Julia Beier participated in the first in-person Eco-Welfare Network Conference, held in Brussels from 9-11 September at the Université Libre de Bruxelles as part of the Transform-Labor project.
© IIASA
The conference brought together around 100 researchers, practitioners, and stakeholders from across disciplines to discuss sustainable welfare and eco-social policies. The program featured paper presentations, panel discussions, and a policy roundtable, “Leveraging Knowledge for Just Transition Policymaking: Challenges and Opportunities”, which brought research and EU policymaking perspectives together.
Discussions covered a broad range of topics, including (un)just transitions and questions of justice, redistribution and intersectionality; eco-social risks and vulnerabilities; postgrowth and the ecologicalisation of welfare; and the role of the state in advancing – or potentially hindering – eco-social transformation.
As part of the session on eco-social risks and vulnerabilities, Julia Beier from Equity and Justice Research Group (EQU) presented ongoing research from the Transform-Labor project on the root causes of heat vulnerability among construction and long-term care workers, using a provisioning systems perspective. The session also featured other research on working under extreme heat, including studies of occupational health and safety regulations addressing heat exposure and farmworkers’ experiences during heat events.
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