National Economic Transition Platform

Recognizing the community-driven innovation on transition solutions and the need for a coordinated national transition program, the Just Transition Fund launched the NET project in early 2019. With the facilitation of Dialogue + Design Associates, a community engagement and design firm, a diverse planning team of representatives from coal communities across the country worked to draft this platform and refine it over the course of a year through an extensive idea generation and feedback-gathering process. That process included a series of in-depth interviews with community leaders and members of coal-impacted communities, an in-person meeting of coal community and transition leaders in June of 2019, three regional stakeholder meetings in Appalachia, the Midwest, and the West, and a digital engagement campaign to gather input from the broader public from coal-affected regions in the fall of 2019. Together, we envision a future where the communities hit hard by the decline of the coal industry have vibrant, resilient, and equitable economies with thriving, local businesses and quality, family-sustaining jobs.