Tales of the Suburbs?-The Social Sustainability Agenda in Sweden through Literary Accounts

Sustainable development has become increasingly influential. In light of environmental concerns, the social dimension of sustainability is now encompassing a growing number of concerns. Together with more traditional hard concepts, including basic needs, equity, and employment, soft themes, such as greater wellbeing, are becoming significant. The present paper compares qualitatively these theoretical themes with the concrete, lived experiences of inhabitants within deprived suburbs. To do so, a framework for understanding social sustainability is proposed, and then applied to analyze three literary accounts of residents within Swedish suburbs. The three accounts are analyzed through the lens of critical discourse analysis. The results indicate that employment and functional infrastructures did not prevent the stigmatization of these residential areas. Important social and cultural segregations are occurring, supported by the physical organization of urban space. Using biographical accounts incorporates subjective and emotional perspectives usually left aside in the context of urban development. These allow a better understanding of the complex realities of these suburbs and could therefore help urban developers to better grasp the complex and predominantly culturally oriented set of challenges confronting the establishment of socially sustainable communities

Proto institutions in Sustainable Buildings

The building community is currently undergoing a transformation towards low carbon buildings; this process involves a range of dynamics: Social, cultural, political and regulatory. To analyse this process we use mainly institutional theory as approach to sustainable transition in an attempt to account for contemporary developments, encompassing multiple competing concepts and EU reforms. This theory enables us to address emerging institutions and proto-institutions of sustainable building.. In addition, we draw on political process theory To explain the agency dynamics involving coalitions, alliances in and around the proto-institutions. The development of sustainable building in Denmark from 2001-2014 is used as a case of a building community dynamics, based on data gathered from desk study and interviews. More than ten concepts of sustainable building are involved. A previous consensus oriented dominant institution broke down around 2002. The normative concepts such as passive houses that then have emerged constitute alliances encompassing technologies, practices, norms and actors. The normative upcoming proto institutions have experienced barriers such as the reputation of being expensive and non-user friendly. This has counterbalanced the emerging legitimacy that for example passive houses draw on through established design principles, design software, certification and a portfolio of realized houses in other countries. Others, such as “energy class 1” are gaining momentum as anticipatory normative institutions and future EU-regulation. A possible future configuration in sustainable building appears to involve multiple institutions and protoinstitutions

From waste to resource management? Construction and demolition waste management through the lens of institutional work

The European Union has issued action plans to reduce the production of construction waste and increase the reuse and recycling of materials in the hope of triggering a rapid transition towards a Circular Economy (CE). The management of construction and demolition waste, however, struggles to apply these measures. Our purpose, therefore, is to analyse how different actors involved in the management of waste could contribute to transform existing practices so that they respond to the shifting demands of legislation and support CE. To understand how this transformation work is performed, we build on the concept of institutional work, which enables us to describe how actors, rather than accepting institutions as permanent and immovable, contribute to their development by creating, maintaining or disrupting the existing institution. Drawing on qualitative research methods, we collected empirical data through 31 semi-structured interviews, observations of meetings and site visits. Our results show that whereas the production of waste is somewhat reduced, and the sorting of fractions improved, the institutional work performed is not sufficient to translate sustainability into new economic values. Although the work performed legitimizes CE principles and enables new initiatives, it mostly fails to change normative associations and to define new rules of action that support CE

Convenience renovation and non-transition- contractor SMEs operating in the detached housing market.

Single houses built in Sweden before 1980 are in need of renovation to meet the 2020 standards for energy performance as a large majority is still warmed with electricity, insufficiently insulated and exhibit poor energy efficiency. Such small scale renovations have traditionally been the market of small and medium sized contractors (SME’s) interacting directly with the house owners. The main purposes of this contribution are therefore to investigate how renovation of single family houses occurs when in interaction with craftsman SMEs and secondly to envisage activities in small craftsman organisations under transformation towards delivering sustainable buildings. A selective literature review of activities in SMEs facing sustainable housing transition is carried out. Case studies of small craftsman companies; including carpenters, electricians, and plumbers and their customer relations are ongoing. This paper presents a study of three craftsmen contractors and their interaction with potential customers, owners of single family houses. Through interviewing, participant observation, and shadowing the sales processes and negotiations are followed. Theoretically the study draws on Goffman´s concepts of performance, staging and encounters. The result shows that occasions for sustainable renovation are staged and “inter-acted” into convenience renovation, renovation of selected elements of the house and in support of aesthetic and or functional needs of the house owner. Main activities envisaged for transitional activities are strategizing, networking, exercising politics and doing marketing. Transition can for example be exercised from the network of the SMEs

Towards a revised understanding of resources and economy in the circular economy

While the circular economy (CE) is gaining political traction, with steps being taken to embrace CE principles at European and national levels, practical progress remains elusive. One reason for this is that the transition to the CE is predicated on the need to decouple economic activities from the consumption of finite resources. Yet most initiatives treat the notion of economy as a mere contextual backdrop for proposed actions, an aspirational outcome rather than a realized process of consumption and production. More critically, policymaking, research, and practical efforts to adopt CE principles often draw on dogmatic neoclassical economic assumptions that markets and the economy work as naturalized phenomena that are disembedded from other societal functions. Moreover, these approaches crucially fail to recognize that the concept of the/an ‘economy’ is not a pregiven entity, but a construct shaped by social, political, and not least, material processes in the form of the very resources that are the central focus of the CE.This results in an underdeveloped understanding of the relationship between economic activities and processes of production and consumption. Drawing on insights from the sociology of economics, our project aims at addressing this by developing a dialectical understanding of two pivotal constructs within the circular economy namely 'economy' and 'resources'. Thus, rather than seeing CE as a question of how to decouple economic activity from the consumption of finite resources, we consider consumption and production processes as economic activities per se that contribute to shaping the boundaries of markets.We do so by studying how ‘non-economic’ aspects of the circular economy, such as new design and production methods, recycling, and reuse, are translated into economic terms, thereby making them subject to valuation, calculations, and decision-making. This translation reveals deeper insights into how specific consumption and production practices may be realized, and how to create a new performative economics of circular consumption. We apply a similar understanding in our study of resources. Instead of seeing resources as tangible and fixed goods that are innately valuable, we advocate an approach that emphasizes the processes through which a potential resource is transformed into a ‘resource in use’. This entails a focus on the relationship between resources and the existing institutionalized rules, norms, and conventions which constitute a framework of. This perspective enables us to understand how frameworks for action can be altered to accommodate the use of certain resources instead of others.We pursue these understandings in a study of how alternative forms of economic organization, business models, and market mechanisms can be developed to support the circulation of products and services that mobilize new resources or new types of resource use in the construction industry. In doing so, the project provides a more critical perspective on the dynamics and processes involved in the transition to the circular economy compared previous efforts in the Danish and international contexts

Engineering Students as Innovation Facilitators for Enterprises

This paper addresses the role that Engineering Master Students may play in contributing to the development of innovationfor enterprises. Based on a formalized tripartite cooperation between a student, an enterprise and a Danish university, theprogramme combines traditional academic curricula with a mentor company. Drawing on the concepts of Mode 2knowledge production and knowledge governance the circumstances under which these innovations can take place aredescribed and analysed. The empirical material is taken from a longitudinal study (2009-2011) of the master programme;the study combines qualitative and quantitative approaches. Both students and enterprises assess the master programmevery positively and more than half of the companies confirmed that the students have contributed to innovation processes.The analysis shows how formal and informal governance mechanisms need to complement each other in order to enable asuccessful progression for all the parties involved. However the study also underlines that the master programme faceschallenges which are usually not part of engineering curricula, for example, improving students’ social and communicationcompetences and autonomy

Chalmers Publication Library Time travellers: managers on the building site Time travellers: managers on the building site

Abstract Efficiency is often described as the extent to which time, effort or cost is well used for executing an intended task or purpose: the shorter time between an investment and it return, the greater the profit. Organisational concepts and theories are here to help industries to perform as efficiently as possible. Management and planning tools are mobilised to frame and control work processes to be done on time. However studies on the building site usually show chaos and the proliferation of unexpected events. Interruptions are usually treated as disturbances which need to be reduced and avoided. Managers have to deal with these disturbances which create a rupture between what has been planned and what is actually happening at the building site. The present paper looks at how these interruptions appear during the workday and how the managers answer and reorganise their work consequently. The empirical material comes from a study carried at the building site of a public school. The methods used to collect data are frequency analysis and participant observation among others. The results show that these managers did not comply with the traditional picture of managing the building site. If their work is indeed fragmented with an average of 120 interruptions per day, they do not overwork to compensate the lack of time. Moreover instead of portraying these switching as interruptions affecting the work of managers it is argued that these switching in fact partly constitute their work