Transition Management Approach Research Articles

Smart meter data and equitable energy transitions – can cities play a role?

ABSTRACTThe ability of smart cities to address multiple priorities is currently receiving a great deal of attention from governments, industry and academia; however, there are relatively few explorations of how smart cities will be enacted and the equity implications of various elements of the agenda. This paper aims to begin to address this by considering the case of smart meter data in Great Britain and reviewing the potential for public interest benefits to be realised at both a national and city-scale. In order to interrogate how societal benefits of smart metering might be enabled or constrained at different scales, both transition management approaches to understanding the intricacies of transforming socio-technical systems, and urban governance literatures which explore the problems in aligning “smart” and “sustainable” agendas, are engaged with. The case suggests that there is great potential for smart meter data to deliver public interest benefits and in doing so contribute to equity in energy transitions through promoting the accrual of benefits to collective rather than solely individual or commercial interests. Despite this, under the current smart metering framework city-scale actors are largely excluded from utilising smart metering data unless they partner with a large incumbent company. This suggests that the configuration of national smart metering arrangements could be further embedding a marketised approach to smart cities and demonstrates the complex interlinking of socio-political processes operating across multiple scales in energy transitions.

Reviews, action and learning on change management for ecodesign transition

Corporate sustainability, which has become essential to most companies in the last decades, stipulates that environmental requirements should be incorporated into diverse business processes. To effectively integrate environmental aspects into product innovation processes, companies might have to significantly change some of the practices and habits of all the stakeholders involved and of the organisation. To complement the extensive literature on the (technical) “hard side of ecodesign”, this article explores the promising “soft side”, which considers company culture and human factors, by a multiple step literature review associated with a longitudinal action research in a large cosmetics company. Although a consistent prescriptive change model is still lacking in ecodesign literature, a strong convergence and complementarity is observed between the previous conclusions on ecodesign integration models and the emerging Transition Management approach designed for the sustainability issues faced by organisations. As a result, an “ecodesign transition framework” is proposed by combining a three-level systemic approach, considering both top-down planning and bottom-up innovation, with new types of interaction and dynamic cycles of action and learning, with a deep stakeholder management. This new framework was developed and positively applied to the company in a five-year experience to face the complex transition process, thus advancing the knowledge from social science for innovation and sustainability management challenges. Such approach could positively address change management issues and help companies evolve toward a more effective sustainable product innovation process, in the context of evolving business management practices that require progressive change and more human-based strategies.

Sociotechnical regimes, technological innovation and corporate sustainability: from principles to action

ABSTRACTIncreased environmental and social responsibility awareness, while producing unique opportunities for sustainability-oriented innovations, has generated important challenges for companies. The path to sustainability requires corporate strategies that guarantee profitability, managing simultaneously environmental and social responsibilities. An attempt is made to provide an understanding of sustainable development thinking in business, discussing how the combination of the transition management, adaptive planning and sociotechnical approaches can contribute towards an effective implementation of sustainability-oriented innovations in business context. The article proposes a conceptual model, which incorporates this contribution, developed through a four-year action-research project carried out within a large Brazilian energy company – Petrobras. The authors argue that the adoption of the proposed model by other large firms operating in different societal sectors might trigger organisational changes related to current corporate practices of technological innovation management.

Beyond deconstruction. a reconstructive perspective on sustainability transition governance

This paper reviews criticisms of sustainability transition studies, using transition management (TM) as a case study. While these criticisms have yielded theoretical progress, underlying epistemological issues remain. Contrasting the TM approach to complexity with other more deconstructive views on complexity, it becomes clear that some criticisms on TM are inherently based on a deconstructive questioning of whether complex systems can be influenced into a desired direction. The authors build on those critiques to argue that TM needs to clarify how (1) TM itself harbours deconstructive power (hitherto insufficiently specified), while (2) at the same time having an explicit ambition to ‘go beyond’ deconstruction. To that end, this paper proposes a ‘reconstructive approach’ as an epistemological grounding for transition studies. This reconstructive approach is elaborated on three grounds: (1) a research focus beyond ‘is’ versus ‘ought’ towards ‘can be’, (2) interpretative research and reflexivity, and (3) a ‘phronetic’ understanding of sustainability.

Sustainability transition dynamics: Towards overcoming policy resistance

Sustainability transitions receive major scholarly attention, often explicitly with the intention to develop policy recommendations aimed towards progressing such transitions. Despite these efforts, many implemented transition policies have not been able to meet expectations. This tendency of systems to defeat the policies that have been designed to improve them is known as ‘policy resistance’. This paper addresses the question how we can explain the persistence of policy resistance in the context of sustainability transitions, and aims to bring us a step further in the direction of identifying policies that support overcoming policy resistance. System dynamics is an approach that explicitly addresses policy resistance and we investigate how this approach complements existing transition approaches. As an illustration, we apply the approach to the case of the Dutch energy transition, with the participation of 96 experts. We conclude that system dynamics complements the dominant multi-level perspective and the transition management approach by providing a middle ground between emphasizing agency or structure. Moreover, the approach helps overcoming policy resistance by mapping out the structure of the system responsible for policy resistance, thereby enabling the identification of high leverage points that support sustainability transitions.

Towards a thick understanding of sustainability transitions — Linking transition management, capabilities and social practices

Scientific activities which are targeted to engage and enact on societal problems – and governance of sustainability transition itself is one such activity – are necessarily prescriptive endeavours, have to recognize the fundamental normativity of sustainable development, need to be based on a thick description of the issues to change, and should embrace the multi-dimensional importance that individuals take in societal change. Societally relevant research on and for sustainability transitions therefore has to produce systems, target, as well as transformative knowledge. The challenges of sustainability transitions require furthermore that the individual and the societal levels have to be linked as to relate individual agency and structural change within the different knowledge types.Taking transition management as a rather obvious starting point to enrich the concept of sustainability transitions, the paper elaborates that its conceptual basis is too thin to address the first two types of knowledge. In its current elaborations, transition management does furthermore not cover individual agency as potential driver of transitions. We therefore suggest complementing transition management approaches with the more descriptive practice theory and the more normative and individualistic capability approach. We suggest a heuristic combination that places individuals back into the study of sustainability transitions.

Tailoring business model innovation towards grand challenges

Purpose– This paper aims to focus on the interface between a society in transition and the role, practices and culture of businesses herein, a topic that has scarcely been researched so far. Grand challenges such as energy scarcity and resource depletion will have substantial impacts on the functioning of contemporary business models. Companies, however, still largely focus on efficiency strategies leading to sub-optimal solutions rather than radically changing their business model.Design/methodology/approach– It describes a project that has been run for a social enterprise in which a transition management approach was used to discover their new future role and explore new business concepts that function within the boundaries of significantly different material management principles.Findings– The authors discuss how this case study can contribute to the limited developed empirical research on how businesses can be more proactive in changing the way societal systems operate, and whether the approach can be relevant for transfer to the wider business community.Practical implications– It offers a practical approach for businesses to innovate their business model while taking into regard sustainability issues.Originality/value– The paper combines the transition management framework with business model innovation.

Fostering technological transition to sustainable land management through stakeholder collaboration in the western highlands of Kenya

Application of sustainable land management (SLM) practices is essential to lessen the negative impacts of land degradation on rural welfare in sub-Saharan Africa. Scaling-up of SLM technologies requires collaboration of diverse stakeholders across multiple scales. We follow inter-disciplinary approaches to evaluate prospects for wider promotion of SLM practices in the western highlands of Kenya. Findings from this study reveal that only 10 per cent of farmers are properly implementing the available SLM practices. Agricultural productivity is low and there is high dependence on benefits extracted from the forest resource. A positive correlation (rho=0.8) was found between stakeholder co-operation and success level of SLM projects. Results clearly show reasonable prospects such as some technology adoption activities and organisation of local actors that are necessary for triggering the transformation process to sustainable state of productivity. Nevertheless, technological transition could likely succeed if facilitated by enhanced stakeholder collaboration, a supportive policy environment and substantial resource mobilisation. We suggest the application of a context-specific transition management approach in this area in order to learn lessons on governance of transformative environmental programmes for similar socio-ecological systems in SSA.

Urban Transition Labs: co-creating transformative action for sustainable cities

In a general mindset of ‘local elaboration’ of sustainable development, cities are logical loci for action: they do not only concentrate (future) consumption and production – and are hence at the origin of unsustainability ‘symptoms’-, they simultaneously are the operational units in which concrete actions can be envisaged, designed, (politically) facilitated and effectively rolled out. Whenever cities engage in this innovative, ambitious and responsible task of change for integrated sustainability, an undoubtedly major amount of learning emerges; and vice versa, sound knowledge/best practices on how to proceed with local sustainability oriented change processes could be a firm support for local actors in their quest for effective and efficient action. In this paper, we present ‘Urban Transition Labs’ (UTL) as settings in which real life trajectories of sustainable development in cities are deployed and at the same time carefully observed; in a co-creative collaboration between actors and researchers (transdisciplinary research). Thereby, a transition management approach is applied, resulting in a cycle of five distinct phases: (a) process design and system analysis, (b) problem structuring and envisioning, (c) back casting, determining major pathways and agenda setting, (d) experimenting and (e) monitoring and evaluation. The process is guided by a ‘Transition-team’ that co-designs the process and feeds in relevant information to the city transition ‘arenas’. These arenas are the actual initial incubators of change; they are crewed by local frontrunners that are considered as engaged visionary people with diverse backgrounds. The findings of arenas feed a further participatory process to engage the relevant city stakeholders into action. In this paper, we want to present the UTL as a potentially valuable concept to support a ‘walking-the-talk’ of sustainable development by cities; and we share the first impressions on specific barriers and enablers that could determine the effectiveness of the envisaged approach.

Business transition management: exploring a new role for business in sustainability transitions

This paper explores the co-evolution between societal sustainability transitions and fundamental shifts within individuals businesses. We argue that there is an emergent trend of businesses and industries that move beyond optimizing the organization's individual performance by mitigating negative environmental and social impacts, to fundamentally restructuring and rethinking existing businesses in light of broader societal changes. Arguably, the frontrunner businesses that orient themselves towards sustainable market transitions develop a competitive advantage by co-creating these sustainable markets and on the short term develop renewed ambition and enthusiasm. By means of the transition framework, we argue that the fundamental societal changes emerging lead to a new phase in corporate responsibility, implying fundamental transitions within businesses. Based on this perspective and the transition management approach we explore how businesses might proactively engage with sustainability transitions in their direct context and link these to internal business transitions. We illustrate this framework of business transition management in a number of interlinked activities based on an experimental participatory case study of the transition in the Dutch roof sector.

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.

On the New Social Relations around and beyond Food. Analysing Consumers' Role and Action in Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale (Solidarity Purchasing Groups)

AbstractThis article aims at analysing the features and the dynamics of those alternative agri‐food networks in which consumers act as initiators. Drawing on a survey of ongoing initiatives at national level and on evidence from empirical fieldwork in a specific territorial context showing a variegated and dynamic reality at this regard (Tuscany), the article analyses consumers' evolving attitudes and behaviour, around and even beyond food, unfolding during their involvement in these initiatives. In particular, it focuses on the experience of the solidarity‐based purchasing groups, consumers' organisations promoted by groups of citizens aiming at getting control of the food they consume. Using an actor–network perspective, the article analyses how purchasing and consumption routines change when consumers join these initiatives. The article also discusss the potential of these initiatives as drivers of change along with the following questions: to what extent do these initiatives challenge dominant food practices and system governance? On what basis are these initiatives sustainable and are replicable in different contexts? How can they foster other forms of civic engagement? In this regard, the article tests a transition management approach, considering solidarity‐based purchasing groups as socio‐technical niches within broader socio‐technical regimes in a macro landscape characterised by the globalisation of the food system. In particular, it analyses the critical points where niches enter in conflict with existing socio‐technical regimes, and the way in which these groups act to remove legal, technological and cultural barriers to their development.

Pathways to power: Policy transitions and the reappearance of the nuclear power option in Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan, a Canadian prairie province, has recently begun to restructure the provincial energy system. The institutional, technological and social bases of the Saskatchewan power regime have been disrupted by both exogenous pressures and endogenous problems, providing an opportunity for alternative energy options to be considered as possible power alternatives. As the province addresses the long-term socio-technical transition (STR) associated with a regime change in the power sector a number of alternative energy options have been identified. Using a transition management approach, this paper argues that the path taken will depend very much on whether these alternatives can be adopted as modifications of the existing STR – leaving the key actors, institutions and relationships essentially untouched – or whether they will necessitate a wholesale reconstruction of the regime itself. In this paper we analyze how, over time, the socio-technical configurations of the energy system became very durable as existing technologies become embedded in regulatory frameworks, infrastructure, users practices and expert communities. We then consider the potential of several alternative technological trajectories and the likelihood of one of these socio technical regimes emerging in Saskatchewan.

Towards governing infrasystem transitions: Reinforcing lock-in or facilitating change?

This paper investigates the interplay between changes in infrastructural systems (or infrasystems) and societal context. The driving question of this paper is whether infrasystems which are inherently rigid and hard to change radically are likely to block desired transitions to sustainability, or that there are pathways in which infrasystem changes might be utilized as drivers for accelerating desired transitions. Based on synthesizing insights from research on infrastructures and on transitions, we present a typology for identifying different types of infrasystems (infrasystem architectures), what underlies infrasystem complexity (infrasystem interplays), and how infrasystems might respond to change in the form of alternative pathways. Our exploratory effort draws together different literatures in order to formulate a number of guiding conceptualizations and transition strategies for further debate and experiment. Our analysis suggests that an infrasystem transition depends on infrasystem architecture and on actors (regulators, planners versus users) given the multi-actor setting of infrasystems. We show that the transition management approach offers interesting insights when analyzing infrasystem change and that the topic of infrasystem transitions is highly relevant and needs to be further explored within the transitions field.

‘Energy regions’: The transformative power of regional discourses on socio-technical futures

‘Guiding visions’ play an important role in the transition management approach as a central means of mobilizing social actors and the co-ordination of dispersed agency. ‘Energy regions’ in Austria are an interesting example for the strategic promotion of such guiding visions in the context of regional development. We describe the case of Murau, an alpine district in which a strong actor network has been built around a vision of systematically exploiting renewable energy sources and at the same time saving the region from economic decay. The vision gained much authority and has been institutionalised at various levels of regional governance. It furthermore was supported by and played an important role for regime level attempts to influence socio-technical change. Development and social propagation of such visions are inherently political and contested processes involving much strategizing and anticipation of conflict. We describe particular discursive strategies applied in niches – such as the combination and translation of sentiments into localised visions and demonstrations of feasibility. These strategies can be understood as systematic attempts to support discursive shifts at regime level by means of local activities, and aim to modify rather durable power structures. We suggest ways to analyse such discursive practices in order to orient strategic action in the course of such processes: analysing ‘guiding visions’ and their interference with other emerging trends; extending analyses across spatial scales (e.g. translations) and across thematic fields (e.g. convergence of agendas); and focusing on processes of stabilisation, institutionalisation and mutually reinforcing developments.

The Politics of Social-ecological Resilience and Sustainable Socio-technical Transitions

Technology-focused literature on socio-technical transitions shares some of the complex systems sensibilities of social-ecological systems research. We contend that the sharing of lessons between these areas of study must attend particularly to the common governance challenges that confront both approaches. Here, we focus on critical experience arising from reactions to a transition management approach to governing sustainable socio-technical transformations. Questions over who governs, whose system framings count, and whose sustainability gets prioritized are all pertinent to social-ecological systems research. We conclude that future research in both areas should deal more centrally and explicitly with these inherently political dimensions of sustainability.

Governing long‐term social–ecological change: what can the adaptive management and transition management approaches learn from each other?

AbstractMaintaining social welfare and opportunity in the face of severe ecological pressures requires frameworks for managing and governing long‐term social–ecological change. In this paper we analyse two recent frameworks, adaptive management and transition management, outlining what they could learn from each other. Though usually applied in different domains, the two conceptual frameworks aim to integrate bottom‐up and top‐down approaches, and share a focus on the ability of systems to learn and develop adaptive capacity whilst facing external shocks and long‐term pressures. Both also emphasize learning from experimentation in complex systems, but transition management focuses more on the ability to steer long‐term changes in system functions, whilst adaptive management emphasizes the maintenance of system functions in the face of external change. The combination of iterative learning and stakeholder participation from adaptive management has the potential to incorporate vital feedbacks into transition management, which in turn offers a longer‐term perspective from which to learn about and manage socio‐technical and social–ecological change. It is argued that by combining insights from both frameworks it may be possible to foster more robust and resilient governance of social–ecological systems than could be achieved by either approach alone. The paper concludes by critically reflecting upon the challenges and benefits of combining elements of each approach, as has been attempted in the methodology of a research project investigating social–ecological change in UK uplands. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

South Africa’s largest public sector pension funds: a collective developmental role?

As significant long-term domestic investors, South Africa‟s largest public sector pension funds have an interest in helping South Africa move onto a sustainable development path. However, this paper tentatively concludes that, although there is a possible collective developmental role for these funds, this is unlikely to occur unless leadership from government or the funds emerges. If a leadership role is chosen, government should probably focus on a transition management approach to sustainable development, trustees on the implementation of long-term investment policies, and the members of the investment community on a high leverage initiative, possibly linked to the Financial Sector Charter review. Some of the tentative conclusions reached in this paper also provide pointers for overseas pension funds and their stakeholders. Firstly, governments could support collective action between the largest public sector pension funds globally, and in return develop an unusually powerful long-term voice in support of a transition to sustainability. Secondly, a more significant role for these funds will highlight the issue of prioritisation, and the development of legitimate processes is likely to be needed. Thirdly, full implementation of genuinely long-term investment policies will probably lead to significant changes in the role funds play in the investment industry, possibly including the establishment of their own investment co-operatives.

Leapfrogging into the future: developing for sustainability

It has become almost a platitude that radical and sustainable improvement of need-fulfillment has to be reached in one generation to prevent the possibility that Nature will break down under the combined pressure of population growth and growth in wealth per capita. This requires 'radical' or 'system' innovations. In this respect, there is an important difference between consumer economies such as Europe, the EU and Japan, emerging economies such as China and Malaysia in Asia and bottom-of-the-pyramid economies where people survive on 1-2 dollars a day: • In consumer economies, the physical economic infrastructure is already fully developed, which often causes important 'lock-in' problems with regard to realising radical change. • In emerging economies (which might bring about the biggest leap in environmental pressure) this infrastructure, by and large, still has to be built up, so that, in theory, there is much more freedom to design sustainable systems from the onset. • In bottom of the pyramid economies, markets are so different that copying Western market systems is factually quite difficult, although examples and innovative solutions are required anyway. But is this 'leapfrogging', particularly by emerging economies, while theoretically possible and practically desirable, really going to happen? Current experiences are not encouraging: 'dinosaur' industries such as the car industry are invited to invest heavily in countries such as China leading to a transplantation of existing problematic transport infrastructures. This paper argues that, where Western countries need a system innovation and transition management approach to realise a change to sustainability, emerging economies would have to apply something very similar to ensure that the larger flexibility they have is indeed used to leapfrog to sustainable systems. This implies that functions such as visioning, indicative planning, foresight and reflexive governance have to be fostered to ensure that foreign and national investments are used to create sustainable systems.

A new angle on coping with change: managing transition!

Outlines the importance of dissociating change issues from transition issues within organizations. Presents some transition triggers and shows how they can affect people in their job. Describes a five‐stage model of the transition dynamic, with examples of how people live through organizational transitions. Gives some ideas for addressing these issues and building a transition management approach.