Move your money? Sustainability Transitions in Regimes and Practices in the UK Retail Banking Sector

Abstract

We present and test a new conceptual framework for understanding sustainable transitions in co-evolutionary sociotechnical systems. We apply this in the first study of sustainable transitions in UK retail banking. This system has suffered recently from banking crises, and links to environmentally-sensitive industries such as fossil fuels. Sustainability-focused values-based banks are a potential solution, but have had little impact on mainstream banking systems. We aim to understand the constraints on a potential transition and how to overcome them. Our new approach identifies the intersections between transitions in regimes (using the multi-level perspective MLP) and transitions in practices (using social practice theory SPT), two competing conceptual frameworks in the literature. We ask: what are the intersections between transitions in the banking regime and banking practices, and how may critical points of constraint be unlocked to become points of opportunity, thereby aiding a transition to more sustainable banking systems? We present new empirical findings from a mixed-method case study of the UK banking sector and two values-based banks in particular. Interventions for growing sustainable banking are identified and we demonstrate the added-value of the combined approach through indicating strategies for unlocking the transformative potential of sustainable innovations.