The Energy Transition Will Be Judged by How We Treat People
Recent debate about the future of North Sea oil and gas has focused on drilling licences, energy security and net zero targets. Reports suggest an incoming Andy Burnham government may take a different approach to future North Sea developments, with supporters arguing this is about protecting workers, communities and places that have powered the UK's economy for generations.
These are important discussions. But from my perspective in Aberdeen, there is a more fundamental question at the heart of this debate:
How do we ensure people remain secure in their income, housing, health and wellbeing while economic change takes place?
Too often, conversations about transition are framed around sectors. We talk about oil and gas, renewables, jobs and investment. Yet economic transition is experienced by people, families and communities.
In Aberdeen and the North East of Scotland, this is not a theoretical conversation. Change is already being felt by households living with uncertainty about what comes next.
A loss of income is rarely just a financial issue. It can quickly become anxiety about paying a mortgage or rent. It can affect physical and mental health, place pressure on relationships and undermine confidence in the future.
Through our work supporting people experiencing homelessness, poverty and other forms of disadvantage, we see every day how housing, health and economic participation are closely linked. When one becomes unstable, the others often follow. If we fail to recognise these connections, we will continue responding to the symptoms of economic disruption rather than its causes.
This is why we need a broader understanding of what a just transition means.
Too often, the phrase is reduced to jobs and retraining. Those things matter, but a genuinely just transition must be measured by more than employment outcomes alone. It should also be measured by whether people can remain secure and well through periods of change, whether families can maintain stable housing and whether communities feel hopeful about their future.
Redundancy is often discussed as an economic event. For the people experiencing it, it can be much more than that. The loss of employment can mean the loss of routine, identity, purpose and connection. It can bring stress, uncertainty and anxiety, affecting not only individuals but entire households.
If we are serious about a just transition, our response must be trauma-informed as well as economically informed. We must recognise that economic change can have emotional and social consequences long before they appear in official statistics.
We know from previous periods of industrial change that unmanaged transitions can leave lasting scars. Communities can experience entrenched poverty, worsening health outcomes and widening inequalities that persist for decades. These outcomes are not unforeseen. They are predictable.
The lesson from Britain's industrial history is not that change should be resisted. Change is inevitable. The lesson is that people must not be left to absorb its costs alone.
That means investing not only in industries, but in people and places. Community organisations often see pressures emerging long before they appear in official data. Rising demand for housing support, financial advice, food assistance and mental health services can provide an early warning system for household distress.
Aberdeen is often described as Europe's energy capital. It is a region with extraordinary skills and expertise. Yet it is also a place where economic success and deprivation can exist side by side. That reality makes a place-based approach to transition essential.
Whether future governments choose to approve new North Sea developments or accelerate the move away from them, the responsibility remains the same. Success should not be judged solely by licences granted, projects approved or jobs announced.
Instead, we should ask a different question: when this transition is complete, will the people and places that powered Britain's economy be stronger, healthier and more secure than they are today?
If the answer is no, then we cannot honestly describe it as a just transition.
History will not judge this period by policy announcements alone. It will judge us by how we treated the people who lived through it. The real test of leadership is not how quickly we deliver change, but how well we support people through it. If we place people, place and wellbeing at the centre of decision-making, we have an opportunity not simply to transform our energy system, but to demonstrate that economic transition can be fair, compassionate and leave no community behind.
That is the standard by which a just transition should be judged.
Donna Hutchison is Chief Executive Officer of Aberdeen Cyrenians, and a recognised cross-sector change leader with over 20 years’ experience spanning private industry and civil society.
