The global energy transition could usher in major changes to the production and supply of coal. While key aspects of this transition agenda are fashioned at the global and national levels, crucial decisions relating to mitigation measures need to be undertaken regionally and locally. As the energy transition agenda intensifies, understanding the composition and balance of motives among residents in coal regions will be critical to designing and activating regional scale policy incentives. At this scale, factors such as place attachment become relevant to the design, planning and resourcing of transition pathways. This paper examines recent scholarship on place attachment and contributes a conceptual framework (PAHIL) for its application to heavily industrialized contexts. The development of the framework is supported by a case study where we demonstrate how place attachment is formed, expressed, localized, and transferred across the life of mine in two coal communities in the Czech Republic.