The climate crisis and associated public policies entail the transition of large industries, from energy generation to car manufacturing. The consequences for workers in these industries have attracted the attention of trade unions, which have proposed ambitious manifestos towards a ‘just transition’. The scope of such a just transition is limited mainly to activities and communities directly impacted by climate policies and to state regulations. The energy transition tends to focus on the problem of reducing or even eliminating highly polluting sectors. This is particularly true of the coal and oil industries, where the prospect of job cuts is pushing trade unions to resist the necessary adjustments. It is true that the oil industry union in Norway has undergone an important evolution by initiating negotiations on restructuring, paying due attention to social considerations (Normann and Tellmann 2021). But environmental concerns are still being promoted first and foremost by non-governmental organisations (NGOs). The judgment of a Dutch civil court in 2021 ordering the supermajor Shell to reduce its worldwide CO2 emissions by 45 per cent by 2030 (compared with 2019 levels) followed a request by Friends of the Earth and a multitude of other environmental associations. From an environmental labour studies standpoint,1 this chapter explores how workers and trade unions in Europe can address environmental issues in all activities, including those not directly targeted by ‘just transition’ policies. Ecological conversion across the economy should emerge from the actions of workers themselves, going beyond the mere adaptation of workers in threatened occupations. This therefore leads us to consider grassroots initiatives within the workplace or local community. By departing from the so-called ‘creative destruction’ spiral, they are more likely to meet population needs, even new collective and individual needs, and improve labour relations. Such initiatives contribute to the design of new production strategies. This intellectual dynamic we define as ecological embeddedness is already being pushed by ‘citizens in the workplace’ and local actors, and allows us to explore the concrete environmental issues at stake in working at an environment–labour nexus. At the same time, this dynamic brings to the fore the role of trade unions and democracy at the workplace level. This anchoring of environmental issues in economic sectors by workers themselves gives rise to a redefinition of environmental initiatives by collective actors, usually at national or even international level.