Research project
South Africa's 'just' energy transition
- Start date: 1 January 2022
- End date: 30 June 2027
- Funding: Hans Böckler Foundation, University of Leeds Participatory Research Fund, University of Leeds International Strategy Fund
- Partners and collaborators: Sam Tambani Research Institute (SATRI), Johannesburg, South Africa
- Primary investigator: Dr Alexander Beresford
- Co-investigators: Ruth Bookbinder
- External co-investigators: Martin Kaggwa (SATRI), Sinenthlanhla Sithole (SATRI), Pulane Mofoea (SATRI)
South Africa’s energy transition is framed as an important global test case and has received significant international financing through the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) agreement signed at COP26. However, ensuring that the transition is a “just” one necessitates that the voices of the workers and communities dependent on the coal-energy sector are heard in what represents one of the most significant socio-economic upheavals in recent history.
Working in partnership with the Sam Tambani Research Institute (SATRI), which is the official research unit of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), Alex Beresford and Ruth Bookbinder have co-designed and delivered collaborative fieldwork. Interviews were conducted with national policy makers, trade union leaders, climate-NGOs, and the Presidential Climate Commission. They also conducted 20 focus groups in Mpumalanga, where the workers most immediately impacted by transition were asked to define what a “just transition” would be and what they needed from the process.
Alex and Ruth contribute to a wider project exploring worker and union engagement in just transitions in 14 countries across the world funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation.
Impact
We will continue collaborating with SATRI to produce:
- policy reports for the union developing a bottom-up conceptualisation of “just transition” articulated by workers
- a union leader’s "toolkit" for transition to empower them in national and international negotiations
- openly accessible climate education resources for workers in South Africa, the UK, and Germany
- submissions to the UNFCCC
- submissions to a proposed “Just Energy Transition Code of Practice” for power station/mine closures led by the Presidential Climate Commission
Publications and outputs
A co-produced film, Voices from the Green Transition:
A Beresford and R Bookbinder. 2025: “Trade Union Engagement for a Just Transition in South Africa” Hans Böckler Foundation Report.
A Beresford and R Bookbinder. 2025: “Labour contestation of South Africa’s just transition” in V Trappmann, D Eversberg, and A Beresford. Union and Worker Initiatives for Fair Climate Policies, Bristol, Bristol University Press (forthcoming October/November 2025).
We have disseminated findings in podcasts on BBC Radio Four, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Soundcloud.
Conferences
In May 2025 we welcomed a delegation from the NUM and SATRI to Leeds for a week-long visit. This included an international workshop co-organised with CERIC including unionists and NGOs from the UK and Germany sharing successes and challenges for just transition. We held several days of workshops to plan disseminating our findings to workers in South Africa, including a "leaders toolkit" for NUM leadership. We also began planning for an international summit in Johannesburg in 2026 to bring together a bigger group of stakeholders from communities in the coal belt to produce a set of requirements for a just transition in the coal region.
The final event for the week was visit to London for a Chatham House event exploring “The Future of UK-Africa Relations” with an audience of international diplomats, business leaders, NGO campaigners, and academics. Lord Oates, Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Africa (APPG), opened the our panel by discussing the APPG’s newly released report: ‘Africa’s Just Energy Transition: How Can the UK Support?’. This was followed by Alex, Ruth, and Vera Trappmann (the PI for the 14 country project that this work was begun under) sharing the academic findings from the project.
