Justice in Energy Transition – An AI Assisted Systematic Review

In the context of the European Green Deal, there is a need for knowledge on justice of the governance on transitions including transition to renewable energy. With the help of justice analyses, it is possible to build knowledge of existing injustices and possible justice impacts of policies, which enables well grounded decisions and interaction processes that are a precondition for acceptability of the transition policies. European research on justice aspects of energy transition is abundant but a holistic understanding of the existing knowledge on this theme has been missing. The purpose of this study is to summarize the existing knowledge and identify potential gaps in research on justice aspects of energy transition policies and related governance arrangements. The focus is in Europe, with the interest to apply the findings for developing the consideration of justice in energy transition policy in Finland. First, we develop an analysis framework, building on the cross-cutting justice framework by Kaljonen et al (2024) on transition policies and frameworks in energy justice literature (e.g. Osička et al. 2023). Second, by a systematic, AI-assisted review of the literature, relying on participatory prompting, we analyse knowledge on justice aspects of energy transition policies. The data includes energy transition and justice related peer-reviewed articles from 2010 to 2025 from Scopus and Web of Science. The analysis addresses perspectives of rationales, process, outcome and restorative aspects of justice, including recognition justice as a cross-cutting theme. Outcome aspects include distribution of impacts among population groups and environments spatially and temporally (spatial, cosmopolitan/global and intergenerational justice). The analysis also differentiates between impacts on different population groups and justice aspects related to different policy measures. We present findings on the AI analysis and the experiences of applying them for policy support in Finland, especially in the context of Finland’s most recent energy and climate strategy. We also share reflections on the method especially from the perspective of integrating the abilities of AI and human brain in different stages of the research. Our method serves as a ground for future studies using AI for justice analyses. We conclude by suggestions for the interplay of artificial and human intelligence in literature analysis processes and address a research agenda for justice studies in energy transitions. References Kaljonen, M. et al. 2024. Policy mixes for just transitions: A holistic evaluation framework. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions 52, 100885. Osička, J., Szulecki, K., Jenkins, K.E.H. 2023. Energy justice and energy democracy: Separated twins, rival concepts or just buzzwords? Energy Research & Social Science 104,103266.