The Indicators Handbook complements the Blueprint for Action as a flexible, pragmatic and evidence-based resource to provide guidance on tracking the implementation of the G20 Principles for Just and Inclusive Transitions.

Each chapter corresponds to one of the G20 principles. For each principle, the Handbook presents emerging practices and approaches from several country case studies, illustrating both indicators and methodologies for tracking progress, monitoring effectiveness and designing better policies. Each chapter also includes lessons learned from international experience and key considerations relevant to measuring the specific issues associated with the principle.

The indicators proposed for each principle are by no means exhaustive. Governments are encouraged to adapt, refine, and select those approaches that resonate with their distinctive priorities, socio-economic realities, and institutional capacities.

In this way, the Indicators Handbook lays the groundwork for future efforts, including:

• Identifying commonly used indicators, including those responding to shared regional priorities or cross-border challenges.

• Encouraging transparent documentation of how indicators are applied in different contexts, including data sources, assumptions, and methods, to support mutual understanding and comparability.

• Creating space for future collaboration among countries, through technical working groups, structured peer learning, or voluntary review mechanisms, to strengthen the credibility and comparability of national approaches.

Indicators can play a critical role in informing programme design, monitoring progress, assessing impacts, and driving public and political support for clean energy transitions. When well designed and effectively used, indicators and evaluation tools can allow governments to:

• Track progress toward domestic and shared international goals, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Global Stocktake.

• Enhance public trust and reduce conflict by promoting transparency and accountability.

• Drive local support for clean energy transitions by making data visible and accessible to the public.

• Highlight the different benefits of clean energy developments, from health and gender equality outcomes to employment opportunities.

• Help monitor the social and economic impacts of energy transitions, including potential risks or unintended consequences.

• Enable comparability across jurisdictions, helping identify trends, gaps, and best practices.

The development and use of indicators can help governments build stronger national data systems. It can strengthen institutional capacity for evidence-based decision making, mobilise technical and financial support for improved data collection and analysis. This supports adaptive, iterative policymaking, enabling governments to course-correct policies as new challenges and opportunities emerge.

Whenever relevant, all indicators should be systematically disaggregated by gender, and wherever possible further broken down by age, ethnicity, region or other intersecting categories. This ensures the opportunities and impacts of energy transitions for all groups are fully understood, and that actions can be taken not only to address and mitigate any unintended outcomes, but also to support the broader participation and engagement needed for programme efficiency and effectiveness.

In short, indicators are not only about measuring and tracking progress. They are also tools for learning, inclusive policymaking and continual improvement in clean energy transitions.

This Indicators Handbook is not meant as a universal prescriptive framework. It is designed to provide guidance through real world case studies where indicators have been successfully applied to just transition goals. Policy makers can use these case studies and the suggested indicators as inspirations for designing indicators that address the key issues embodied by each of the G20 Principles as they unfold in their own local contexts.

Considerations for selecting indicators could include:

• Sensitivity to context, ensuring the indicators selection process is aligned with policy priorities and socio-economic realities, balancing national development goals with local needs, and addressing regional disparities.

• Data quality and availability, prioritising indicators where robust data exists, considering the cost and effort needed to collect data and ensuring there is a necessary scientific basis for data collection.

• Transparency and independence of the process, in which diverse stakeholders are involved in setting priorities and have the capabilities to monitor and interpret results should this be needed.

The suggested indicators in this handbook are meant as starting points to spur international collaboration in this domain.

To inform the development of the handbook, on behalf of the Global Commission on People-Centred Clean Energy Transitions, the IEA Secretariat organised a series of consultations and seven regional and thematic workshops on indicators for just and inclusive energy transitions, in collaboration with governments and key stakeholders.

These included five virtual workshops: one focused on sub-Saharan Africa and one with G20 members and partners, both held in collaboration with the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the South African Department of Electricity and Energy (DEE); one focused on Latin America and the Caribbean in collaboration with OLADE; one focused on advanced economies in collaboration with the Spanish Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge; and one focused on labour issues with representatives from major labour unions around the world. In addition, two in-person workshops were held: one dedicated to Brazil, in Brasília, in collaboration with the Brazilian Ministry of Mines and Energy; and one dedicated to Southeast Asia, in Jakarta, in collaboration with the Indonesian Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. 

More than 360 participants took part in these workshops, that brought together diverse constituencies, including policymakers at national and municipal level, international organisations, experts and representatives from civil society representing different key constituencies including labour, business, youth, women, and Indigenous groups. This included participation and attendance from major international organisations including C40 Cities, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), International Energy Forum (IEF), International Labour Organization (ILO), International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the Latin American Energy Organization (OLADE), Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL) and World Resources Institute (WRI) among others.

In each of these workshops, participants were invited to share indicators they had developed or adapted, as well as their evaluation methods, relevant to the G20 Principles for Just and Inclusive Transitions. They were also invited to discuss institutional mechanisms and capacity that enabled this data collection, where relevant, as well as lessons learned and remaining gaps. The Global Commission would like to extend its sincere gratitude to all participants for taking the time to participate and to contribute so insightfully to the development of the Handbook.