Wankelende wereldorde: de onvermijdelijke verandering

De meeste incidenten en problemen die het nieuws halen, zijn slechts de symptomen van een dieper liggende, meer fundamentele problematiek. Op de golven van groei, technologische vooruitgang en voortgaande specialisatie leken de bomen tot in de hemel te reiken, maar gaandeweg eroderen de peilers onder onze moderne samenlevingen. Als we niet snel en doortastend aan een duurzaam, lange-termijn alternatief gaan werken is de kans groot dat we langdurig met crises, onrust en chaos te maken gaan krijgen. Crises van ecologisch, economisch en sociale aard. Treurig genoeg is deze urgentie in het politieke en maatschappelijke debat volledig afwezig, terwijl in de samenleving wel degelijk allerlei alternatieven zichtbaar zijn. Juist de partijen aan de linkerkant van het politieke spectrum zouden in de alternatieven een kans moeten zien om in te zetten op een nieuwe vorm van solidariteit. Een solidariteit die niet door de staat afgedwongen, maar vanuit de samenleving zelf georganiseerd, als reactie op de ongrijpbaarheid van de grote crises die over ons heen komen

Governance for sustainability

Sustainable development is rapidly moving from the periphery to the mainstream of politics, business, and science. Over the past several years, a strong consensus has started to emerge that some of the major global problems can only be overcome through large-scale concerted action. Recent additions to the debate include the reports by the International Panel on Climate Change, the Stern Report on the economics of climate change, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and, perhaps less known, the Potsdam Memorandum1. The latter communication was recently presented by a broad group of Nobel laureates and is titled “The Great Transformation.” The statement pleads for fundamental changes in our economies and societies and asks

Transition Management: new mode of governance for sustainable development

This book introduces transition management as a new mode of governance for sustainable development. Transition management combines a conceptual approach on social complexity, governance and long-term structural societal change with an operational governance model to actually work towards sustainability through learning-by- doing and doing-by-learning. The basic rationale behind transition management is that we are faced with societal problems of such complexity and magnitude, that existing approaches do not suffice. Such persistent problems can be found in many areas of society: energy, mobility, agriculture, water management, but also in health care, education, construction and industry. In these areas agreement upon definitions of sustainability the best solutions is impossible to achieve so that top-down planning is impossible, while at the same time sustainability can also never be achieved solely through bottom- up innovation and liberalization: sustainable development re! quires taking into account collective goods, future needs and un certain future development. Transition management aims to deal with persistent societal problems through combining long-term envisioning, short-term experiments in a selective participatory process that supports policy integration, social learning and social innovation. It focuses on frontrunners, entrepreneurs, niche-actors and innovative individuals and organizations in general that are committed to sustainable development. More often than not, innovations that in the long-term could contribute to sustainable development are unable to break through because of for example fragmentation, lack of means and support, limited attention to external (socio-economic) factors or lack of exposure. By simultaneously raising awareness and political acceptance for sustainable development in a specific area and by developing more coherence, cooperation and strategic capabilities at the level of the innovations, a structured process of social experimentation and learning can evolve that gradually leads to fundamenta! l structures in our societal systems. The central instrument for transition management is the transition arena: a scientifically underpinned operational model for coordinating and structuring transition management processes (especially in the predevelopment phase). The transition arena is a mental, physical and institutional space for experimentation, envisioning and network-building that is legitimized by regular policy. In the transition arena, different types of innovators with various backgrounds, perspectives and ambitions are brought together and develop shared long-term perspectives and a transition agenda that increasingly will influence regular policy. This approach has been introduced into research and policy in the Netherlands in 2001 and since then successfully applied in areas of sustainable energy, mobility, agriculture and housing . It has also been adopted as a new paradigm and approach in multi-disciplinary research . This book covers offers insight into the first five years of development of theory and practice of transition management in the Netherlands. As such, it is a unique account of an innovative experiment in policy theory and practice that is highly relevant for sustainable development in the international context

Governing the Energy Transition. Reality, Illusion or Necessity

The Energy Transition, the inevitable shift away from cheap, centralized, largely fossil-based energy systems, is one of the core challenges of our time. This book provides a coherent and novel insight into the nature of this challenge and possible strategies to accelerate and guide such transitions. It brings together prominent European scholars and practitioners from the fields of energy transition research and governance to draw attention to the current complex dynamics in the energy domain, and offer elegant and provocative explanations for current crises and lock-ins. They identify multiple energy transition pathways that emerge and increasingly compete, and emphasize the need and possibilities for novel governance. By analysing the complexity of energy transition processes and the difficulties in shifting to sustainable pathways, this text questions the extent to which actually governing energy transitions is already reality, just an illusion, or a bare necessity

Business Strategies for Transitions towards Sustainable Systems

This paper develops a strategic perspective for business to address persistent sustainability issues by contributing to the innovation of societal systems. Sustainability issues at the level of societal sectors or domains cannot be addressed by single organizations but require co-evolutionary changes in technology, economy, culture and organizational forms. We present the case of transition management in the Netherlands – an approach combining systems analysis with new modes of governance to influence the direction and speed of structural changes towards sustainability – and the activities of two firms working in this new context. From the two specific cases we conceptualize business strategies at different levels to advance sustainable development.transition management;sustainability;business development;systems

Research and practice of sustainability transitions in the Netherlands

This paper reports on the research outcomes and practical experiences with transitions and transition management in the Netherlands. Transitions are phenomena that receive increasing interest from researchers, policy-makers and the business community as an integrated paradigm for dealing with persistent unsustainability problems as well as with structuring activities aiming at radical breakthroughs towards sustainability. Within the Netherlands, the Dutch research network on System Innovations and Transitions (KSI) and the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT) have functioned as the core centres for research and practices in this area

Transities & transitiemanagement: Oorsprong, status en toekomst

Begin jaren negentig formeerde Jan Rotmans op het RIVM in Bilthoven de GLOBOonderzoeksgroep, die onderzoek deed naar mondiale verandering en duurzame ontwikkeling. Centraal in dit onderzoek stond het begrip transitie en de eerste serie transitie-experimenten werden gedaan met het TARGETS-model (Rotmans 1997). Ook bij de VN introduceerde Rotmans de notie van transities, bij de Commissie Duurzame Ontwikkeling, in wiens opdracht hij een evaluatie maakte van de UNCED-conferentie in Rio in 1992. Dit resulteerde in het rapport ‘Critical Trends’ (UN 1997), een mondiale, integrale trendanalyse waarin het begrip transitie de kern vormde

Dutch policies to manage the transition to sustainable energy

Many countries are committed to sustainability but are struggling with how to do this. Most countries opted for sustainability councils and the development of sustainability indicators. The Dutch government followed a different track. It believed that sustainability requires some fundamental changes in functional systems of for example energy, transport and agriculture. It conceptualised the quest towards sustainability as an issue of managing transitions in functional systems. In this paper we examine why the Dutch government became interested in transitions. We will see that transition management was attractive because it allowed different ministries to pursue their own agenda but in a different way: with more attention to innovation and learning. We will look at the model of transition management and the Dutch policies for managing the energy transition. The model is believed to be an interesting model of governance, employing an integrative and multi-scale framework for policy deliberation, choice of instruments, and actions by individuals, private and public organizations, helping society to escape lock-in while avoiding new evolutionary traps

Managing transitions for sustainable development

The challenge of sustainable development presents our society with the need for longterm, structural changes or transitions in sectors such as energy-supply, mobility, agriculture and health-care. Based on a multi-phase and multi-level framework for transitions, we ask whether managing transitions is possible and then outline an operational method for transition management

Innovation policy for the Dutch energy transition Operationalising transition management?

The term transition is a key term of the fourth national environmental policy plan (NMP4, 2001), which put forward transition management (Rotmans et al, 2000) as a new policy approach for dealing with persistent and highly complex societal problems such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, overexploitation of resources and health risks related to the use of dangerous, non-natural substances. The NMP4 selected the energy supply, mobility, agriculture and the use of biodiversity and natural resources as priorities for developing transition management activities. The Ministry of Economic Affairs (holding responsibility over energy and innovation policy) has since the NMP4 been the leading actor in the so-called ‘energy-transition’. Several activities have been undertaken, based on the basic principles underlying transition management; long term visions as framework for short-term action, a multi-actor approach and a focus on learning and experiments. The approach has stimulated the involvement of a large number of stakeholders and led to the developments of shared visions, ambitions and strategies, experiments and projects. Besides, the approach itself has generated questions regarding regular policies, for example innovation and technology policies, and led to debates on policy integration and barriers in existing regulations. This discussion has been actively picked up by the Ministry and governmental advisory boards for energy and environment (Energieraad and VROM-raad 2004). It is an example of policy learning in which it was believed that sustainability requires some fundamental changes in functional systems, which in turn require policy-innovation. In this paper we will look at why the Ministry was interested in fostering an energy transition (where we will see that economic reasons, notably the willingness to create green energy business, was an important consideration). The paper will describe the policies and stakeholder process, which will be assessed from a transition management perspective. This means that the paper uses the multi-level, multi-phase transition management framework (Loorbach 2004b) to evaluate the energy-transition approach as developed by the ministry of Economic Affairs, in terms of content (what types of visions and experiments are developed?) and in terms of process (what kind of actors are involved, what instruments are used?). Special attention will be given to the nature of the policies developed and their difference with and implications for ‘regular’ policies. We will compare the difference with past policies and the changes in the system of governance. The paper will also seek to answer a more speculative issue: What are the prospects of the Dutch approach to achieve a transition and a flourishing sustainable energy business