Van der Wel, Akerboom and Meijer address a persistent problem in energy justice: even when justice is publicly acknowledged, institutional decisions can still produce unjust outcomes. Their key contribution is to analyse energy transition through public values theory rather than treating justice as an isolated criterion. Decision-makers operate within plural value environments in which affordability, reliability, sustainability, security, efficiency and participation may compete. Justice can therefore be overlooked, misunderstood or explicitly subordinated. Methodologically, the paper proposes a three-step approach: map the public values at stake, identify which values are actively pursued and examine how conflicts among them are balanced. This turns value conflict into an observable decision process rather than a moral afterthought. The bridge to public administration and governance theory is precise: energy transition becomes a problem of institutional prioritisation, showing that infrastructure outcomes reflect the procedures through which competing public goods are made commensurable and politically actionable.
URBANISM MEETS ART