From tenets to indicators: A systematic review of energy justice operationalization in electric vehicle transitions

Engineering notes

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Chinese explanation / 中文解读

中文解读待补充：本站会优先为光伏效率、钙钛矿太阳能电池、储能技术、太阳能热利用、BIPV、并网技术等高价值论文补充中文说明。

Original abstract

The energy transition has raised concerns about the benefits and burdens of low-carbon technologies adoption. While energy justice provides a normative framework to assess these issues, its scholarship has faced criticism regarding limited empirical applicability and normative ambiguities. This research addresses these critiques by examining how energy justice can be operationalized through measurable indicators in the context of electric vehicle (EV) transitions. It draws on a structured review of 60 peer-reviewed studies to assess how justice is proxied across six dimensions: distributional, procedural, recognition, restorative, cosmopolitan, and flexibility justice. Main findings underscore the prevalence of distributional equity assessments, limited transparency in underlying normative assumptions, and the infrequency of mixed-method approaches. They also highlight emerging concerns related to flexibility issues and the difficulty of capturing whole-systems aspects. While quantitative indicators can support the assessment and monitoring of justice claims, they provide only partial representations of complex and context-specific realities. Their use therefore requires explicit reflection on assumptions, benchmarks, and value judgments. By synthesizing and organizing existing operationalization efforts, this study provides a comprehensive mapping of indicators across energy justice tenets in EV research, identifying key methodological and epistemological challenges. Ultimately, it calls for more reflexive, interdisciplinary, and theoretically grounded approaches to evaluating justice in energy transitions.

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