Abstract
AbstractThis study investigates the governance of bioenergy systems (BESs) and how it influences the bioenergy policy process and local sustainable development. The study compares the BES in Emilia Romagna and Hedmark. At first, bioenergy was expected to mitigate climate change and to tackle the crisis of the primary sectors and related industries. However, bioenergy policies were not equipped to address cross‐sectoral and multilevel issues. Therefore, they failed to secure the local, sustainable development. Critical weaknesses lie in BES governance. Actors' discourses, rules, and power issues form a complex structure that influences the bioenergy policy process and its outcomes. The study relies on systems thinking and system dynamics, and the pathways approach. It uses the system archetypes to investigate the bioenergy policy feedback dynamics and how to leverage local, sustainable development. Results show that power relations and social opposition are critical to a policy change that best secures local, sustainable development.
Highlights
This study investigates the governance structure of the bioenergy system (BES) and how it affects the bioenergy policy process evolution and local, sustainable development in two regions, that is, Emilia Romagna (Italy) and Hedmark (Norway).A bioenergy systems (BESs) is a system where human and ecological elements interact
This study investigates the governance of bioenergy systems (BESs) and how it influences the bioenergy policy process and local sustainable development
In the first stages of BES development, both regional cases of bioenergy development can be described as the fixes that backfire pattern (Cavicchi, 2016, 2018)
Summary
This study investigates the governance structure of the bioenergy system (BES) and how it affects the bioenergy policy process evolution and local, sustainable development in two regions, that is, Emilia Romagna (Italy) and Hedmark (Norway).A BES is a system where human and ecological elements interact. Changes in biodiversity and carbon sink) influence the human actors' perceptions and understandings of the ecosystem around them In this context, governance is the regulating structure of the BES, that is, the conditions or institutions for the ordered rule and collective action. Agriculture is supposed to contribute to the regional environment via a better management of fertilizers and pesticides use, regulations to preserve plant and animal biodiversity, making water consumption more efficient, reducing soil erosion, using and producing renewable energy with agricultural residues, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from ammonia, and improving the forest carbon capture capacity (Direzione Generale Agricoltura E.R, 2007; ARPA Emilia Romagna, 2016). Emilia Romagna shows rather different dynamics because the government has been able to mitigate the effects of resource constraints or limiting factors, that is, social opposition triggered by local economic and environmental consequences and undelivered benefits, by adjusting the feed-in tariff scheme and introducing the biomethane regulatory framework. The infrastructural constraints of the supply of bioheat (biogas plants too distant from buildings), the rural inhabitants' lack of confidence in the BES, and the undelivered local benefits might challenge the sustainable evolution of the sector in the case study
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