Learning within local government to promote the scaling-up of low-carbon initiatives: A case study in the City of Copenhagen

Local governments are experimenting with low-carbon initiatives (LCIs) to learn how the transition to low-carbon cities can be advanced. However, little is known about how local governments can capitalize on what has been learned and use it to accelerate scaling-up processes. This paper explores the complex relationship between LCIs and learning processes at the level of local government. The issue is examined through an explorative embedded case study in the City of Copenhagen, a sustainability frontrunner. The paper makes three contributions that enrich literature and practice concerning climate governance for sustainability transitions. First, it offers an overview of two types of knowledge that can be derived from LCIs to accelerate scaling-up processes: instrumental and transformative knowledge. Second, the paper provides a concrete overview of learning practices for governing learning processes within local government. Local governments can learn from LCIs through four categories of practice: experience accumulation, knowledge articulation, knowledge codification, and knowledge distribution. Finally, the paper offers an overview of explanatory factors related to the motivation, resources, and skills that influence a local government's capacity to learn from LCIs. The findings particularly highlight the importance of setting a mandate for experimenting with and evaluating LCIs.</p

Institutional work in diverse niche contexts : The case of low-carbon housing in the Netherlands

Literature on sustainability transitions advocates the institutionalisation of niche innovations and assigns an important role for institutional work in this respect. Previous work has conceptually and empirically substantiated a range of strategies that institutional entrepreneurs perform. However, little is known about how institutional entrepreneurs engage differently in institutional strategies across different dynamic niche contexts. We distinguish between four different niche contexts: market-based niche development, market-based regime transformation, community-based niche development and community-based regime transformation. This typology is then conceptually combined with theory on institutional entrepreneurship and institutional work to examine the diverse agential processes of institutional change through which actors shape and transform their institutional environments. The usefulness of this framework is explored in an analysis of the low-carbon building stock in the Netherlands. The analysis demonstrates that the framework offers a comprehensive approach to examine variety in the arsenal of strategies of institutional work across different contexts.</p

Institutional work in diverse niche contexts : The case of low-carbon housing in the Netherlands

Literature on sustainability transitions advocates the institutionalisation of niche innovations and assigns an important role for institutional work in this respect. Previous work has conceptually and empirically substantiated a range of strategies that institutional entrepreneurs perform. However, little is known about how institutional entrepreneurs engage differently in institutional strategies across different dynamic niche contexts. We distinguish between four different niche contexts: market-based niche development, market-based regime transformation, community-based niche development and community-based regime transformation. This typology is then conceptually combined with theory on institutional entrepreneurship and institutional work to examine the diverse agential processes of institutional change through which actors shape and transform their institutional environments. The usefulness of this framework is explored in an analysis of the low-carbon building stock in the Netherlands. The analysis demonstrates that the framework offers a comprehensive approach to examine variety in the arsenal of strategies of institutional work across different contexts

Institutional work in diverse niche contexts : The case of low-carbon housing in the Netherlands

Literature on sustainability transitions advocates the institutionalisation of niche innovations and assigns an important role for institutional work in this respect. Previous work has conceptually and empirically substantiated a range of strategies that institutional entrepreneurs perform. However, little is known about how institutional entrepreneurs engage differently in institutional strategies across different dynamic niche contexts. We distinguish between four different niche contexts: market-based niche development, market-based regime transformation, community-based niche development and community-based regime transformation. This typology is then conceptually combined with theory on institutional entrepreneurship and institutional work to examine the diverse agential processes of institutional change through which actors shape and transform their institutional environments. The usefulness of this framework is explored in an analysis of the low-carbon building stock in the Netherlands. The analysis demonstrates that the framework offers a comprehensive approach to examine variety in the arsenal of strategies of institutional work across different contexts.</p

Learning within local government to promote the scaling-up of low-carbon initiatives: A case study in the City of Copenhagen

Local governments are experimenting with low-carbon initiatives (LCIs) to learn how the transition to low-carbon cities can be advanced. However, little is known about how local governments can capitalize on what has been learned and use it to accelerate scaling-up processes. This paper explores the complex relationship between LCIs and learning processes at the level of local government. The issue is examined through an explorative embedded case study in the City of Copenhagen, a sustainability frontrunner. The paper makes three contributions that enrich literature and practice concerning climate governance for sustainability transitions. First, it offers an overview of two types of knowledge that can be derived from LCIs to accelerate scaling-up processes: instrumental and transformative knowledge. Second, the paper provides a concrete overview of learning practices for governing learning processes within local government. Local governments can learn from LCIs through four categories of practice: experience accumulation, knowledge articulation, knowledge codification, and knowledge distribution. Finally, the paper offers an overview of explanatory factors related to the motivation, resources, and skills that influence a local government's capacity to learn from LCIs. The findings particularly highlight the importance of setting a mandate for experimenting with and evaluating LCIs