Sustainable energy projects and the community: mapping single building use of microgeneration technologies in London

Microgeneration technologies offer the potential for distributed energy supply and consumption resulting in reduced reliance on centralised generation. Adoption of microgeneration for use in community settings is usually understood as having a beneficial contribution to sustainable development. This is particularly relevant in urban environments which present specific challenges relating to the heterogeneity of building and land use. Small-scale installations in buildings also appear to offer technological flexibility at the ‘human’ level, necessary for local participation in shaping the direction of sustainable development. This paper reports on a project concerned with identifying on-site energy generation projects in Greater London. A database was compiled comprising renewable and energy efficient microgeneration installations in multi-occupancy buildings. The relationships between each project and its associated organisations are mapped as a social network, which illustrates the heterogeneity of technologies and actors involved, as well as the flows of funding and expertise. The structure of the resulting networks indicates a lack of participation by social or not-for-profit groups who are traditionally identified as community level actors. The findings indicate that large institutional actors on the supply side may become regarded as renewable energy experts. Hence, there is a need to consider how the concept of community level actors in urban microgeneration projects is applicable to local government and commercial organisations

Responsible innovation : its institutionalisation and a critique

There is a growing body of literature on responsible innovation (RI). RI is prominent in debates and policies regarding the governance of research and innovation, particularly in the EU and USA. The paper brings together sociologically-informed institutional analysis and critical discourse analysis into a discourse-institutional perspective, which is applied to review the emergence of and scholarly contributions to literature on RI. It generates insights into the role of language use in the institutionalisation of RI from detailed analysis of a foundational text. The paper identifies evidence for the institutionalisation of RI, how this has been accomplished and by whom. The paper considers opportunities for and limitations of RI research and policy in connection with its potential to foster effective anticipatory governance of science and innovation while facilitating inclusive deliberation in society. The conclusion suggests that RI is a developing area of research and practice in which there are dominant perspectives, practices and actors, which combine to inhibit the building of a truly responsive, inclusive and reflexive approach to governing innovation

Responsible innovation as transformational entrepreneurship by disabled people

Responsible innovation (RI) has emerged as a powerful idea concerning the effective governance of science, technology and innovation. While much attention has been devoted to understanding and promoting RI within science and research policy addressing grand challenges, far less is known about the nature and implications of RI for business. This paper marshals qualitative insights from UK-based disabled entrepreneurs to examine how comparatively ordinary innovations arising in a ‘bottom-up’ manner can respond more inclusively to otherwise overlooked societal needs. The entrepreneurs initiate three specific innovation types to positively transform the lives of their intended beneficiaries: (1) transforming inaccessible practices within mainstream organisations; (2) enhancing personal powers of disabled people; and (3) changing mainstream societal attitudes towards disability. The paper demonstrates how RI principles can be realised through transformational entrepreneurship, highlighting a myriad of niche and distributed entrepreneurial activities, quite different from high-tech, big science innovations conventionally discussed in RI studies

Coordinating biomass supply chains for remote communities : a comparative analysis of non-cooperative and cooperative scenarios

The absence of economies of scale is a major barrier in use of renewable energy sources in small and dispersed off-grid remote communities. For example, in northern Canada, diesel is currently the main source of electricity and heat generation. Coordination of biomass supply chains could play a key role in improving the cost efficiency and reliability of bioenergy generation through bundled ordering and creation of storage hubs. In this study, a supply chain management model with multiple suppliers and multiple end-user communities is formulated. The proposed model enables us to analyse and compare the outcomes of adopting a cooperative coordination strategy (with a joint pay-off for communities) versus a non-cooperative coordination strategy (with individual payoffs for communities). Other peculiar attributes of the proposed model rest in the addressing of restricted ordering schedules and quantities (due to unavailability of pathways) by advocating nonlinear ordering and distribution costs (to incorporate quantity discounts) achieved through coordinated and/or collective inventories. A real biomass supply chain case study of three northernmost Nunavik communities in Quebec is considered to show the applicability of the model and provide insights for uptake of bioenergy sources in remote off-grid communities