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Sustainability transitions studies have been a dominant approach in academic literature in the last twenty years or so. However, several key shortcomings have been pointed out, among them a lack of spatial sensitivity. Therefore, this article uses the proximity approach, as developed by the French school, in the field of economic geography, to shed light on this spatial dimension. The article suggests a typology of the use of spatial processes in French-speaking literature over the last ten years. Then, it combines two approaches, the ‘geography of transitions’ and proximity, to investigate the case of the tensions which arose in the French region Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes at the end of the 2000s regarding feed-in tariffs for biomass-based combined heat and power, and the subsequent creation of observatories producing spatial information at several levels (regional or below). Those observatories may be analyzed as a move to increase the proximity with the resource, i.e. to grasp its materiality and the weight of configurations, as well as multiscalar power struggles. In conclusion, the paper proposes some inputs on the geography of transitions.