"Just do it" or "do it just"? Integrating the European just transition agenda in local climate policies: The case of the city of Genoa

Over time, a growing concern has raised in both public and academic debates regarding the social costs of green policies. This has ultimately translated in a specific focus on the nexus between social justice and environmental transition. In fact, the shift towards a carbon-neutral model of economic development has highlighted the risk of uneven development and unfair distribution of externalities on vulnerable societal groups. This issue has not remained isolated to academic debate or grassroots movements, but has gained considerable attention inside public institutions, especially in the European Union. The European Green Deal agenda commits to pursue both social and environmental goals, aiming to deliver on both strategic aspects. Drawing on recent eco-social policy studies, this paper adopts the framework of policy integration to contribute to the debate on how social justice and environmental policies evolve at the local level to respond to the EU’s climate and decarbonisation political guidance. More specifically, the study will analyse if and how social concerns and environmental transition goals have been integrated at the local level when implementing NextGenerationEU projects along with developing broader climate strategies. Local governments, in fact, are tasked with the final delivery of policies which are supposed to put the European Agenda into practice. To do this, however, they are placed at the bottom end of a complex multi-level architecture, funded by an ever-growing number of budgetary streams from the EU. The study of local contexts is therefore a key piece in understanding the interaction between green transitions and social justice policies and governance.