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This paper uses an analysis of stakeholders in the shipping industry to assess the potential for low carbon ships to enter trades such as tankers and bulkers and to trigger a sustainability transition in maritime transport. An innovation system must perform innovation functions: development, entrepreneurship, deployment of resources and legitimation successfully in order to develop. The developments in LNG are compared to wind assistance technologies and an assessment of possible transitions pathways made. LNG is devloping an effective innovation system. LNG ships are being build and classed and are now in operation. However, infrastructure is still limited an the technology is not yet commercially viable without subsidies. It is being adopted and may soon enter full market deployment, driven by environmental legislation. Wind power in ships faces significant barriers, but offers a greater potential for emissions reduction and should therefore be supported to enable demonstrators to show their practicability in modern global logistics systems. The main barrier is the need to restructure sipping operations to take full advantage of wind power, with slower transit speeds and real time routing to maximise the eneregy input from wind.

This article assesses the potential contribution for international shipping and long-haul aviation to contribute to sustainable development (SD). The trade literature shows that newly industrializing countries are benefitting from international trade for export-led growth. However, the least developed countries with limited access to international trade networks do not participate in the new global production networks. The World Trade Organization/General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change regimes do not have the development of more sustainable transport systems as a priority. In this sense, international transport remains on the fringes of the environment and development policy fields. Three transition pathways to SD have been developed: (a) information and telecommunications technologies leading to particip.ation of least developed countries in global production networks, (b) changes in social preferences toward a high priority for the environment, leading to an extensive growth in fair-trade networks and sustainable production and consumption, and (c) SD from economic growth in newly industrializing countries, with an increased priority placed on solving environmental problems.

The paper asks how the modal shift from road to rail in the freight sector is supported by institutional change. Following North (1990), institutions are understood as the 'rules of the game' in the rail freight sector. Based on the literature on institutional change, four different perspectives and mechanisms can be discerned: institutional design, collective action, institutional adaptation, and institutional diffusion. Each of these perspectives examines the situation in the German rail freight sector from a different angle. Based on this analysis, processes of institutional change and their potential impact on modal shift are discussed. Following the railway reform, new domestic and foreign competitors of DB Cargo have entered the rail freight market with business models tailored to promising segments. At the same time, this competition has triggered a transformative organisational change initiative at DB Cargo, which is currently in the process of implementation. Even though the success of this initiatives is highly uncertain, in total, the described changes are likely to result in a higher competitiveness of the sector and a stronger orientation to customer needs. Furthermore, the road freight sector has increasingly come under political pressure due to its rising GHG emissions and rail transport is increasingly seen as a viable alternative. In this respect, the recently published Master Plan for Rail Transport acts on many requirements of the railway sector and foresees a reduction of financial burdens, capacity extensions, and technological innovation. Overall, however, the analysis suggests that the current rate of institutional change may not be sufficient to cause the far-reaching changes necessary for a large scale transformation of the modal split of freight transport.

Sustainability transitions take place across geographical and political levels. Services such as energy supply, water supply and wastewater management or housing are part of daily life have to be provided at the district level within larger urban governance structures or by smaller rural administrations. However, relatively little attention has been given to the analysis of these local structures. This paper reviews case studies of niches in the areas of district heat networks, communal housing projects for the elderly and sustainable water/wastewater management. The paper addresses the following research questions: 1. What are the similarities and differences in the case study's drivers and barriers that have arisen between the fields of action and what conclusions can be drawn from these insights in order to maximize success factors or to minimize obstacles in advance? 2. What are the key factors for transition, also with regard to the synergies of the three fields of action? 3. What is the stage of development of the niches? Are they in a transition process or not? District heat networks are established as a niche, but given the current policy and financial environment are developing very slowly. Communal housing projects are a small part of the overall housing market, but the niche is stable and growing. Waste water separation and new rain water management systems are developing as niches, but the centralised management of decentralised waste water treatment has so far only been adopted in a few cases. These niches are all critically dependent on support from the district authorities. High complexity and inconsistency in legal frameworks, and missing financial re-sources present significant barriers for innovative niche projects. They usually re-quire new, specific financial support to enable the change from conventional systems. These groups face a difficult period of developing their expertise in planning and management and often require financial support and advice. Consultancy networks - if available - have been shown to be important in enabling such pro-jects to establish themselves. As all three case studies rely on infrastructure components, stakeholders need to consider windows of opportunities for innovation. Acceptance and trust are additional factors influencing the projects. Therefore, constructive and goal-oriented 'interaction' and communication between the stakeholders on district and project level are key factors for success. It is important to share data and information to guarantee an early integration of important stakeholders, including the public.

Government policies to reduce environmental pollution and global warming are often criticized as damaging to the economy, particularly by reducing international competitiveness. This book addresses the issue by examining many of the policies concerned, and their effects on competitiveness. It demonstrates that well-designed, market-oriented environmental policies may be expected to improve both domestic and international competitiveness. The authors dismiss the fear that environmental policies will damage competitiveness by approaching the issue from four different perspectives: the economic analysis of competitiveness; a geo-economic approach to trade and foreign investment between Europe, NAFTA and Southeast Asia; studies of the effects of environmental policies on competitiveness; and the formal modelling of carbon taxation, international competitiveness and carbon leakage. The book also includes results from a global econometric model on the potential for carbon leakage, a detailed case study of German national policies, an examination of life cycle analysis and competitiveness, and an empirical study of green product development. This book will be of great interest to academics working in the field of environmental economics and researchers involved in environmental policy

The paper asks how the modal shift from road to rail in the freight sector is sup-ported by institutional change. Following North (1990), institutions are understood as the "rules of the game" in the rail freight sector. Based on the literature on institutional change, four different perspectives and mechanisms can be dis-cerned: institutional design, collective action, institutional adaptation, and institu-tional diffusion. Each of these perspectives examines the situation in the German rail freight sector from a different angle. Based on this analysis, processes of institutional change and their potential impact on modal shift are discussed. Fol-lowing the railway reform, new domestic and foreign competitors of DB Cargo have entered the rail freight market with business models tailored to promising segments. At the same time, this competition has triggered a transformative or-ganisational change initiative at DB Cargo, which is currently in the process of implementation. Even though the success of this initiatives is highly uncertain, in total, the described changes are likely to result in a higher competitiveness of the sector and a stronger orientation to customer needs. Furthermore, the road freight sector has increasingly come under political pressure due to its rising GHG emissions and rail transport is increasingly seen as a viable alternative. In this respect, the recently published Master Plan for Rail Transport acts on many re-quirements of the railway sector and foresees a reduction of financial burdens, capacity extensions, and technological innovation. Overall, however, the analysis suggests that the current rate of institutional change may not be sufficient to cause the far-reaching changes necessary for a large scale transformation of the modal split of freight transport. ; Working Paper 3 of the study LowCarb-RFC - European Rail Freight Corridors going Carbon Neutral.

Sustainability transitions take place across geographical and political levels. Services such as energy supply, water supply and wastewater management or housing are part of daily life have to be provided at the district level within larger urban governance structures or by smaller rural administrations. However, relatively little attention has been given to the analysis of these local structures. This paper reviews case studies of niches in the areas of district heat networks, communal housing projects for the elderly and sustainable water/wastewater management. The paper addresses the following research questions: 1. What are the similarities and differences in the case study's drivers and barriers that have arisen between the fields of action and what conclusions can be drawn from these insights in order to maximize success factors or to minimize obstacles in advance? 2. What are the key factors for transition, also with regard to the synergies of the three fields of action? 3. What is the stage of development of the niches? Are they in a transition process or not? District heat networks are established as a niche, but given the current policy and financial environment are developing very slowly. Communal housing projects are a small part of the overall housing market, but the niche is stable and growing. Waste water separation and new rain water management systems are developing as niches, but the centralised management of decentralised waste water treatment has so far only been adopted in a few cases. These niches are all critically dependent on support from the district authorities. High complexity and inconsistency in legal frameworks, and missing financial re-sources present significant barriers for innovative niche projects. They usually require new, specific financial support to enable the change from conventional systems. These groups face a difficult period of developing their expertise in planning and management and often require financial support and advice. Consultancy networks - if available - have been shown to be important in enabling such pro-jects to establish themselves. As all three case studies rely on infrastructure components, stakeholders need to consider windows of opportunities for innovation. Acceptance and trust are additional factors influencing the projects. Therefore, constructive and goal-oriented "interaction" and communication between the stakeholders on district and project level are key factors for success. It is important to share data and information to guarantee an early integration of important stakeholders, including the public. Projects in all three areas have the ambition of improved sustainability, although data on the actual impact is limited. The housing projects can be argued to contribute to sustainability in all three areas: environmental, social and economic. The district heat networks are supposed to reduce environmental impacts compared to current systems, but there was insufficient monitoring information to be certain that this is the case. The alternative water management systems all make a contribution to environmental sustainability and can be shown to be economically viable. If successful, projects in all three sectors can strengthen local social structures. Economic sustainability is a necessary condition for the success of projects in all three areas and this requires financial support and resources that are not available through the conventional housing, energy or water services market institutions. While projects on district and household level are fundamental to a sustainability transition, efforts for upscaling their impacts (Luederitz et al. 2017) are just as important. The challenges for actors on local to global scale are to learn from different narratives and adapt different perspectives, build unconventional alliances and collaborations to implement innovative, creative and intelligent solutions for a sustainability transition on a larger scale (Luederitz et al. 2017; Wittmayer et al. 2016; Brown et al. 2013). ; Werkstattbericht Nr. 9 in the TRANSNIK project - This work was funded by the BMBF (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research) through the TRANSNIK project (funding reference 01UT1417A-C).