Sustainability transition frameworks: Integrating space, scale, nature, power, and justice

This paper advances scholarship in sustainability transition studies (STS), a field concerned with understanding how sociotechnical systems evolve in response to pressing sustainability challenges. It presents a systematic and comparative assessment of eight major analytical frameworks commonly employed within STS, with the aim of uncovering their theoretical foundations, shared commonalities, and key points of divergence. To deepen this evaluation, the paper integrates insights from critical geography and political ecology, foregrounding the sociospatial and political dimensions of transition processes. Particular attention is paid to how concepts such as space, scale, nature, power, and justice are incorporated-or overlooked-within existing frameworks. The findings reveal significant variation in how these dimensions are theorised and operationalised, highlighting a persistent gap in the treatment of spatial justice. The paper argues that engaging more explicitly with sociospatial inequalities and power relations can enhance both the analytical robustness and practical relevance of sustainability transition research.