Exploring environmental innovation journeys: An ethnographic study in a firm from the UK food and farming sector

Environmental Innovation is seen as vital for sustainable futures. Knowledge about environmental innovation is sought in various contexts and recent thinking recognizes this as a process that unfolds in time and space. Environmental innovation journeys are therefore the subject of a growing literature. However, little is known about how environmental innovation journeys actually proceed in various contexts, how we might make sense of these and intervene to attain more sustainable futures. This thesis begins to address this gap in knowledge. It reports ethnographic research undertaken to explore an environmental innovation journey situated in a firm from the UK food and farming sector. Data were collected from multiple sources via multiple methods including participant observation and semi-structured interviews. This thesis shows that the environmental innovation journey is non-linear, involving temporary fixes and is reversible. This insight accords with recent constructivist accounts of environrnental innovation. Inspired by the work of John Law, these were drawn upon to make sense of the environmental innovation journey without compromising reality. Seen in this way, environmental innovation journeys involve developing, maintaining and deleting situated practices. This involves processes that are shaped by competing environmental discourses, which manifest in the firm as storylines and images of performances required of practices. Thus, the contribution of this thesis is to offer an approach to making sense of environmental innovation journeys, which may be used in other contexts and which can be adapted as appropriate by actors involved

Governance in niche development for a transition to a new mobility regime

Urban mobility is a difficult sustainability challenge; measures to reduce transport impacts produce only marginal reductions in overall energy use and CO2 emissions. Even fuel switch to electric vehicles and measures to manage traffic produce insufficient improvements. Seeking transport sustainability within the existing socio-technical regime involves policy approaches for dense cities to provide high-capacity, corridor-based public transport, expecting people to arrange their lives around such transport systems. Yet this socio-technical regime ill-fits modern mobility needs. The reluctance to use public transport stems much from this 150 year old regime configuration. The social-technical landscape has shifted significantly: travel patterns are increasingly dispersed in space and time – not funnelled into traditional corridor peak-hour movements. The key is not getting people to return to travel patterns of 100 years ago, but in a transition to a socio-technical transport regime that delivers sustainability compatible with the 21st century social-technical landscape. An opportunity may be emerging for socio-technical configurations in niche environments to effect transitions to alternate mobility futures. Autonomous vehicles are rapidly approaching market application. Since 2011, small autonomous pods have operated on segregated tracks at Heathrow Airport. In 2014 a similar system opened at the Suncheon Bay tourist area in South Korea. Since 2011 there have been public street trials of autonomous vehicles in the USA and in 2015 they became street legal in the UK. The Milton Keynes (MK) ‘Pathfinder’ project focuses on two-seat pods which do not need segregated tracks, but will run on cycleways and footpaths, mixing with cyclists and pedestrians. Trials will start in 2015, on short distance links from the railway station to destinations in Central Milton Keynes. This project forms part of the wider Milton Keynes Future Cities Programme and Open University-led MK:Smart project. This paper draws on these trials in MK to show through case study research how autonomous vehicles applications are moving beyond protected niches and, along with other developments, hold the potential to stimulate a major transition in public transport systems. The vehicles are small and each journey is individual to the passenger(s). Services do not run along corridor routes, like buses and trams, but are based on alternate rule-sets to the existing regime with individual journeys customised for each user. Such developments may therefore stimulate transition to totally different sorts of public transport systems and ultimately, socio-technical mobility regimes, by offering much more to users than any corridor system can provide. Rather than people adjusting their behaviour to bus routes, schedules and operating times, they travel directly, whenever they want, on services running 24/7. Thus these new regimes could be more compatible with lifestyle and economic trends that comprise 21st century socio-technical landscapes. As such, they provide credible alternatives to the private car, and so hold potential to deliver major sustainability gains. But such transitions face major challenges from entrenched actors within the existing regime. Taxis, minicabs and bus operators would be threatened. If the Uber cab app is being blocked by incumbent actors, they look likely to be powerful opponents of autonomous vehicle based cab services. However, MK provides an interesting innovation context where there are several overlapping smart transport niches in different stages of development. As well as autonomous pods, demand responsive minibuses are planned and inductive changed electric buses are in service. If these projects build links to each other (niche accumulation), demonstrate economic value and reproduced beyond their original experimental spaces (niche proliferation), there is potential for them to overcome incumbent resistance. In Milton Keynes, these processes could be getting close to reaching critical mass, opening up the possibility of moving closer to radical regime transitions

Exploring a case of the eco-innovation journey in the UK food processing sector

The eco-innovation journey can be defined as deliberate shifts undertaken by firms to move away from unsustainable practice (Ehrenfeld, 2008). Such shifts might include changes in technologies, and ways of thinking about these to improve environmental performance e.g. resource productivity. The Literature on innovation provides rich accounts of the factors which might stimulate the development of eco-innovations and the consequences of implementing new technologies. However, there is relatively little literature which considers the process of how eco-innovations might unfold over time. This paper reports results from a study on the eco-innovation journey in the context of food and sustainability. Although literature on this particular topic has largely concentrated on farming and the behaviour of consumers, little is known about the intermediate actors e.g. food processors and manufacturers who provide a critical link in the food supply chain. This paper presents research from a firm in the UK food processing sector to help address these two gaps in knowledge. The paper draws on innovation and organization literatures to frame a concept of 'eco-innovation journey' as a socio-technical and messy process, which include power struggles and interplay of many actors. The method identified to explore the construction of eco-innovation process within a UK food processing firm was a longitudinal case study undertaken through action research (AR). Ethnographic methods were adopted involving participant observation and qualitative data were collected via reflective diary and semi-structured interviews. Findings were analysed using clustering methods. The provisional findings shows that practice provide a useful element to explore the microprocesses of the eco-innovation journey. Building upon the work of Giddens (1984), practice is more than what people do, and include structures of rules and resources to explain behaviour within a community. An additional element is information in terms of trigger signals from both the selection environment, and from sources inside the firm. The final element is measures, which are identified and adopted by the firm in response to environmental impacts. The eco-innovation journey was found to be a messy process of interplay among many actors. The dynamic processes of power struggles and negotiations are critical factors that influence on the nature and direction of eco-innovations. Overall, the study shows that emergence of new environmental practice is likely to be adopted in the Firm if they are congruent with the regime

Sustainable value creation: a farm case on business model innovation

The agricultural sector in Sweden, as elsewhere, is affected by increased intensification and specialisation, leading to fewer and larger farms. The majority of agricultural firms acquire profits by pushing an economies of scale strategy, which is not always possible for small farms. However, there are alternative strategies. This teaching case focuses on a small farm in Sweden and offers students an opportunity to study the management of business model innovation in this context. The case explores the value creation strategy of a cattle farm and applies activities such as mapping a business model, developing suggestions for business model innovation, analysing existing and lacking managerial competences and pinpointing implications for agricultural policy. As a result, profitability, competitiveness and sustainability of the study farm should be achieved, together with acquisition of knowledge and skills by its owner. This educational case is suitable for agricultural students of different levels requiring knowledge of business and management

Sustainable innovation journeys: exploring the dynamics of firm practices as part of transitions to more sustainable food and farming

Deep structural and sustained change is necessary to tackle contemporary environmental challenges. How such change emerges and can be governed has been explored through the notion of sustainable innovation journeys. To date research had conceptualised such journeys as transitions to more sustainable socio-technical systems, e.g. mobility, shelter, food and farming. However, there is a paucity of how innovation proceeds in firms as part of sustainable innovation journeys. This paper begins to address this gap in knowledge. A longitudinal case study was completed of a medium-sized food-processing firm in the UK. Qualitative data were collected using ethnographic methods such as participant observation. Drawing on practice theory, a conceptual framework was developed which enabled us to explore and make sense of the firm's sustainable innovation journey conceptualised as practices. Findings show that we can usefully treat a firm as a flow of practices that either resist or otherwise accommodate new practices deemed more sustainable

Creating possibility spaces for the development of circular bioeconomy initiatives

To help move society towards more sustainable states, policies have been developed in various countries to create a circular bioeconomy (CBE) in biobased sectors such as forestry and agriculture. In operationalizing CBE, initiatives must be created in which feedback loops between life-cycle stages are established to enable a "stock" of resources to be recirculated in the economy. By creating such feedback loops, CBE aims to decouple economic growth from natural resource depletion and degradation. However, few CBE initiatives have been developed. This implementation gap has partly arisen because policies to promote CBE are somewhat theoretical and do not seem to be informed by the practical realities of implementing CBE initiatives on the ground. While CBE policies do not and should not set out detailed implementation plans to address these issues, they do need to better account for how favourable circumstances and contexts can be created for the development of CBE initiatives. In response, this paper critically examines how possibility spaces can be created for the development of CBE initiatives. Assemblage thinking is used in longitudinal case study research focused on a major CBE initiative situated in the south of Sweden: Foodhills. Assemblage thinking is both an approach and method widely used in geography to study how spaces for action such as the construction of CBE initiatives are created. As such, the paper identifies and unpacks multiple issues arising in the development of CBE initiatives on the ground including geographical relations, actor networks and power

The role of change agents and stakeholders in the organisational transformation of the electricity industry

This development paper looks at the organisational transformation that is ongoing within the supply part of the electricity network, to meet the changing demands through the growth in adoption of electric vehicles, domestic heat pumps and increased supply from renewable energy sources. The paper will explore the observations and findings from the involvement of the Open University in an innovation project within a Distribution Network Operator. The focus is to compare the differences between the comparatively easy technical transformation and the harder cultural change, and how change agents and stakeholders influence this process

Transport and environmental innovation

Transport gives rise to considerable C02 emissions, which are rising with little policy effect. Transport policy is a socio-technical regime ordered around the state funding large transport capital projects. This is supported by a professional skills and information structure that serves the logic of this regime. However, an innovative form of transport planning practice has tentatively emerged. Instead of the state implementing measures, it shifts to a supporting and enabling role with the devolution of responsibility to transport users. This is a very different rationale about what constitutes transport policy and its structures. This can be understood as a policy niche within the existing regime. This paper reports research on two areas that seek to apply this niche approach: travel planning and the Milton Keynes electric vehicle project. These research suggest that rather than the ‘new’ transport policy niche leading to regime transformation, it is appears to be migrating to other policy regime structures that are more compatible to its approach

Exploring the role of intermediaries in smart grid developments

Smart grid pilot projects have been initiated in a number of locations across the UK. Innovations considered in these projects include various technologies such as smart meters and electrical energy storage devices, as well as novel institutional arrangements which form the basis of commercial Demand Side Response (DSR) initiatives. This paper reports research into DSR using multiple case studies from Low Carbon Network Fund projects in the UK. The role of Aggregator companies in DSR is reported, their role of a key intermediary analysed and conceptualised using the Accessibility, Mobility and Receptivity (AMR) framework

Exploring participatory visions of smart transport in Milton Keynes

This paper explores citizen concerns emerging in the design stage of MotionMap, a smart transport initiative developed in the context of a £16 million smart city programme. A city-wide sensing system integrated with other databases will provide real-time information about vehicular and pedestrian movement. The experience of a series of smart transport workshops in Milton Keynes suggests that citizens feel that they bear the cost of smart cities through potentially intrusive surveillance producing sacrifices in convenience and privacy, while the gains are captured by industrial and governmental actors. This distrust of surveillance through urban sensing systems is not inflexible. Such systems can gain legitimacy through a participatory approach where users legitimize the sensing system by taking an active role in providing transport data, as opposed to having it ‘harvested’ from them through passive or opportunistic mechanisms. Participatory approaches are challenging because users will engage only if the system can provide compelling benefits. A key contribution of this research comes from identifying that the benefits important to citizens are not necessarily measured in economic terms nor in terms of increased efficiency