Working to align energy transitions and social justice in the Netherlands

The global transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and rising social inequities are two trends at the forefront of the political agenda in many countries today. In the past years, scholars have explored the connections between these trends, identifying the ‘energy justice’ concerns of energy transitions in distinct global contexts. Surprisingly, empirical evidence in this new body of work suggests that the current directionality of the global energy transition may lead to unjust outcomes and further exacerbate social inequities. Hence, an important issue that now emerges in academic debates is how, proactively, societal groups can work to align investments in the energy transition with processes and outcomes that are equitable, inclusive, and fair. In this paper we suggest taking a discursive approach to this problem by following how actors can challenge and ‘recode’ the governance of energy infra through the performance of energy justice discourses. Theoretically, we build upon our recent conceptualization of three related domains of ‘institutional work’ in the alignment of energy transitions and social justice, which allows researchers to investigate the processes of conflict, contestation and stabilization through which discourses become ‘coded’ in rules and arrangements guiding energy transitions. Empirically, we contrast four cases from the Netherlands of contestations of justice concerns surrounding the i) natural gas distraction in the province of Groningen in relationship to its negative side effects (earthquakes), ii) the natural gas-free neighborhood program of the national government, iii) co-siting of wind parks and datacenters, and iv) the zip code regulation for community energy. In these cases, diverse energy justice discourses are articulated, contested, and eventually inscribed in policy arrangements. The paper traces how these processes unfold. It identifies mechanisms about the ‘successes’ and ‘failures’ of such discursive dynamics; that is, in the way in which they may ‘bolster’ just outcomes, for example by underpinning lobbying power for decentralized communities, or by ‘evaporating’ this potential.