Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions最新文献

Technology valuation processes describe how the value of an innovation is created, embedded and changed for society. They are therefore crucial to understanding a technology's speed of diffusion. Recent literature has highlighted the importance of technology-inherent characteristics for innovation processes, i.e. the creation of new technologies. However, the role of these characteristics in shaping the valuation processes and thereby the diffusion of new technologies remains unclear. To address this gap, we compare valuation processes for two competing technologies - Mini-grids and Solar Home Systems for rural electrification in Rwanda using an inductive case study. We derive three technology-inherent characteristics to explain differences in valuation between the two technologies: (i)the need for customization of technologies; (ii)the networked nature of technologies; and (iii)technological complementarity with mature technologies, which implies a greater valuation effort if the technology is characterized by organizational and institutional non-complementarities. We discuss the implications of our results for decision makers and future research.

State-controlled resources are scarce but crucial for niche support and regime reproduction. Thus, both niche and regime actors are continuously seeking to influence actors holding state power to secure favorable policies and resource allocations. To further the knowledge of this process, this article presents a conceptual framework that elucidates how policies are implicitly negotiated between actors at the niche and regime levels. Using data from the ongoing solar PV –Photovoltaics– rollout in Portugal, the influence strategies of grassroots and commercial energy niches are analyzed together with those of the main incumbent. Integrating insights from transition studies and the policymaking literature, this framework explores the relational aspects of actor agency and anticipation effects, elucidating the indirect forms of influence strategies that niche- and regime-level actors and coalitions use, which entail leveraging the accountability of policymakers towards citizens.

Nearly three-quarters of Australia's electricity generation is coal-dependent with fossil fuel-led electricity contributing to over a third of Australia's CO₂ emissions. Climate change imperatives are calling for permanent shifts to these patterns, leading to early closure announcements of several coal-fired power plants across the country. Although the pace and scale of the energy transition are unprecedented, the closure of large-scale industries is not uncommon. The most recent closure in Australia's industrial past that remains vivid in the nation's collective memory was the end of nearly 70 years of automotive manufacturing.

Drawing on expert consultations, and applying just transitions and transition management thinking, this paper identifies four key insights from the auto sector closure experience. These offer compelling pointers to guide socio-economic transformations in frontline regions that are likely to face challenging, often deeply personal, impacts resulting from the closure of coal-fired power stations over the coming decades.

Water conflicts open windows of opportunity for grassroots movements to transform water systems. However, academic fields studying social movements in socio-environmental conflicts are not well equipped to deal with complexity, non-linear dynamics, and emergent properties. Therefore, these fields rarely engage with long-term complex social processes and dynamics leading to systemic socio-technical changes. Researching water conflicts driven by grassroots movements, we ask whether and how the latter can influence a socio-technical transition of a water management regime. Through an emblematic water conflict in Mexico, we analyse the grassroots movement's trajectory since the conflict´s inception by following the dynamic process of developing agency. Our findings show that throughout the conflict, the grassroots movement accumulated and mobilized diverse capitals to initiate water management strategies and practices that catalysed change in the water management regime by stalling the implementation of large infrastructures. Eventually, this led to the inception of a sustainable and just transition.

The sustainable protein transition within a broader food system transition currently lacks a consistent and coherent policy approach. Policies related to protein production are not aligned with consumption-based policies and are embedded in different jurisdictions. Exemplified by the case of Austria, this study aims to assess the current policy mix and explore how it could be designed to support a sustainable protein transition. We apply the six policy intervention points framework to identify gaps and complement it with the analytical characteristics in/coherence, in/consistency. Results show that the lack of regime destabilising measures, such as targeting reduced meat consumption, is a significant gap in the current policy mix. We see the failure to address the repercussions of regime shifts as the root cause blocking further regime destabilisation. Furthermore, we suggest integrating the element of sequences of intervention points to the framework for future research.

Diverse discourses converge into the importance of broadening the focus of sustainability innovations from merely cleaner technologies to more radical, paradigmatic innovations. Here, we focus on grassroots innovation (GI) as a radical innovation paradigm whose agents, goals and practices are fundamentally different from conventional innovation. Researchers typically attribute GIs the potential to influence the transition toward more sustainable production and consumption. Through a systematic literature review, we find that a research gap in the systematic analysis of GIs’ sustainability persists. We thus propose a meta-theoretical framework to systematise the sustainability assessment of GIs across three system levels: product, organisational model and socio-technical system. Our framework delineates how the theory and tools from sustainability assessment and sustainable business models may enrich sustainability transitions studies in the analysis of grassroots, and more broadly, radical innovation, providing a systems thinking view and increasing the credibility and reflexivity of sustainability arguments in transition studies.

Governance lies at the heart of instigating, steering, and creating the conditions for mission-oriented transitions that potentially help resolve some of our grand societal challenges. In doing so, policymakers will need to navigate both epistemic and normative considerations to develop, implement, and evaluate missions responsibly. A number of scholars have therefore expressed the need for a better conceptualization of responsible mission governance as a procedural approach, particularly with the aim of coping with the complexity, uncertainty, and contestation that render these wicked problems intractable. In this paper we develop an integrative framework for responsible mission governance by taking wickedness dimensions as our entry point. Accordingly, we argue that responsible mission governance should integrate various complementary governance responsibilities (e.g., reflexivity) and modes (e.g., reflexive governance) that potentially improve the effectiveness and desirability of missions. We conclude by discussing urgent avenues for future research

Energy diplomacy is one of the key determinants in achieving net zero emissions by 2050. The traditional concept of energy diplomacy is rooted in national security and fossil fuel supplies, which is disconnected from global efforts to develop and deploy renewables at a pace that can limit global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels. Extant studies have not systematically analyzed the theoretical underpinnings of the form of energy diplomacy that can drive energy transition. This article proposes the concept of ‘renewable energy diplomacy’, which is comprised of four interconnected elements: Collaborative Resource Governance, Digital Trust Building, Energy-Environment Interdependence and Capacity Building. Renewable energy diplomacy provides a theoretical foundation based on environmental peacebuilding to address the critical geopolitical challenges that constrain energy transition.

Decarbonising residential heat is essential for achieving net zero targets. The Netherlands and the UK are embarking on heat transitions from similar starting points, with a heavy dependence on natural gas. However, their governance approaches differ, with local municipal visions and plans playing a lead role in the Netherlands compared with a market-led approach in England and Wales. Scotland occupies an intermediate position. This article focuses on why these differences have arisen through the development of a comparative institutionalist framework. We show that heat transition governance approaches are rooted in institutional arrangements for politics, political economy and the degree of centralisation. Our framework can be applied to heat transition governance approaches more widely, but it is not aimed at evaluating different approaches and an agenda for further research would be to link governance effectiveness to institutional context.

Leading figures in sustainability transitions stress the need for approaches from other fields. A particular blind spot is the role of culture and meaning in transitions. This paper introduces the concept of “religious repertoires” as a means of better understanding what enables and inhibits social change. Existing research on the role of religion in transitions focuses on either particular religions or the benefits of a broadly “religious” or “spiritual” outlook. In contrast, I propose that all societies, institutions, and practices, no matter how secular or rational, can be better understood through the lens of the religious repertoires they perform. While we are not all religious, we do all engage in repertoires that shape our understanding of what is possible and desirable. Attending to these repertoires offers people a richer understanding of: themselves and the transitions that interest them; the factors that enable and inhibit transitions; and how to govern transitions.