Energy Transition in the Baltic Sea Region

This book analyses the potential for active stakeholder engagement in the energy transition in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) in order to foster clean energy deployment. Public acceptability and bottom-up activities can be critical for enduring outcomes to an energy transition. As a result, it is vital to understand how to unlock the potential for public, community and prosumer participation to facilitate renewable energy deployment and a clean energy transition – and, consequently, to examine the factors influencing social acceptability. Focussing on the diverse BSR, this book draws on expert contributions to consider a range of different topics, including the challenges of social acceptance and its policy implications; strategies to address challenges of acceptability among stakeholders; and community engagement in clean energy production. Overall, the authors examine the practical implications of current policy measures and provide recommendations on how lessons learnt from this ‘energy lab region’ may be applied to other regions. Reflecting an interdisciplinary approach in the social sciences, this book is an essential resource for scholars, students and policymakers researching and working in the areas of renewable energy, energy policy and citizen engagement, and interested in understanding the potential for bottom-up, grassroots activities and social acceptability to expedite the energy transition and reanimate democracies

Production of 30 National Summary briefs : Deliverable 2.5

This document (ENERGISE D2.5) provides an overview of national energy and supply dynamics across 30 European countries. The Deliverable encompasses reviews of the current state of the art and existing trends in national energy policies, energy systems and energy campaigns in each of the 30 countries. To enhance accessibility and engagement with the material, the information gathered is presented in 30 independent National Briefs

The sustainability of suburban design: the impact of ‘green’ marketing on environmental achievement: A case study of new suburbs in Perth

This research examined the capacity of developers to include sustainability principles and practices into their new suburbs. Developers are increasingly looking for the next marketing niche to sell their product, and in Perth there have been a rising number of newly developed suburbs being marketed as ‘sustainable’ or ‘green’. Ultimately thoughtful design has the potential to create suburbs that have a much greater opportunity to be sustainable and assist residents to live more sustainable lives

The discourse, governance and configurations of polycentricity in transitional China: a case study of Tianjin

Polycentricity has been identified as a prominent feature of modern landscapes as well as a buzzword in spatial planning at a range of scales worldwide. Since the Reform and Opening-up Policy in 1978, major cities in China have experienced significant polycentric transition manifested by their new spatial policy framework and reshaped spatial structure. The polycentric transformation has provoked academics’ interests on structural and performance analysis in quantitative ways recently. However, little research investigates the nature of (re)formation and implementation of polycentric development policies in Chinese cities from a processual and critical perspective. This research interprets the underlying meanings and rationality of polycentric development strategy in planning discourse and explains how concrete centres within the polycentric system are created, governed and materialized to facilitate the implementation of polycentric policies in the special context of political system, spatial planning system and socio-economic conditions in China. Referring to existing literature of polycentricity and theories of urban space, this research develops a novel theoretical framework, which holds that polycentricity is produced by the articulation of state power, planning profession and produced space. The research is founded on an embedded case study of Tianjin based on empirical data derived from interviews with stakeholders and secondary data. Through a discourse analysis of four Tianjin City Master Plans, discourses of ‘polycentric urban settlements’, ‘functional polycentricity’, ‘polycentric growth nodes’ and ‘nested polycentricity’ are identified, which are deployed in different ways with variegated composition of spatial elements. Moreover, rather than being mere technocratic practice, the production and legitimation of distinct discourses is essentially an articulation of multi-scalar power involving various stakeholders, which is disguised and justified by the planning profession. The findings demonstrate that polycentricity is a malleable concept and its fluidity creates space to accommodate consensus or to allow the play of contested interests and policy experiments. Based on that, this research further selects centres in Tianjin Binhai New Area Core Zone, Wuqing District and Dongli District as embedded cases to explore how the polycentric development policy is implemented in practice. The empirical findings from local perspective show that these centres are created or formed according to different contexts and logics, and they are consolidated by employment of a portfolio of tools and instruments such as new planning and urban design, establishment of financial and development corporations, exclusive preferential policies, manipulation of public sector, land development and institutional innovation. Correspondingly, these centres have experienced distinct development trajectories and shown different spatial outcomes from the perspectives of urban form, functional composition, and spatial identity. It is suggested that significant gaps and contradictions exist between spatial visions and actual development, which poses challenges for sustainable development