My name is Irmelin Gram-Hanssen, and I work as a senior researcher at Western Norway Research Institute (Vestlandsforsking) in Sogndal, Norway. In both my professional and private life, I care about the wellbeing of people and nature and the ability of people to live fulfilling lives and design sustainable solutions to societal problems. I am concerned with questions of justice in the context of climate change and biodiversity loss, and in my work, I often look at whose voices are not heard and whose values are not accounted for. I believe that including more people in designing solutions can help ensure that those solutions are more just and more sustainable. I am excited to be part of the Just Transform project and look into questions of how the green and digital transitions can become more just.

While the project focuses on these transitions as they unfold in Norway, I bring experience from another part of the world. As part of my PhD in human geography at the University of Oslo, focusing on the role of relations in transformations towards sustainability, I work alongside an Alaska Native community in their efforts to enhance self-determination and wellbeing of their people and lands. The green and digital transitions are present here, not least in relation to the minerals and metals needed to develop the infrastructure to support these transitions – some of which are proposed to be mined in close proximity of the community, jeopardizing the health of the ecosystems they depend on. However, as the community strives to become free from fossil fuels and enhance their (digital) connection to the rest of the world, community members also highly depend on the green and digital transitions. Yet, how can these processes be designed and implemented in ways that are just?

As we move further into the fieldwork in the coming months, I am particularly curious about how the high-level strategies on green and digital transitions are experienced on the ground, and the ability for organizations and individuals to navigate these new processes. What new processes of inclusion and exclusions are created as a result? I am hopeful that the project will help uncover more of the pitfalls and potentials for these transitions and that the Just Transform framework can help the Norwegian government ensure just processes and outcomes for more people as these transitions make their way from theory to practice.