Policy Briefs at the National Level : Deliverable 7.2 of the CASI project

This CASI deliverable 7.2 first presents the issues examined and the process used in the national level policy briefs. Key insights from the policy briefs are presented next, followed by a reflection of the further analytical contributions of the outcomes. Finally, a concluding discussion includes an assessment of the usability of the policy brief process in future endeavours

Governance experiments in climate action : Empirical findings from the 28 European Union countries

Climate targets call for novel policy measures to facilitate widespread adoption of low-carbon solutions and innovations. The literature on socio-technical systems argues that experimentation has a prominent role in enabling sustainability transition. Experiments represent ways of testing new ideas and methods across a wide range of policy fields. Governance experiments in particular can support accelerated diffusion of new solutions, because they integrate policy with innovations. Here, types of success factors in the implementation of governance experiments to mitigate climate change are examined. Statistical analysis of sustainability innovations in the 28 European Union countries indicates that the types of success factors in governance experiments differ from those of product and social experiments. Governance experimentation is more positioned within socio-technical regimes than in strategic niches. These results suggest that governance experiments may indeed provide new transition opportunities towards low-carbon societies.Peer reviewe

Collaborative Consumption as a Source of Market Disruption

The concept of collaborative consumption has been developed in consumer studies to define new consumption opportunities which are facilitated by information systems. Accordingly, novel services such as the ridesharing service Uber, for transport, and the hospitality-brokering service Airbnb, for accommodation, successfully employ collaboration in consumption and provide consumers with novel types of access to services. Yet while the identification of this new characteristic of consumption is of great merit, less attention has been paid in consumer studies to how it challenges existing market arrangements. It is against this background that this article examines collaborative consumption as a source of market disruption. The article applies the concept to the empirical case of a pilot scheme in collaborative public transport (Kutsuplus), which essentially consisted of a taxi-like bus service in Helsinki, Finland. It argues that collaborative consumption may tend to contribute premium rather than standard quality in public services, which is apt to disrupt both public and private service markets. The analysis further affirms that the concept of collaborative consumption is well suited to the assessment of novel services and their disruptive characteristics.Peer reviewe

Regime Market Performance Analysis : Informing European Consumer Policy

The Single Market of the European Union has progressed during recent decades to encompass more than 500 million consumers in 28 EU Member States and adjoining countries. During the same period, consumer issues have received growing policy interest and policy measures have been put in place to harmonize the Single Market, that is, to make national markets more alike. Yet, in order to provide policy measures that promote desirable market outcomes, the considerable challenge of understanding differences in the market performances of participating countries and the relationships between national markets and the Single Market need to be addressed. Consequently, this article proposes the consideration of differences in terms of regimes, that is, between groups of similar countries, when assessing the performances of markets. Differences in market performances are analysed with the Kruskal–Wallis test using survey data from the European Commission, and results were reviewed against market studies carried out by the Commission. Findings show that regime differences in market performance can indeed be observed and that the regime approach can draw policy attention to commonalities in market arrangements in addition to the consumer issues conventionally examined, such as price differences and consumer awareness.Peer reviewe

Light Electric Vehicles : Substitution and Future Uses

Light electric vehicles may challenge established forms of transport in the near future. This paper looks at how different kinds of consumers assess the future uses of light electric vehicles. Such uses are further characterized by examining how they could replace the current uses of existing modes of transport such as cycling, cars and public transport. The paper approaches the take-up of light electric vehicles from the vantage point of technological niches which have the potential to transit to sociotechnical regimes (Schot and Geels, 2008 and Geels, 2002). It considers insights from recent user studies on light electric transport and broadens their scope to include a wider range of vehicles. Data from a representative survey of 1030 Finns are used to analyse and characterize future uses of light electric vehicles. Currently, light electric vehicles remain technological niches, but consumers show interest in them, and the paper addresses the match between different kinds of consumers and these vehicles, building opportunities for large scale use.Peer reviewe

Lack of Congruence between European Citizen Perspectives and Policies on Circular Economy

Keywords: circular economy, policy congruence, consumers, citizen visions, sustainability, topic modelling.The concept of circular economy has become a catchphrase for describing redesign of economies and industries towards better sustainability. The consideration of consumers holds a prominent role in the concept, yet consumers‟ concerns and hopes are not well accounted for. This article takes a forward-looking approach to the relationship between consumers and policies on circular economy. It analyses an extensive and systematically collected corpus of European citizen visions on desirable and sustainable futures from this perspective, and compares the outcomes to newly adopted circular economy policies in Europe. The article argues that European policies on circular economy should increasingly connect to energy and climate issues as well as social topics, if they are to build congruence between citizen and policy understandings, and thereby raise public acceptance for the concept.Peer reviewe

Societal challenge 5 : Sectoral relevance of sustainable innovations

The H2020 research and innovation funding for Societal Challenge 5 focuses on preserving current resources, acquiring new ones and on sustainable management of natural eco-systems in particular raw materials. The CASI project responds to the Societal Challenge 5 with the main objective to develop a methodological framework for assessing sustainable innovation and managing multi-disciplinary solutions through public engagement in the RTDI system. This is done by ensuring the commitment of a broad spectrum of societal stakeholders into its implementation, including industry, policy-makers, research organisations and academia, civil society organisations and the general public. The developed methodology has proven to be effective, that among other is manifested through an online repository of collected sustainable innovation initiatives (over 500 cases coming from 28 EU Member States), named CASIPEDIA. It thus presents a wide selection of European sustainable innovation initiatives to experts and supporters of sustainability agendas. This policy brief provides insights from the first assessment report of the Societal Challenge 5 and the issues observed followed by an analysis of sustainable innovation initiatives in the CASIPEDIA database, which showcases the sectoral relevance of the initiatives. Statistical analysis is used to identify differences in how sustainable innovation initiatives in the main sectors relate to the societal challenges. The findings show for example that it would appear worthwhile to consider if the distribution of sustainable innovation across industrial sectors meets the set policy targets. Furthermore, different policy implementation methods could be considered. For instance, funding can be considered particularly beneficial in societal challenges, which already attract sustainable innovation, while setting strict emission standards could steer to innovate in other challenges

Sustainable innovation policy advice using a citizen-expert-citizen approach to ‘aspirations’ mapping

Building upon a general conceptual debate about the nature and production of knowledge, this chapter traces the manner in which different norms, visions and experiences are mobilised when framing future sustainability outcomes, with a view to promoting the effective design of strategic public engagement mechanisms. As demonstrated, whereas citizens tend to emphasise the importance of multi-dimensional and holistic development, in which ecological, social and economic components interact in a complex manner, experts focus on the elaboration of narrower and more specific questions and challenges. The normative tension between perspectives is illustrative of the broader need for more inclusive, sustained and continuous cooperation between science and society at different stages of the policy-making and innovation processes. At the same time, it calls for the careful and proactive forging of public engagement methodologies that allow complementary (or indeed diverging) values, norms, and propositions to be acknowledged and put into context, so as to ensure greater accountability among a larger group of participants and societal stakeholders.Non peer reviewe

National Report on Finland : National Citizen Vision Workshop

This deliverable presents the results of the Finnish National Citizen Vision Workshop, held in Helsinki, Finland, on Saturday January 9th 2016. The NCV workshop in Helsinki was part of a series of CIMULACT workshops across 30 European countries, contributing to a total of 180 citizen visions. These visions will be developed to research priorities and policy advice for the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 programme at latter stages of the CIMULACT project. In total 42 citizens took part in the Finnish National Visions workshop