The temporalities of shared mobility practices from an environmental perspective

Um verheerende Folgen des Klimawandels zu verhindern, ist eine Reduktion der Privat-PKW Nutzung unbedingt erforderlich. Allerdings ist diese Mobilitätsform sehr wandlungsresistent. Dies ist unter anderem auf ihre nahtlose Integration in die zeitliche Organisation des Alltagslebens zurückzuführen ist: Sie ist schnell, flexibel, jederzeit und oft sofort verfügbar. Ermöglicht wird dies durch eine autozentrierte Raumplanung und Gesetzgebung. Unter diesen Bedingungen ist es für umweltfreundlichere Mobilitätspraktiken wie bestimmte Arten von shared-mobility schwierig, sich zu verbreiten. Das im Artikel entwickelte praxistheoretisches Verständnis von Zeitlichkeiten hilft die Wandlungsresistenz der Privat-PKW Nutzung zu verstehen. Darüber hinaus erklärt es auch warum sich bisher hauptsächlich wenig umweltfreundliche Arten von shared mobility (business-to-consumer free-floating carsharing) und nicht umweltfreundlichere wie peer-to-peer carsharing oder mobility-as-a-service verbreiten konnten. Der Artikel kommt zum Schluss, dass eine Exnovation des bestehen autozentrierten Mobilitätssystems für eine Mobilitätswende unverzichtbar ist. To prevent devastating consequences of climate change, a reduction in private car use is essential. However, this form of mobility is highly resistant to change. This resistance is attributed, in part, to its seamless integration into the temporal organization of daily life: it is fast, flexible, available at any time, and often instantly accessible. This is facilitated by car-centred urban planning and legislation. Under these conditions, it is challenging for more environmentally friendly mobility practices, such as certain types of shared mobility, to proliferate. The practice theoretical understanding of temporalities developed in the article helps to comprehend the resistance to change in private car use. Furthermore, it explains why predominantly less environmentally friendly forms of shared mobility (business-to-consumer free-floating carsharing) have expanded, while more environmentally friendly options like peer-to-peer carsharing or mobility-as-a-service have struggled. The article concludes that an exnovation of the existing car-centred mobility system is indispensable for a transformation of the mobility system.  (peer reviewed

Do community currencies enhance sustainable quality of life?

Community currencies and their contribution to a sustainable development have been quite widely discussed. In contrast, their potential to raise the personal quality of life of their members and users has been less noted. Combining these two strands, we argue that community currencies enhance an individual sustainable quality of life. We underpin this by analysing data of an online survey of members and users of community currencies in Austria and Germany. The theoretical foundation of our analysis is the Capability Approach and its notion of quality of life, saying that a high quality of life is characterized by high freedom of choice of valuable doings and beings. A sustainable high quality of life would then be characterized by a high freedom of choice within the limits given by planetary boundaries and further sustainability criteria. This perspective allows inferringthat community currencies do not just contribute to sustainable development via their often emphasized effects in the field of regionalization and local value added, but in a much more encompassing way

Beschleunigter Wandel oder nachhaltige Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit von Mobilitätspraktiken angesichts multipler Krisen? Eine Einleitung zum Sonderband

Einleitung zum Sonderban

Linking transitions and sustainability: a study into social effects of transition management

Sustainability transitions as processes of fundamental change in societal systems are open-ended, nonlinear and uncertain. Respective research and governance approaches, e.g. transition management, propose a reflexive way of governing, aiming for a number of social effects to help facilitating a transition. Effects include empowerment, social learning and social capital development. Jointly mentioned social effects shall allow for reflexivity and innovation in developing socially robust and contextualized solutions to sustainability challenges that work in practice. Still, understanding mentioned social effects and their interplay more in depth is needed to design and assess transition management processes. While such understanding and related assessment framework is under development in transition management literature, transdisciplinary sustainability research can provide a rich body of tools and experiences. Building on a review of respective literature, this article develops an evaluation framework focusing on social effects as important and hitherto under conceptualised aspects of sustainability transitions literature. This framework is used to empirically investigate the effects of two specific transition management processes at local scale. Doing so, the article provides a conceptual and empirical understanding of how social effects contribute to a transition towards sustainability. Results highlight the importance and possibilities of addressing sustainability as an inherent quality of social effects aimed for

Linking transitions to sustainability: A study of the societal effects of transition management

Sustainability transitions as processes of fundamental change in societal systems are open-ended, nonlinear and uncertain. Respective research and governance approaches, e.g., transition management, propose a reflexive way of governing, aiming for a number of societal effects to help facilitating a transition. Effects include empowerment, social learning and social capital development. Jointly mentioned effects shall allow for reflexivity and innovation in developing socially robust and contextualized solutions to sustainability challenges that work in practice. But, understanding the mentioned societal effects and their interplay in more depth is necessary to design and assess transition management processes. While such understanding and related assessment framework is under development in the transition management literature, transdisciplinary sustainability research can provide a rich body of tools and experiences. Building on a review of the literature, this article develops an evaluation framework focusing on social learning, empowerment and social capital as important and hitherto under-conceptualised aspects of the sustainability transition literature. This framework is used to empirically investigate the effects of two specific transition management processes at the local scale. In doing so, the article provides a conceptual and empirical understanding of how social learning, empowerment and social capital contribute to a transition towards sustainability. The three effects are shown to be interrelated, mutually supportive and bridging different scale levels from individuals to groups, niches and beyond. Results highlight possibilities to facilitate and assess societal effects, addressing sustainability as their inherent quality

Understanding actor roles in sustainability initiatives: an exploratory study in five European countries

Several strands of literature have developed around the ambition to influence or bring about transitions toward greater sustainability. In this context researchers have come to be interested in the types of actors involved in sustainability transitions and the roles these actors play. However, there is a lack of clear definitions of actors, and their roles. Our research takes an exploratory approach and is designed to describe and analyse the actors concerned and to identify their roles in sustainability initiatives. Our aim in doing so is to contribute to the body of scientific knowledge on transitions and to provide sustainability initiatives themselves with helpful information. Data were collected using the Net-Map tool, a well-established method in actor and stakeholder analysis. In our results we identify and define six actor roles: catalysts, opponents, intermediaries, frontrunners, drivers and visionaries. In the literature, particular roles are connected to common actor categories (civil society, governmental actors, private sector, etc.). Our results imply that sustainability initiatives are neither necessarily hindered by the absence of certain actors, nor are they hindered per se by the presence of an actor - rather, a broad mix seems to be helpful

GeNECA: Gerechte Nachhaltige Entwicklung auf Basis des Capability-Ansatzes ; Endbericht

Im Projektantrag gab das Konsortium folgende Ziele an: "Die auf Grundlage des Capability-Ansatzes entworfene Konzeption nachhaltiger Entwicklung hat durch die Bezugnahme auf die bedürfnisorientierten Ziele der Brundtland-Definition Integrationskraft und verbindet explizit intragenerationale mit intergenerationaler Gerechtigkeit. Diese Konzeption wird zu einem Indikatorenset nachhaltiger menschlicher Entwicklung operationalisiert, einer quantitativen Analyse unterzogen, empirisch in verschiedenen Governance-Feldern und -Ebenen angewendet und auf ihre verallgemeinerte Verwendbarkeit in Entscheidungsprozessen geprüft und dementsprechend modifiziert." Während der Projektlaufzeit, auch motiviert durch das Gutachtervotum, wurden die wissenschaftsbezogenen Ziele gestärkt und die politikbezogenen Ziele abgeschwächt

Künftige Freiheiten schützen?

Der Capability-Ansatz stellt substanzielle individuelle Freiheiten als Ziel nachhaltiger Entwicklung in den Mittelpunkt der Analyse. Diese konkrete Sichtweise ist nicht ohne Probleme, bietet aber auch Chancen. So relativiert der Ansatz die beliebte Diskussion um die starke oder schwache Nachhaltigkeit

Linking transitions and sustainability: a study into social effects of transition management

Sustainability transitions as processes of fundamental change in societal systems are open-ended, nonlinear and uncertain. Respective research and governance approaches, e.g. transition management, propose a reflexive way of governing, aiming for a number of social effects to help facilitating a transition. Effects include empowerment, social learning and social capital development. Jointly mentioned social effects shall allow for reflexivity and innovation in developing socially robust and contextualized solutions to sustainability challenges that work in practice. Still, understanding mentioned social effects and their interplay more in depth is needed to design and assess transition management processes. While such understanding and related assessment framework is under development in transition management literature, transdisciplinary sustainability research can provide a rich body of tools and experiences. Building on a review of respective literature, this article develops an evaluation framework focusing on social effects as important and hitherto under conceptualised aspects of sustainability transitions literature. This framework is used to empirically investigate the effects of two specific transition management processes at local scale. Doing so, the article provides a conceptual and empirical understanding of how social effects contribute to a transition towards sustainability. Results highlight the importance and possibilities of addressing sustainability as an inherent quality of social effects aimed for