituted by 30 research questions as well as an amended conceptual framework consisting of ten principles. The article argues in favor of “justice-aware” energy planning and policymaking, and it hopes that its (reconsidered) energy justice conceptual framework offers a critical tool to inform decision-making.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Pollution, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c3003af7bc08feda0a27b9f99eab472af010c983

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Citations in the corpus

High-resolution large-scale onshore wind energy assessments: A review of potential definitions, methodologies and future research needs (2021, neutral): “…wind power projects in the Global South have shown that territorial con ﬂ icts and livelihood impacts resulting from land tenure insecurity, displacement processes, distributive injustices and missing options for ﬁ nancial and procedural participation emerge frequently [220 e 222,290 e 292].”
Harnessing social innovation for energy justice: a business model perspective (2017, methodology): “Drawing from earlier work (Sovacool et al., 2016) as well as other articles in this Special Issue (Jenkins et al., 2017; Sovacool et al., 2017), we treat “energy justice” as a global energy system that fairly disseminates both the benefits and costs of energy services, responsive to ever-shifting fu”
Politicizing energy justice and energy system transitions: Fossil fuel divestment and a “just transition” (2017, neutral): “6 such as food and transportation (Gagnon et al., 2002; Florini and Sovacool, 2009; Goldthau and Sovacool, 2012; Walker and Day, 2012; McCauley et al., 2013; Heffron and McCauley, 2014; Sovacool et al., 2017).”
The justice and equity implications of the clean energy transition (2020, neutral): “Pulling from these objectives, a comprehensive energy justice framework can be said to include energy availability and access, affordability, due process, accountability and transparency, and both inter-and intra-generational equity 17,18 .”
Temporality, vulnerability, and energy justice in household low carbon innovations (2019, background): “To operationalize energy justice in practice, Sovacool et al. (2017b) and Delina and Sovacool (2018) stipulate the ten energy justice “principles” for decision-makers shown in Table 1.”
Advancing an energy justice perspective of fuel poverty: Household vulnerability and domestic retrofit policy in the United Kingdom (2017, background): “[36] and Heffron and McCauley [37] have recently argued, clearly articulated energy justice principles are essential for enabling policymakers and planners to create fairer systems that protect the most vulnerable now and in the future.”