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Working paper
What opportunities could the COVID-19 outbreak offer for sustainability transitions research on electricity and mobility?
The COVID-19 pandemic is a major landscape shock that is having pervasive effects across socio-technical systems. Due to its recentness, sustainability scientists and other researchers have only started to investigate the implications of this crisis. The COVID-19 outbreak presents a unique opportunity to analyze in real time the effects of a protracted landscape-scale perturbation on the trajectories of sustainability transitions. In this perspective, we explore the ramifications for sustainability transition research on electricity and mobility, drawing from selected examples in Finland and Sweden. The long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to trigger more permanent changes connected to the digitalization of work and other daily activities, thus reducing mobility needs and overall fossil-energy consumption. The crisis may encourage governance systems to be better prepared for different types of shocks in the future, while it also contains a threat of increasingly populist or undemocratic political responses and increased securitization. These developments can guide research by addressing the reproduction of new practices arising from the COVID-19 outbreak to accelerate sustainability transitions, enhancing understanding of the role of governance in transitions, and bringing to attention the ethical and political implications of landscape shocks.
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What opportunities could the COVID-19 outbreak offer for sustainability transitions research on electricity and mobility?
The COVID-19 pandemic is a major landscape shock that is having pervasive effects across socio-technical systems. Due to its recentness, sustainability scientists and other researchers have only started to investigate the implications of this crisis. The COVID-19 outbreak presents a unique opportunity to analyze in real time the effects of a protracted landscape-scale perturbation on the trajectories of sustainability transitions. In this perspective, we explore the ramifications for sustainability transition research on electricity and mobility, drawing from selected examples in Finland and Sweden. The long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to trigger more permanent changes connected to the digitalization of work and other daily activities, thus reducing mobility needs and overall fossil-energy consumption. The crisis may encourage governance systems to be better prepared for different types of shocks in the future, while it also contains a threat of increasingly populist or undemocratic political responses and increased securitization. These developments can guide research by addressing the reproduction of new practices arising from the COVID-19 outbreak to accelerate sustainability transitions, enhancing understanding of the role of governance in transitions, and bringing to attention the ethical and political implications of landscape shocks. ; Funding agencies: Erasmus + Programme of the European Union (Project S4S - ScaleUp4Sustainability); Biogas Research Center (BRC); Academy of FinlandAcademy of Finland [322667]
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Intermediating policy for transitions towards net-zero energy buildings
Highlights • Creating an analytical framework of intermediating transitions in the policy cycle. • Analyses intermediation in 2 building energy efficiency policy processes in Finland. • Advocating visions and influencing policy options part of intermediating to policy. • Policy translation and training as vital intermediation functions in implementation. • Intermediation deterring policy change contains inaction, disinterest or deceit. ; The roles of intermediaries in sustainability transitions are increasingly recognised. How intermediaries advance transitions vis-a-vis public policy has, however, received little attention. Thus, we create an analytical framework of intermediating policy processes, drawing from transition and policy cycle literatures. We apply this to investigate two policy processes pertaining to Finland's building energy efficiency. The findings show how the central role of the Ministry of the Environment and high political attention have reduced the need for intermediation by external organisations in agenda setting and policy formulation. However, intermediaries external to the Ministry have been vital in facilitating policy implementation. The cases show that facilitating training as an intermediary activity can be undertaken by different organisations, such as a trade union, a government agency or an education committee. Based on our analysis, we argue that, when political attention on transitions is low, the need for intermediary action is likely to be higher.
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Intermediating policy for transitions towards net-zero energy buildings
The roles of intermediaries in sustainability transitions are increasingly recognised. How intermediaries advance transitions vis-a-vis public policy has, however, received little attention. Thus, we create an analytical framework of intermediating policy processes, drawing from transition and policy cycle literatures. We apply this to investigate two policy processes pertaining to Finland's building energy efficiency. The findings show how the central role of the Ministry of the Environment and high political attention have reduced the need for intermediation by external organisations in agenda setting and policy formulation. However, intermediaries external to the Ministry have been vital in facilitating policy implementation. The cases show that facilitating training as an intermediary activity can be undertaken by different organisations, such as a trade union, a government agency or an education committee. Based on our analysis, we argue that, when political attention on transitions is low, the need for intermediary action is likely to be higher.
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Guides or gatekeepers? Incumbent-oriented transition intermediaries in a low-carbon era
Transitions intermediaries—agents who connect diverse groups of actors involved in transitions processes and their skills, resources and expectations—are becoming more prominent in research on low-carbon transitions. Most work, however, has focused on their ability to push innovations or emerging technologies forward, emphasising their involvement in disrupting incumbent regimes or firms. However, in focusing on new entrants, often at the grassroots level, such literature runs the risk of overlooking the potentially positive role that incumbent transition intermediaries—those oriented to work with or centrally consider the interests of dominant government, market or civic stakeholders—can play in meeting sustainable energy and transport goals. In this paper, we focus specifically on five different incumbent transition intermediaries—Smart Energy GB in the United Kingdom, Energiesprong in the Netherlands, SULPU in Finland, CERTU in France, and the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association in Norway—and explain their efforts to meet socially desirable goals of accelerating innovation or decarbonizing energy or transport systems. We ask: Why were these intermediaries created, and what problems do they respond to? How do they function? What are their longer-term visions and strategies? What are their longer-term strategies and aspirations? In what ways do they reflect, reinforce, or otherwise shape incumbency? In answering these questions via a comparative case study approach, the paper aims to make contributions to the study of incumbency intermediation in the context of transitions, to identifying different types of incumbent intermediaries (market, governmental, civic), and to informing debates over energy and climate policy and politics.
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Guides or gatekeepers?:Incumbent-oriented transition intermediaries in a low-carbon era
In: Sovacool , B K , Turnheim , B , Martiskainen , M , Brown , D & Kivimaa , P 2020 , ' Guides or gatekeepers? Incumbent-oriented transition intermediaries in a low-carbon era ' , Energy Research and Social Science , vol. 66 , 101490 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101490
Transitions intermediaries—agents who connect diverse groups of actors involved in transitions processes and their skills, resources and expectations—are becoming more prominent in research on low-carbon transitions. Most work, however, has focused on their ability to push innovations or emerging technologies forward, emphasising their involvement in disrupting incumbent regimes or firms. However, in focusing on new entrants, often at the grassroots level, such literature runs the risk of overlooking the potentially positive role that incumbent transition intermediaries—those oriented to work with or centrally consider the interests of dominant government, market or civic stakeholders—can play in meeting sustainable energy and transport goals. In this paper, we focus specifically on five different incumbent transition intermediaries—Smart Energy GB in the United Kingdom, Energiesprong in the Netherlands, SULPU in Finland, CERTU in France, and the Norwegian Electric Vehicle Association —and explain their efforts to meet socially desirable goals of accelerating innovation or decarbonizing energy or transport systems. We ask: Why were these intermediaries created, and what problems do they respond to? How do they function? What are their longer-term strategies and aspirations? In what ways do they reflect, reinforce, or otherwise shape incumbency? In answering these questions via a comparative case study approach, the paper aims to make contributions to the study of incumbency and intermediation in the context of transitions, to identifying different types of incumbent intermediaries (market, governmental, civic), and to informing debates over energy and climate policy and politics.
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Governance through expectations: Examining the long-term policy relevance of smart meters in the United Kingdom
In: Futures, Band 109, S. 153-169
Promoting sustainable energy : Does institutional entrepreneurship help?
Institutional entrepreneurship research has described and conceptualized dramatic cases of successful institutional change. We know less about whether it can help people trying to change institutions, for example, struggling to change the energy system. Do concepts from the institutional entrepreneurship literature offer sustainable energy practitioners insights on the political aspects of their work? And vice-versa: do practitioners have useful insights on the potential and limits of agency in institutional change? The present study contributes to these questions through collaborative inquiry together with government-affiliated organizations with a mission to promote sustainable energy. The results suggest that concepts from the institutional entrepreneurship literature do serve to make practitioners' implicit competencies explicit and hence a legitimate subject for organizational development and joint learning about the political aspects of energy systems change. We conclude that institutional entrepreneurship appears to require a form of organizing that combines environmental scanning, grand strategy and everyday tactical moves on the ground. ; Peer reviewed
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Promoting sustainable energy: does institutional entrepreneurship help?
Institutional entrepreneurship research has described and conceptualized dramatic cases of successful institutional change. We know less about whether it can help people trying to change institutions, for example, struggling to change the energy system. Do concepts from the institutional entrepreneurship literature offer sustainable energy practitioners insights on the political aspects of their work? And vice-versa: do practitioners have useful insights on the potential and limits of agency in institutional change? The present study contributes to these questions through collaborative inquiry together with government-affiliated organizations with a mission to promote sustainable energy. The results suggest that concepts from the institutional entrepreneurship literature do serve to make practitioners' implicit competencies explicit and hence a legitimate subject for organizational development and joint learning about the political aspects of energy systems change. We conclude that institutional entrepreneurship appears to require a form of organizing that combines environmental scanning, grand strategy and everyday tactical moves on the ground.
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Towards a typology of intermediaries in sustainability transitions: A systematic review and a research agenda
In: Research Policy, Band 48, Heft 4, S. 1062-1075
Developing policy pathways: Redesigning transition arenas for mid-range planning
Sustainability transitions require new policy pathways that significantly reduce the environmental impacts caused by, for example, energy production, mobility and food production. Transition management (TM) is one of the approaches aiming at the creation of new ways to govern transitions. It uses transitions arenas (TA) as a key process and platform where new policy pathways are created in collaboration with multiple (frontrunner) stakeholders. TM's ambitious and demanding agenda is not easy to implement. There is a continued need for testing and developing new ways of carrying out its key processes. We redesigned the TA process in the context of energy system change in Finland by 2030, focusing on interim goals, mid-range change pathways and developing a new notation system that allows participants to directly create the pathways. The resulting renewed TA process results in more specific and detailed mid-range pathways that provide more concreteness to how to implement long-term transition goals. It helps tobridge longterm national visions/strategies and low carbon experiments that are already running. The Finnish TA work created eight ambitious change pathways, pointing towards new and revised policy goals for Finland and identifying specific policy actions. Evaluation of the TA, 6-9 months after its completion underscores that an effective TA needs to be embedded by design in the particular political context that it seeks to influence. It is too early to say to what degree the pathways will be followed in practice but there are positive signs already. ; Peer reviewed
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Developing policy pathways: redesigning transition arenas for mid-range planning
Sustainability transitions require new policy pathways that significantly reduce the environmental impacts caused by, for example, energy production, mobility and food production. Transition management (TM) is one of the approaches aiming at the creation of new ways to govern transitions. It uses transitions arenas (TA) as a key process and platform where new policy pathways are created in collaboration with multiple (frontrunner) stakeholders. TM's ambitious and demanding agenda is not easy to implement. There is a continued need for testing and developing new ways of carrying out its key processes. We redesigned the TA process in the context of energy system change in Finland by 2030, focusing on interim goals, mid-range change pathways and developing a new notation system that allows participants to directly create the pathways. The resulting renewed TA process results in more specific and detailed mid-range pathways that provide more concreteness to how to implement long-term transition goals. It helps to bridge long-term national visions/strategies and low carbon experiments that are already running. The Finnish TA work created eight ambitious change pathways, pointing towards new and revised policy goals for Finland and identifying specific policy actions. Evaluation of the TA, 6–9 months after its completion underscores that an effective TA needs to be embedded by design in the particular political context that it seeks to influence. It is too early to say to what degree the pathways will be followed in practice but there are positive signs already.
BASE
Developing Policy Pathways : Redesigning Transition Arenas for Mid-Range Planning
Sustainability transitions require new policy pathways that significantly reduce the environmental impacts caused by, for example, energy production, mobility and food production. Transition management (TM) is one of the approaches aiming at the creation of new ways to govern transitions. It uses transitions arenas (TA) as a key process and platform where new policy pathways are created in collaboration with multiple (frontrunner) stakeholders. TM's ambitious and demanding agenda is not easy to implement. There is a continued need for testing and developing new ways of carrying out its key processes. We redesigned the TA process in the context of energy system change in Finland by 2030, focusing on interim goals, mid-range change pathways and developing a new notation system that allows participants to directly create the pathways. The resulting renewed TA process results in more specific and detailed mid-range pathways that provide more concreteness to how to implement long-term transition goals. It helps to bridge long-term national visions/strategies and low carbon experiments that are already running. The Finnish TA work created eight ambitious change pathways, pointing towards new and revised policy goals for Finland and identifying specific policy actions. Evaluation of the TA, 6–9 months after its completion underscores that an effective TA needs to be embedded by design in the particular political context that it seeks to influence. It is too early to say to what degree the pathways will be followed in practice but there are positive signs already ; Peer reviewed
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An agenda for sustainability transitions research:state of the art and future directions
In: Köhler , J , Geels , F W , Kern , F , Markard , J , Wieczorek , A , Alkemade , F , Avelino , F , Bergek , A , Boons , F , Fünfschilling , L , Hess , D , Holtz , G , Hyysalo , S , Jenkins , K , Kivimaa , P , Martiskainen , M , McMeekin , A , Mühlemeier , M S , Nykvist , B , Onsongo , E , Pel , B , Raven , R , Rohracher , H , Sandén , B , Schot , J , Sovacool , B , Turnheim , B , Welch , D & Wells , P 2019 , ' An agenda for sustainability transitions research : state of the art and future directions ' , Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions , vol. 31 , pp. 1-32 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2019.01.004
Research on sustainability transitions has expanded rapidly in the last ten years, diversified in terms of topics and geographical applications, and deepened with respect to theories and methods. This article provides an extensive review and an updated research agenda for the field, classified into nine main themes: understanding transitions; power, agency and politics; governing transitions; civil society, culture and social movements; businesses and industries; transitions in practice and everyday life; geography of transitions; ethical aspects; and methodologies. The review shows that the scope of sustainability transitions research has broadened and connections to established disciplines have grown stronger. At the same time, we see that the grand challenges related to sustainability remain unsolved, calling for continued efforts and an acceleration of ongoing transitions. Transition studies can play a key role in this regard by creating new perspectives, approaches and understanding and helping to move society in the direction of sustainability.
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