Abstract
The port of Rotterdam is a global leader in the fossil fuel economy, with a 50% market share for fossil fuel products in North-Western Europe. Although it is one of the most efficient and innovative ports globally, over the last decade it has seen a gradual increase of pressures on its activities and the need to develop alternative low-carbon strategies. This paper describes how a turbulent energy context, growing societal pressure and a change in the leadership of the Port Authority opened up space for a transition management process. The process impacted the business strategy and the discourse amongst its leaders and contributed to the set-up of a transition unit and a change in investments. It subsequently led to an externally oriented transition arena process with incumbent actors in the port area and actors from outside around the transition pathway to a circular and bio-based economy. By exploring how transition management could support the repositioning of incumbent actors in the energy transition, the research contributes to discussions in the transitions literature on regime destabilisation, the role of (incumbent) actors in transitions, and large-scale energy-intensive industries as the next frontier in the energy transition.
Highlights
Global concerns over climate change, resources and global economic changes combined with technological disruptions and geopolitical tensions have brought the energy transition to the centre of global debate
The Port of Rotterdam is one of the largest fossil fuel hubs in the world: half of the total throughput is related to fossil fuel products, 21% of the refining capacity in the Hamburg-Le Havre range is located in the Port and it supplies 50% of North-Western Europe’s demand for fossil fuels [10]
We presented the results of a transition management process with the Port of Rotterdam
Summary
Global concerns over climate change, resources and global economic changes combined with technological disruptions and geopolitical tensions have brought the energy transition to the centre of global debate. The Port of Rotterdam is one of the largest fossil fuel hubs in the world: half of the total throughput is related to fossil fuel products, 21% of the refining capacity in the Hamburg-Le Havre range is located in the Port and it supplies 50% of North-Western Europe’s demand for fossil fuels [10] It had been developing sustainability strategies for years, but increasing societal and economic pressures and a change in leadership of the Port Authority opened up space for a transition management process. A transition is defined as a radical, structural change of a societal (sub)system that is the result of the co-evolution of economic, cultural, technological, ecological, and institutional developments at different scale levels [7] It comes about through the simultaneous build-up of sustainable alternatives and the breakdown of existing unsustainable practices [11]. Such regime destabilization can be caused by external shocks, internal structural problems and bottom-up innovations in niches [5]
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