Illustrative: a chamber of seats in blocs with a vote sweeping across, or delegations around a table and the exchanges between them

Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Course catalogue · Health and Society

Human Development, Work and Social Policy

Just transition, social and human rights risk

Just transition, social and human rights risk, taught twice over: as the working methods of the field and as its frontier since 2024, with labs on the Academy's tools, open data and the Nexus Standards.

Core course Frontier course

The discipline

01Core course · L2 Intermediate

Just transition, social and human rights risk: foundations and practice

This area covers the social side of risk and transition: just transition for workers and communities, human rights due diligence, free, prior and informed consent, the distributional effects of climate policy, and grievance and remedy.

Level
L2 Intermediate
Study time
about 24 hours (planning estimate)
Status
In authoring
Prerequisites
An L1 course in the area, or an entry review

Why now

Reduces the number of firms legally required to conduct human rights and environmental due diligence in value chains. Council of the European Union, Council signs off simplification of sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements to boost EU competitiveness, 24 February 2026

Learning outcomes

  1. Define just transition and the other key terms of the discipline and use them correctly in a written case
  2. Explain just transition principles and human rights due diligence with a worked example and its source
  3. Apply the discipline's method to a documented case and explain each result with its source
  4. Analyse a named case against social risk in projects, stating evidence, date and limits

Modules

  1. Just transition principles
    • Just transition principles
    • Human rights due diligence
    • Social risk in projects
  2. Workers and communities in transition
    • Workers and communities in transition
    • Free, prior and informed consent
    • Distributional effects of climate policy
  3. Grievance mechanisms and remedy
    • Grievance mechanisms and remedy
    • Social dialogue
  4. Lab: the discipline's method
    • A carbon price costs each household the price times the carbon in what it buys; because poorer households spend a larger share of income on energy, the gross burden as a share of income falls with income, and whether the policy is regressive or progressive is decided by how the revenue is returned.
    • Work the method through a documented case and explain each result
    • Read the method's sources and stated values

Labs with Academy tools

Nexus Standards

Teaches

  • NRS-D2 Society, inclusion and human development risk
  • NRS-D4 Work, skills and livelihoods risk
  • NRS-H115 Hazard family: Labour and technology transition

Relies on

  • NS-1 The UNI and the artefact catalogue
  • NS-16 UNI application profile (how articles, documents, code, data, APIs and interfaces carry the UNI)
  • NRS-C1 Risk vocabulary and ontology
  • NRS-C2 Risk assessment method
  • NRS-C3 Hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity data
  • NRS-C4 Risk data model, identifiers and exchange
  • NRS-C7 Early warning, triggers and anticipatory action

Assessment

  • 40%Lab recordWork the discipline's method through a documented case and explain each result with its source and date
  • 40%Case memoApply the discipline's methods to a named place or organisation, stating evidence and limits
  • 20%Key terms checkShort answers on the key terms, marked against the definitions

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Intermediate, 4 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

Open now in this discipline

References

  1. Council of the European Union, Council signs off simplification of sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements to boost EU competitiveness, 24 February 2026
  2. Ohlendorf and others, Distributional impacts of carbon pricing: a meta-analysis, 2021
  3. International Labour Organization, Guidelines for a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies for all, 2015
  4. United Nations, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, 2011
02Live map

People and exposure in the Sahel

Population density, night-time lights, air quality, heat and floods, over the Sahel.

The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.

Layers 2

People and exposure

Latest available

NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth

Loading the latest NASA imagery.

Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.

People and exposure, framed on the Sahel.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.

Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONETSources and licences

  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. 2018. Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). doi:10.7927/H49C6VHW. CC BY 4.0
  • VIIRS Black Marble night-time lights, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • OMI nitrogen dioxide (Aura) and OMPS aerosol index (Suomi NPP), NASA; distributed by the NASA GES DISC; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
  • Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
  • © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
  • Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
  • Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
  • Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
  • NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
  • Air quality forecast, 5 days, PM2.5 (CAMS via Open-Meteo): Contains modified Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service information 2026.
  • Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (https://open-meteo.com/), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • Optional layers (7 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.

Layers and dates

  • Population density, 2020: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (2018), NASA SEDAC, CC BY 4.0 · static
  • Night-time lights, daily: VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2), NASA LAADS DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
  • Nitrogen dioxide, lower atmosphere column: OMI Aura, NASA GES DISC · 10 Oct 2026
  • Land surface temperature, day, 8-day composite: VIIRS NOAA-20 Level 3, 8-day, NASA LANCE · 14 Sep 2026
  • Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026

03How learning runs

How learning runs, as a process you can run

Select a scenario and press Play: course, pathway, practice, faculty, cells and record.

04What is changing

Frontier course · L3 advanced, programme courses and standards

Just transition, social and human rights risk: frontier methods

The methods, data, tools and studies that changed just transition, social and human rights risk between 2024 and 2026, taught by reproducing them on open data.

Level
L3 Advanced
Study time
about 28 hours (planning estimate)
Status
Planned
Prerequisites
Just transition, social and human rights risk: foundations and practice; Working knowledge of a scripting language (Python or R) for the labs

Why now

Reduces the number of firms legally required to conduct human rights and environmental due diligence in value chains. Council of the European Union, Council signs off simplification of sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements to boost EU competitiveness, 24 February 2026

Learning outcomes

  1. Explain what changed in just transition, social and human rights risk since 2024 and cite the studies, data or rules behind each change
  2. Reproduce EU narrows corporate sustainability due diligence obligations on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  3. Evaluate a 2024 to 2026 study: its question, data, method, limits and what it changes for practice
  4. Design an analysis that combines a frontier method with the faculty's instruments, and justify each choice

Modules

  1. EU narrows corporate sustainability due diligence obligations
    • The Council gave final approval to the Omnibus simplification, limiting the due diligence directive to companies with over 5,000 employees and €1.5 billion turnover, removing mandatory transition plans and harmonised civil liability, with compliance from July 2029.
    • Reduces the number of firms legally required to conduct human rights and environmental due diligence in value chains.
    • Council of the European Union, 24 February 2026
  2. COP30 creates a just transition mechanism
    • COP30 in Belém established the Belém Action Mechanism on just transition as a platform to coordinate support, share practice, mobilise funding and track progress, though without dedicated new finance.
    • Gives workers and communities affected by transition a formal place in UN climate processes and future reporting.
    • United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security, 25 November 2025
  3. ICJ gives advisory opinion on states' climate obligations
    • The International Court of Justice delivered its advisory opinion on obligations of states in respect of climate change, addressing due diligence, human rights law and the potential wrongfulness of failing to act on fossil fuel production and subsidies.
    • Raises legal and litigation risk for climate policy choices and frames rights-based expectations of governments.
    • International Court of Justice, 23 July 2025
  4. Reproduction lab
    • Extend the discipline's method with one frontier method and compare its results
    • State the uncertainty and the limits of the result
    • Peer review against a shared checklist
  5. Technology that helps and the risks it carries
    • Digital public infrastructure and digital identity.
    • Exclusion, surveillance and the automation of work.

Labs with Academy tools

Nexus Standards

Teaches

  • NRS-D2 Society, inclusion and human development risk
  • NRS-D4 Work, skills and livelihoods risk
  • NRS-H115 Hazard family: Labour and technology transition

Relies on

  • NS-1 The UNI and the artefact catalogue
  • NS-16 UNI application profile (how articles, documents, code, data, APIs and interfaces carry the UNI)
  • NRS-C1 Risk vocabulary and ontology
  • NRS-C2 Risk assessment method
  • NRS-C3 Hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity data
  • NRS-C4 Risk data model, identifiers and exchange
  • NRS-C7 Early warning, triggers and anticipatory action

Assessment

  • 50%Method reproductionReproduce one frontier method on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  • 30%Study reviewA critical review of a 2024 to 2026 study: question, data, method, limits, what it changes
  • 20%Peer reviewReview two other learners' reproductions against a shared checklist

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Expert, 5 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

Open now in this discipline

References

  1. Council of the European Union, Council signs off simplification of sustainability reporting and due diligence requirements to boost EU competitiveness, 24 February 2026
  2. United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security, 5 Outcomes from COP 30: What the Belém Political Package Really Delivered, 25 November 2025
  3. International Court of Justice, Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change, 23 July 2025
  4. Ohlendorf and others, Distributional impacts of carbon pricing: a meta-analysis, 2021
  5. International Labour Organization, Guidelines for a just transition towards environmentally sustainable economies and societies for all, 2015
  6. United Nations, Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, 2011
05Take part

Take part in the work

Start from who you are.

06Questions

Questions, answers and key terms

Is the course free?
Yes. Every course and learning material of Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium, is free to study, self-paced or with a cohort. Ordinary participation has no fee; paid work, internships and fellowships are separate arrangements.
What does completing a course give me?
A completion record: the course, its version, the date and what was assessed, private by default and shared by you. It stacks into discipline, department and programme achievements. A record states what was studied and assessed and does not certify competence; it is not a licence, a professional title or an employment status.
Where do the data and the places come from?
Every faculty teaches on a twin of a real place built from open data; each layer carries its provider, licence and date, and every result on the Academy states its source. Maps and figures are indicators for teaching, never an assessment of a place.
How do I take part beyond the course?
Form a competence cell of three to seven people, study a shared pathway, take a supervised assignment in the National Working Groups, or bring a cohort from your institution. For organisations.

Key terms

Term

Just transition

A shift to a low-carbon economy that is fair to workers and communities and leaves no one behind.

Term

Human rights due diligence

The ongoing process of identifying, preventing and accounting for human rights impacts.

Term

Free, prior and informed consent

The right of Indigenous Peoples to give or withhold consent to projects affecting them.

Term

Grievance mechanism

A process through which affected people can raise concerns and seek remedy.

ReportsContribute

Contribute evidence from this page.

Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.

Risk Academy
Related

Around Just transition, social and human rights risk: courses

Risk Academy

Study just transition, social and human rights risk with us, or teach it

Every course is free and open. Institutions and experts can co-teach, host a cohort, contribute a lab or review a course before it opens.

Browse the course catalogue Partner with the Academy
Risk Academy

Courses · practice · credentials

Not for profit

Our articles, maps and twins are free to read and free to republish. Readers and partners keep it that way.

Support our work

Who funds us

Risk Academy is a not-for-profit institution. To ask who funds a piece of work, use the funding questions form.

Independence

Editors and the expert reviewers named on each article decide what we publish. Funders and partners do not review or approve articles before publication.

Corrections policy

Licence

Articles: CC BY 4.0. Figures, maps, twins and data: CC BY 4.0. Other uses: ask through the permissions form.

Privacy choices