Take a moment to recognise the lenses shaping the way you see things
How much influence do you have in this transformative process and its decisions?
Do all relevant stakeholders have equal opportunities to participate?

 Your perception of the power you have is critical for understanding your influence on a just transformative process. If you believe you have little power but others perceive your word as final, you may underestimate your influence and overlook key factors. Misrecognizing your role can lead to unintended consequences and resistance. Be aware of your position and its impact on equity and justice.

What you will achieve with this tool?

Recognize care as a fundamental principle for embedding justice and its dimensions into transformative change interventions

Get inspired by: Colombia and the Indigenous Territorial Entities

After 30 years of intercultural dialogue, the current Government of Colombia (2022–2026) declared eight new territorial entities, representing more than 

7 million hectares and 15% of the Colombian Amazon region.

The formalization and establishment of these entities represent a comprehensive acknowledgment of Indigenous communities’ sovereignty, knowledge systems, self-determination, and self-government. This is a compelling implementation of:

Recognition justice, as Indigenous identities and knowledge systems are formally respected.

Procedural justice, since dialogues at each stage involved Indigenous legal representatives.

Distributive justice, as the benefits of caring for life under ancestral parameters now return to these communities.

Despite the Colombian Constitution (1991) establishing the country as a decentralized, multicultural, and pluralistic nation, Indigenous communities historically could not fully decide or govern over their territories. Every incoming government crafts a ""National Development Plan"", which reflects a crucial epistemic difference from Indigenous governance, where communities design ""Life Plans""—frameworks for caring for territory beyond human needs.

Understanding how Indigenous communities care for their lands and people led to a structural transformation of Colombia’s political division. The national geography institute has now been ordered to redraw the map to include these eight new territorial entities.

Learn more through Gaia Amazonas, a key NGO with a long-standing relationship with Indigenous communities.

Explore how to take action

Remember, this is an inspiration guide (not a recipe) to help you decide what will be most transformative for your context. Every context is unique!

1
STEP 1 Be mindful that justice is a driver and an outcome of transformative change Read more
2
STEP 2 Identify with care, all stakeholders and knowledge systems involved Read more
3
STEP 3 Get together with at least two other people who represent different perspectives and roles within the intervention Read more
4
STEP 4 Check the “Good Signs” table to compare your current process against best practices Read more
5
STEP 5 Co-create justice indicators with at least three diverse stakeholders involved in the intervention Read more

With whom and for whom are you transforming?

All stakeholders

How will you sustain a care-centered approach to ensure justice throughout the process, rather than treating it as a final goal?

Being just means taking care. Equity is both a driver and an outcome of positive transformations. Transformative change requires a relational shift in how humans interact with nature, ecosystems, and the environment as a whole. Positive synergies between social well-being and environmental health are essential. This is only possible if justice mechanisms ensure that transformative change does not come at the expense of any group, community, or sector, now or in the future.

 

Bulgaria

References

D.1.1 Gupta, J., et al. (2024). A just world on a safe planet: A Lancet Planetary Health–Earth Commission report on Earth-system boundaries, translations, and transformations. The Lancet Planetary Health, 8(10), e813–e873. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(24)00172-7

Gaia Amazonas. (2025, December 17). The President of the Republic, Gustavo Petro, materialized the constitutional pact with the formalization of the first 8 Indigenous Territorial Entities of the Colombian Amazon – Gaia Amazonas. https://gaiaamazonas.org/noticias-y-comunicados/entidades-territoriales-indigenas/

O’Brien, K., Garibaldi, L. A., Agrawal, A., Bennett, E., Biggs, R., Rafael, C. C., Carr, E. R., Frantzeskaki, N., Gosnell, H., Gurung, J., Lambertucci, S. A., Leventon, J., Chuan, L., Victoria, R. G., Shannon, L., Villasante, S., Wickson, F., Zinngrebe, Y., & Périanin, L. (2025). IPBES Transformative Change Assessment: Summary for Policymakers. In Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research). https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17099400