Governance Of Sustainability Transitions Research Articles

Analysing regulatory instruments in sustainability transitions: A combined ‘intervention points’ and ‘roles of law’ approach to the European Union's Ecodesign framework

The challenges of operating within the planet's carrying capacity call for an urgent transition towards sustainable consumption and production (Sustainable Development Goal 12). Despite the growing literature on sustainability transitions policies, the role of regulatory instruments has received limited attention. We conduct a qualitative content analysis and combine theoretical approaches on intervention points and the roles of law to study how regulatory instruments affect the transitions. The combined approach is applied to the European Union's Ecodesign Directive and two product groups regulated under this framework, washing machines and lighting. The results shed light on two transition processes: the evolution of product design towards energy efficiency and then towards circularity. Ecodesign has so far steered and accelerated the transition towards energy efficiency with harmonised minimum requirements and bans as the regulatory spearhead. The requirements have stimulated and accelerated niches and destabilised the unsustainable incumbent regime in product design. Yet, the requirements' long processes, narrowing assumptions on future developments and difficulties in managing the broader effects have also held the transition back. The recent introduction of circularity-related requirements aims at destabilising the prevailing linear regime, even at shifting the broader landscape of production and consumption. However, the transition towards the circular economy is decelerated by the ensuing, complicated trade-offs and broader repercussions that are difficult to anticipate. The paper thus shows how the role of regulatory instruments in transitions is considerably more complicated than is generally realised. We conclude that the combined analytical approach is useful for better understanding the nuances and intricacies in sustainability transitions. The study highlights how the governance of sustainability transitions towards a more circular economy with regulatory instruments must be comprehensive yet granular: the policymakers need to carefully and systematically consider the steering, accelerating as well as braking roles for all points of intervention.

How justice shapes transition governance – a discourse analysis of Swedish policy debates

In both policy-making and academia, the realisation is growing that transitions striving for sustainability have to be just to be socially accepted. This insight has given rise to institutionalised approaches to a “just transition” – but also beyond these, justice is a key challenge in the governance of sustainability transitions. In this paper, we examine how justice arguments are being used in national-level discourses of transition governance in Sweden. Analysing 121 policy-related documents from 2019 to 2021, we found that justice was discursively treated in a way that essentially stifled change. Political actors attempted to trump each other’s justice claims rather than to genuinely engage with them. Justice concerns that would not serve re-election, such as solidarity across social boundaries, were almost absent from the material. Based on these findings, we critically explore how justice arguments contribute to politicizing transition governance in particular ways, rendering some policy options impossible.

Sustainability Transitions in Supply Chains: Augmenting Agency in Response to Political Tensions

We aim to advance the theory of sustainable supply chains by investigating politically induced structural transitions for sustainability using the case of the palm oil supply chain. We elaborate sustainability transitions mechanisms resulting from key supply chain stakeholders’ efforts to augment their agency for influence in response to political tensions from states and corporations. We find that political tensions render latent influence gaps salient as key supply chain stakeholders feel pressured to respond to criticisms either to fill the institutional gaps or to advance transparency regimes. Our findings contribute to theory, practice, and policy associated with the governance of sustainability transitions in supply chains considering its political economy.

Understanding sustainability transitions for urban informality in the Middle East

ABSTRACT In 2018, UN-Habitat projected the total population of the planet was about 7.632 billion. Fifty-five percent were living in urban areas in which more than 20 percent were said to live in slum areas. Within the era of increasing urbanization, and in the context of Habitat III, this article highlights planning innovation of the sustainability transition in urban informality in the Middle East. Three themes are raised. The first is to trace the recent academic debate on urban informality transitions in the Middle East. The second is to ask whether it possible to borrow new planning innovations from the Global North and apply them in the Global South and Middle East. Finally, the present work considers whether it is possible to link between the theory and the practice of governance of sustainability transitions and urban informality. It concludes that the configuration of urban informality in light of sustainability transitions would enhance the continuous sociotechnical and political transitions in the Middle East.

Energy transitions and uncertainty: Creating low carbon investment opportunities in the UK electricity sector

This paper examines how actors in the UK electricity sector are attempting to deliver investment in low carbon generation. Low carbon technologies, because of their relative immaturity, capital intensity and low operational costs, do not readily fit with existing electricity markets and investment templates which were designed for fossil fuel based energy. We analyse key electricity market and infrastructure policies in the UK and highlight how these are aimed at making low carbon technologies ‘investable’ by reducing uncertainty, managing investment risks and repositioning actors within the electricity socio-technical ‘regime’. We argue that our study can inform contemporary debates on the politics and governance of sustainability transitions by empirically investigating the agency of incumbent regime actors in the face of uncertainty and by offering critical insights on the role of markets and finance in shaping socio-technical change.

Governing sustainability transitions through business model innovation: Towards a systems understanding

This paper examines the role of innovative business models in the transformation of socio-technical systems. Focusing on decentralised energy technologies, we explore business model innovation in the context of a transition towards a more sustainable energy system. We conduct an empirical study of two Energy Services Company (ESCo) models for the deployment of combined heat and power with district heating (CHP/DH) infrastructure in the UK. Based on these case studies we illustrate the different ways in which Local Authorities develop business models to create and capture value from more efficient resource use and to deploy sustainable technologies. Drawing from systems theories in the business model and socio-technical literatures, we analyse the interfaces between business models, energy infrastructure and institutions. We propose that a systems based approach to the analysis of business models as embedded in their socio-technical contexts can offer new insights into the dynamics and governance of sustainability transitions.

Governing Sustainability: A Discourse-Institutional Approach

The paper considers problems and possibilities connected with governing and realising the “transition to sustainability”—or at least to a more deeply resilient energy system. Conceptually its focus is on neo-institutional analysis and critical discourse analysis and the development of a discourse-institutional perspective. The first strand of the paper outlines the limitations of and potential insights into the governance of sustainability transitions that may be derived from adopting an approach based on a more thoroughgoing appreciation and application of work in sociology on neo-institutional theory. The second strand of the paper concerns discourse, recognising the role of text, discursive practice and social structures in framing the possibilities considered available and legitimate for governance. The two strands are brought together in a discourse-institutionalist framework, an approach that is illustrated by a case study of microgeneration in the UK. The paper’s conclusion makes suggestions regarding the conduct of future research employing the proposed approach, and for furthering our understanding of issues connected with the governance of sustainability transitions.

Concluding editorial: Sustainability transitions and their governance: lessons and next-step challenges

In this concluding editorial, we present the central observations regarding the theoretical, empirical and methodological explorations of the various articles that make up this special issue on the governability of societal transitions towards sustainability. We elaborate on the specific contributions of each article to the governance of sustainability transitions and the transition management approach and identify interesting similarities and differences between the various articles. Next, we revisit the guiding questions we formulated in the introductory editorial, and we answer these questions by synthesising the contributions of the eight articles regarding: 1 which theoretical perspectives are fruitful 2 which empirical pathways and governance principles are available and valuable for governing sustainability transitions 3 what we learnt about the governability of sustainability transitions 4 how special sustainability transitions are as far as efforts to govern them are concerned 5 which normative issues are at stake when attempting to govern sustainability transitions. We conclude the present editorial with an agenda of next challenges for both the practice and the study of the governance of sustainability transitions.

Governance of sustainable transitions: about the 4(0) ways to change the world

Transitions are radical system innovations that usually take 1–2 generations. Using Cultural Theory as a heuristic, this paper presents four archetypical approaches to transition management. The fatalist approach refrains from transition management (motto: ‘First, disaster must happen’). The system is in a stalemate that no experiment or hierarchy can break; external events must bring the window of opportunity for change. The hierarchic approach relies on a dominant actor coalition to steer change (motto: ‘Let's put a man on the moon!’). The individualist approach relies mainly on changing the financial ground rules (motto: ‘Sustainability through the market’). Finally, the egalitarian approach relies on process management, doing experiments, etc. (motto: ‘A good transition arena will solve it all’). This approach makes sense if the situation is not clear enough to be managed via one of the other approaches, and there is a clearly identifiable learning objective.