The People's Transition

The People’s Transition: Community-led Development for Climate Justice

The People’s Transition is a participative decision-making model developed by TASC that views climate action as an enabler of local development.

“I strongly support participative decision-making models, such as that advocated in ‘The People’s Transition’, TASC’s report from 2020.”

“TASC has increased public knowledge of economic and social policy, been a source of information and ideas as to the improvement of working conditions, and its work has been vital in the facilitation of a just transition to advance climate action and protect livelihoods and communities.” - Michael D. Higgins, President of Ireland.

Completed pilot projects:

Get to know where each project took place and find out more about their process by navigating through this map :

Key Concepts of a People’s Transition

Anchor Institution

Anchor institutions generally have strong ties to the geographic area in which they are based through invested capital, mission, and relationship to customers and employees.
Capabilities Approach

The capabilities approach is a theoretical framework that entails two core normative claims: first, the claim that the freedom to achieve well-being is of primary moral importance, and second, that the freedom to achieve well-being is to be understood in terms of people’s capabilities.
Community Wealth Building

Community wealth building is a people-centered approach to local economic development, which redirects wealth back into the local economy, and places control and benefits into the hands of local people.
Community-led Local Development

Under community-led local development, local people take the reins and form a local partnership that designs and implements an integrated development strategy.
Climate Action

Climate action means stepped-up efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-induced impacts.
Just Transition

Just transition is a vision-led, unifying and place-based set of principles, processes and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.
Local Development

Local development is the identification and use of the resources and endogenous potentialities of a community, neighbourhood, city or equivalent.
Sustainable Development

Sustainable development calls for concerted efforts towards building an inclusive, sustainable, and resilient future for people and planet.

“[The People’s Transition] was published by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies and an Irish group called TASC. It’s all about community-led projects. There is a real opportunity to make the interest in local development also an interest in climate-smart development.” - Mary Robinson, first woman President of Ireland, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and current Chair of the Elders

Why do we need a People’s Transition?

There remains only a small window of opportunity to enact the necessary climate action required to avoid catastrophic climate change.

In recent years, thanks to the efforts of campaigners and activists, awareness of climate change has increased. However, other social and economic concerns, perceived as more immediate, are given priority by the public. A People's Transition aims to facilitate a community-led transition by listening to community needs and priorities.

Localised, participative approaches will distill out local knowledge and solutions that will then be further developed by climate and sustainable development experts. The aim is to elaborate concrete strategies and plans for local development actions that are both climate positive and community-owned.

How does it work?

The priority of the People’s Transition is to ensure that climate action catalyses local development and that the public spend on climate action, where possible, is channeled into communities through the creation of jobs, community businesses, and local production opportunities.

The People’s Transition model seeks to deliver this by combining the strengths of community-led local development, community wealth building, and other community business and participatory decision-making approaches.

Local Funding which comes from national funding contributes to People's Transition Community Dialogues. This leads to Local Action Plans which are funded by National funding and EU Support. The Action Plans are then used to transform the communities. — The model itself is based
on a central pillar of
community empowerment, seeking to combine context-appropriate education and participative fora to build community capacity to co-create and own climate solutions.
People’s Transition approach through the channeling of finance through community structures; turning the tables and listening to communities; developing context-appropriate education and capacity-building methods; training facilitators, and conducting People’s Transition Community Dialogues.

Participation leads to valuing local knowledge which leads to Co-creation & Co-ownership which leads to Participation. — The process described in this application will enable a cycle of climate action built on the capabilities, resources and assets of the local community, the incorporation of local knowledge into solutions and the co-creation of outcomes that build local community wealth.

Schematic diagram of the processes surrounding a People's Transition Community Dialogue. — *Schematic diagram of the processes surrounding a People’s Transition Community Dialogue*

Case Study: Rural Ireland facing transition

Social listening was central to this research and involved extensive engagement with communities around Ireland to understand their needs and priorities and the challenges facing them at a time of transition.

Over the course of two extensive research trips, the team filmed a documentary series and met with more than fifty farmers, community representatives, small business owners, cooperatives, and social enterprises.

Watch below the three-part series of short anthropological films on the future of rural communities.