Policy Issue
As efforts toward a sustainable blue economy gather momentum, “just transition” has emerged as a vital framework for ensuring equity, inclusion, and decent work through greening. As underscored in the Philippine Development Plan 2023-2028, mainstreaming just transition principles is pivotal to "promote decent work on a large scale" while charting a sustainable blue economy trajectory. While overarching strategies for sustainable coastal accommodation tourism are articulated, concrete pathways for ensuring social dialogue, reskilling affected workers, facilitating job transitions, extending social protection, and upholding labor standards are lacking. Policy guidance on enabling factors like stakeholder consultation mechanisms, investment in adaptive social protection measures, and forging green human resource partnerships also seem limited, as observed in the experience of workers and enterprises during the recent Boracay closure (Artajo et al., 2020; Tops & Lamers, 2023; Niewiadomski & Brouder, 2024). By examining just transition practices and experiences across blue economy initiatives in sustainable coastal accommodation and tourism initiatives, this study aims to fill this gap.