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International audience ; The emergence of territorial energy transition policies is an evolving phenomenon, explained by, on one hand, a growing role of local and regional authorities in the control of local energy resources and the fight against climate change; on the other hand, a growing desire on the part of local authorities, enterprises and households, to better control their energy and to become themselves local energy producers. In our paper, we hypothesize that the territorial nature of energy transition policies is not simply linked to the pre-existence of differential resources endowments, but rather to emerging organization and structuring of the resources by local actors. Our article is based on research, funded by the French Energy Council, with the cross analysis of three European cases: Grenoble (France), Bristol (United Kingdom) and Freiburg-Im-Breisgau (Germany).

International audience ; The emergence of territorial energy transition policies is an evolving phenomenon, explained by, on one hand, a growing role of local and regional authorities in the control of local energy resources and the fight against climate change; on the other hand, a growing desire on the part of local authorities, enterprises and households, to better control their energy and to become themselves local energy producers. In our paper, we hypothesize that the territorial nature of energy transition policies is not simply linked to the pre-existence of differential resources endowments, but rather to emerging organization and structuring of the resources by local actors. Our article is based on research, funded by the French Energy Council, with the cross analysis of three European cases: Grenoble (France), Bristol (United Kingdom) and Freiburg-Im-Breisgau (Germany).

International audience ; The emergence of territorial energy transition policies is an evolving phenomenon, explained by, on one hand, a growing role of local and regional authorities in the control of local energy resources and the fight against climate change; on the other hand, a growing desire on the part of local authorities, enterprises and households, to better control their energy and to become themselves local energy producers. In our paper, we hypothesize that the territorial nature of energy transition policies is not simply linked to the pre-existence of differential resources endowments, but rather to emerging organization and structuring of the resources by local actors. Our article is based on research, funded by the French Energy Council, with the cross analysis of three European cases: Grenoble (France), Bristol (United Kingdom) and Freiburg-Im-Breisgau (Germany).

For many, shifting economic and social contexts have created the conditions for a radical reappraisal of the orthodox image of the 'sustainable city'. However, in assessing such potentialities, there is insufficient knowledge about the way in which local actors construct, live out and are gripped by this signifier. This article responds to this deficit by exploring how key actors engaged in urban development actually interpret the challenges of the 'sustainable city'. In part, using a Q methodology study in Bristol and Grenoble, we discern and construct three distinctive discourses of the sustainable city, which we name progressive reformism, public localism, and moral stewardship. Our findings challenge previous critiques of sustainable urbanism. We observe no consistent support for mainstream conceptions of sustainable urban development, but neither do we find significant support for entrepreneurial or radical green localist discourses of the sustainable city. Instead, we identify a common indifference to the tenets of ecological modernization (and, by extension, entrepreneurialism), and a shared skepticism of local self-sufficiency. We thus argue that such discourses offer uncertain foundations upon which to construct new visions of the 'sustainable city'. In our view, this is because of the transformation of the 'sustainable city' from a relatively fixed idea into a floating signifier, coupled with the practices of local practitioners as policy bricoleurs. We conclude that efforts to develop new visions of 'sustainable cities' are best served by fostering an agonistic ethos of 'pragmatic adversarialism' amongst strategic leaders and stakeholders, which foregrounds politics and the right to difference.