Katherine's presentation was entitled: Clean, Green And The Unseen: The CompeSA Framework | Competing Sustainability Agendas In Carbon Neutrality Policy Pathways

A brief abstract of the work presented at the conference follows, this work was developed by Katherine, João Pedro Gouveia and their colleagues Rita Lopes and Siddharth Sareen. The main findings of the work were published in the journal Global Transitions and is listed on publications page.

Competing agendas are common within sustainability transitions, given their complex social, economic, and environmental priorities. Frameworks are a common method of assessing competing sustainability agendas, yet they are often highly specialised and context specific. We propose and apply an adaptable sustainability assessment framework, the “CompeSA | Assessing Competing Sustainability Agendas”, taking advantage of contemporary European political initiatives to explore the
competing agendas arising from the simultaneous implementation of climate change, energy transitions and energy poverty agendas to test the framework. Focusing specifically on the unfolding of these agendas in the Portuguese case we illustrate inherent dilemmas over policy mixes and unpack emerging synergies and barriers. The combination of methods employed in the CompeSA framework proved effective in identifying the scope of the agendas, in accounting for sustainability policy management and characterizing the stakeholder group. We identify several synergies, including economic recovery, health benefits, and employment opportunities, whereas the most significant barriers are inconsistencies in benefit allocation and a striking power imbalance between actors impacted by energy poverty and those with agenda-setting power