Journal Staff

Grassroots activities so far have not been sufficiently appreciated as sources of innovation. Transition processes towards more sustainable socio-technical energy, transport or production systems, however, are hardly imaginable without a broader participation of engaged citizens. This paper presents and compares three cases of successful grassroots innovations for sustainability. In particular we compare the development of wind technology in Denmark, the solar collector do-it-yourself movement in Austria, and the development of car sharing in Switzerland. The paper aims at a better understanding of the preconditions, patterns of growth and change and factors of success of grassroots innovations for more sustainable socio-technical regimes such as energy and transport. In the analysis we focus on dimensions such as the structural conditions and resources of origin, motivations of social actors involved, learning processes and outcomes, competences and activities of those actors, processes of institution-building, and the relationships to mainstream market actors. Based on the empirical background the paper discusses implications for the theorisation of grassroots innovations for greater sustainability and draws implications for further research

Urban Food Strategies. The rough guide to sustainable food systems

This guide provides motivation and support for those actors interested in building more sustainable food systems in urban contexts

An agenda for future Social Sciences and Humanities research on energy efficiency : 100 priority research questions

Decades of techno-economic energy policymaking and research have meant evidence from the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH)-including critical reflections on what changing a society's relation to energy (efficiency) even means-have been underutilised. In particular, (i) the SSH have too often been sidelined and/or narrowly pigeonholed by policymakers, funders, and other decision-makers when driving research agendas, and (ii) the setting of SSH-focused research agendas has not historically embedded inclusive and deliberative processes. The aim of this paper is to address these gaps through the production of a research agenda outlining future SSH research priorities for energy efficiency. A Horizon Scanning exercise was run, which sought to identify 100 priority SSH questions for energy efficiency research. This exercise included 152 researchers with prior SSH expertise on energy efficiency, who together spanned 62 (sub-)disciplines of SSH, 23 countries, and a full range of career stages. The resultant questions were inductively clustered into seven themes as follows: (1) Citizenship, engagement and knowledge exchange in relation to energy efficiency; (2) Energy efficiency in relation to equity, justice, poverty and vulnerability; (3) Energy efficiency in relation to everyday life and practices of energy consumption and production; (4) Framing, defining and measuring energy efficiency; (5) Governance, policy and political issues around energy efficiency; (6) Roles of economic systems, supply chains and financial mechanisms in improving energy efficiency; and (7) The interactions, unintended consequences and rebound effects of energy efficiency interventions. Given the consistent centrality of energy efficiency in policy programmes, this paper highlights that well-developed SSH approaches are ready to be mobilised to contribute to the development, and/or to understand the implications, of energy efficiency measures and governance solutions. Implicitly, it also emphasises the heterogeneity of SSH policy evidence that can be produced. The agenda will be of use for both (1) those new to the energy-SSH field (including policyworkers), for learnings on the capabilities and capacities of energy-SSH, and (2) established energy-SSH researchers, for insights on the collectively held futures of energy-SSH research.Peer reviewe

Competing Transport Futures: Tensions between Imaginaries of Electrification and Biogas Fuel in Sweden

The choice of fuels has frequently been at the center of debates about how a future low-carbon mobility system can be achieved. This paper introduces two visions of biogas fuels and electricity using material from interviews and documents in Swedish transport. These visions are analyzed as interrelated sociotechnical imaginaries. To better understand the way visions of biogas and electric vehicles (EVs) dynamically shape and condition each other, four dimensions of sociotechnical imaginaries are further developed: spatial boundedness, temporality, coherence and contestation, and the socio-material relations they are associated with. Imaginaries of biogas and EVs differ with respect to these characteristics. The biogas imaginary is made up of locally bounded visions of the desirable future, showing how imaginaries can be fragmented and contested, often because of their embeddedness in local socio-material systems of resource use. This local boundedness is exemplified by contrasting cases of contested biogas imaginaries in the Swedish municipalities of Linkoping and Malmo. The imaginary of EVs, in contrast, is more uniform nationally and even influenced by international expectations that in the future vehicles will be shared, electric, and autonomous. The qualities of these imaginaries shape the way they interrelate and coevolve as sociotechnical changes of the transport system unfold

Innovation und Diffusion von Umwelttechnologien : Das Potential techniksoziologischer Beiträge zu Technologieprogrammen

Vor etwa drei Jahren wurde durch das Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Infrastruktur und Technologie das Impulsprogramm „Nachhaltig Wirtschaften“ eingerichtet, im Rahmen dessen Forschungs- und Technologieprojekte zu den Themen „Haus der Zukunft“ und „Fabrik der Zukunft“ gefördert werden. Ein Charakteristikum insbesondere der Programmlinie „Haus der Zukunft“ ist die gezielte Einbeziehung sozio-ökonomischer Forschungsansätze zur Analyse von nachhaltigen Technologien und zur Entwicklung technologiepolitischer Strategien. Nicht zuletzt durch die Anbindung an solche Technologieprogramme hat sich damit in Österreich ein hochinteressantes Anwendungsfeld für Techniksoziologie entwickelt, das eine zunehmende Anzahl von Forschungseinrichtungen anzieht. Basierend auf einer Analyse aktueller techniksoziologischer Forschungsprojekte in diesen Impulsprogrammen soll in diesem Beitrag eine erste Bilanz über dieses Forschungsfeld in Österreich gezogen und Überlegungen für weiterführende Forschungsperspektiven angestellt werden. Zwei beispielhafte Kernthemen, die in diesem Beitrag dargestellt werden sollen, sind: Die Rolle von AnwenderInnen in der Entwicklung und Verbreitung von Umwelttechnologien. Besonders im Themenfeld „ökologisches Bauen“ wurde im Rahmen mehrerer Forschungsarbeiten die Perspektive von NutzerInnen ins Zentrum gestellt. Die techniksoziologische Annäherung an Innovations- und Diffusionsprozesse aus der Perspektive der individuellen und kulturellen Aneignung von Technologien rückt andere Aspekte in den Vordergrund als die bisher dominierende design-zentrierte Analyse von Technologien – so etwa Fragen der Ko-Evolution von Nutzungspraktiken und technischem Design. Einbeziehung von sozialwissenschaftlicher Technikforschung in die Entwicklung technologiepolitischer Strategien. Anschließend an internationale Diskussionen zur Nutzung techniksoziologischer Perspektiven für das Design von Technologiepolitik, wird in Projekten der angesprochenen Programmen versucht, Verfahren wie „Constructive Technology Assessment“ oder „Transition Management“ anzuwenden und weiterzuentwickeln. Ziel solcher Verfahren ist es, verbesserte Rahmenbedingungen für soziale Lern- und Reflexionsprozesse in der Technikgestaltung zu schaffen und technische Entwicklungen in den breiteren Zusammenhang ‚soziotechnischer Regimes’ zu stellen. Wie diese Beispiele zeigen, liegt das techniksoziologische Forschungsfeld, das in diesem Beitrag vorgestellt werden soll, an der Schnittstelle der Analyse von Umwelttechnologien in ihrem sozialen und kulturellen Kontext und der Praxis technologiebezogener Nachhaltigkeitsprogramme

Intermediaries and the governance of choice: the case of green electricity labelling

This paper is about the reframing of electricity markets as a strategically oriented nonstate governance activity of intermediary organisations. In particular, it is centred on the establishment of ‘green’ electricity labels by environmental and other nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) as an attempt to establish and shape a market for green electricity. Such labels serve as a ‘boundary object’ between electricity generators, suppliers, consumers, and regulators, and are analysed as the creation of new sociotechnical arrangements around green electricity generation and use. The analysis also shows that private governance initiatives of this kind are highly interdependent with state regulatory systems. NGOs have played a vital role in defining and negotiating such standards, enrolling and aligning supply-side and demand-side actors, communicating with a wider public and building trust for the respective products, establishing links with regulators, and shaping policies for renewable electricity at national and European levels. The cases of electricity labelling investigated are an example of new political strategies of civil society intermediary organisations in an increasingly market-driven environment.

Assessing transformative change of infrastructures in urban area redevelopments

Urban redevelopments create opportunities for experimenting with innovative infrastructural solutions towards transformative urban change. Novel solutions such as decentralised infrastructure systems can become essential strategies for helping cities meet multiple sustainability outcomes. However, achieving infrastructural change is a tremendous challenge given the obduracy of these large and complex systems. Assessing and monitoring ongoing infrastructure shift, transformative urban systems needs to provide a better understating of how to account for systemic change. This paper addresses the challenge of assessing and monitoring urban transformative change in a forward-looking and systematic way. A conceptual assessment framework is developed, which identifies key critical dimensions necessary to assess the transformative change potential in the context of urban redevelopment areas. These include the shaping of new expectations/visions, the establishment of new social networks, the creation of learning processes, institutional alignment, and the establishment of new modes of governance. The conceptual framework is applied in a case study of selected urban redevelopment sites in New Delhi, India. The framework was found useful which gaining a differentiated understanding of the transformation process and identifying the strengths and weaknesses within the urban redevelopment niche that can potentially support or obstruct the transition process