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Strategic niche management for biofuels: Analysing past experiments for developing new biofuel policies
Abstract
Biofuels have gained a lot of attention since the implementation of the 2003 European Directive on biofuels. In the Netherlands the contribution of biofuels is still very limited despite several experiments in the past. This article aims to contribute to the development of successful policies for stimulating biofuels by analysing three experiments in depth. The approach of strategic niche management (SNM) is used to explain success and failure of these projects. Based on the analysis as well as recent innovation literature we develop a list of guidelines that is important to consider when developing biofuel policies.
... Market formation refers to the process of strengthening the factors that influence the development, diffusion, and use of a novel technology (Bergek et al., 2008a). Inherent in all efforts to market formation is uncertainty (Santos and Eisenhardt, 2009), in regards to both the demand and supply for the new technologies (Blind et al., 2017;te Kulve et al., 2018). 1 These uncertainties will prevail in many dimensionsi.e., technical, economic, institutional, and organizational. A key to reducing all these uncertainties is entrepreneurial experimentation, which implies probing into new technologies and applications (Bergek et al., 2008a). ...
... In the context of market formation for novel technologies, both the supply of and the demand for the technologies are closely interrelated and contribute to shaping uncertainty in the market (Blind et al., 2017;te Kulve et al., 2018). Supply uncertainty is the (perceived or real) absence of suppliers of a new technology or product, or the perceived unpredictability of existing ways and capabilities to develop and commercialize these. ...
... By doing so, these niches become more robust and evolve into market niches through improvements in cost and performances, as well as through expansions in supporting socio-technical networks (Smith and Raven, 2012). New markets thus emerge in a process of co-evolution of markets and technologies (van der Laak et al., 2007). The market niches are often characterized by uncertainty and openness concerning technological design, and by the activities of pioneering entrepreneurs (Dewald and Truffer, 2011). ...
This paper analyzes through what enabling mechanisms pilot and demonstration plants (PDPs) reduce supply and demand uncertainties, and thereby contributing to the market formation for novel sustainable technologies. The analysis builds on three case studies within the advanced biofuel development in Europe. For each case, we construct a narrative of the technology development and derive detailed insights into how technology actors use PDPs to drive market formation. We develop a comprehensive analytical framework, which highlights how PDPs contribute to supply uncertainty reduction through three main enabling mechanisms: building credibility for the technology, business ecosystem orchestration, and technology learning. The corresponding enabling mechanisms behind demand uncertainty reduction include technology standardization, constructing the narrative, and the creation of legitimacy for the technology. The paper also unfolds the composite activities of each mechanism, and outlines implications for technology developers, policymakers, as well as for the research community.
... Technological Innovation Systems (TIS) (Bergek, Jacobsson, Carlsson, et al., 2008) and Strategic Niche Management (SNM) (Schot & Geels, 2008) are two of the most significant frameworks in this research. While TIS addresses structures and functions that influence the success or failure of emerging novelties in a system (Bergek, Jacobsson, Carlsson, et al., 2008;Hekkert et al., 2007), SNM emphasizes how nichebuilding processes together with shielding mechanisms can drive the success of the emerging novelties through continuous experimentation in protected spaces (Smith & Raven, 2012;van der Laak et al., 2007). ...
... Experimentation TIS-Entrepreneurial activities (Hekkert & Negro, 2009;Hekkert et al., 2007), entrepreneurial experimentation (Bergek, Jacobsson, Carlsson, et al., 2008): Activities to generate, test, and realize novel opportunities using the potential of knowledge, networks, and markets by either the new entrants or the incumbents. SNM-The building of socio-technical niches (Schot & Geels, 2008;van der Laak et al., 2007): Processes to create protected spaces that allow the nurturing and experimenting with the novelties co-evolving with the user practices and regulatory structures. Proposed definition and specifics: Generation, testing, and implementation of circular business model innovation to develop and nurture the circular business model under analysis. ...
... Visioning TIS-Guidance of search (Hekkert & Negro, 2009;Hekkert et al., 2007), influence on the direction of search (Bergek, Jacobsson, Carlsson, et al., 2008): Activities to influence and attract further attention and investments for the novelties. SNM-Articulation of expectations and visions (Caniëls & Romijn, 2008;Schot & Geels, 2008;van der Laak et al., 2007): ...
The concepts “circular business models” and “transitions towards a circular economy” have become modern‐day buzzwords. Yet, an understanding of the interplay between these two concepts remains unclear. This paper proposes a conceptual framework that illustrates the innovation mechanisms enhancing circular business models emerging within the context of transitions towards a circular economy. The paper follows a two‐step methodology. First, a theoretical framing is proposed by adopting insights from transitions studies. Second, a systematic literature review is employed. The review synthesizes the selected literature tracing the proposed framing in the previously published research. Finally, a transitions framework for circular business models is proposed. This framework suggests future lines of research to support its plausibility. Moreover, it offers prescriptive help to managers, entrepreneurs, policymakers, and other social actors enabling them to make informed decisions about and take innovative actions for circular business models in specific contexts.
... Significant changes of large socio-technical systems take considerable time (normally decades), due to lock-ins, path dependence and resistance to change (Köhler et al., 2019;van der Laak et al., 2007). Seen from a historical socio-technical systems development perspective, the biomethane driven transport systems are young and thus potentially have room for significant further improvements. ...
... Such niches may involve investment support, tax exemptions, production support, information and education. Niche markets may be local markets, specific segments or applications, that can be stepping stones on the way to expansion (Geels, 2002;van der Laak et al., 2007); such as biomethane used for buses in public transport (Aldenius, 2018;Aldenius and Khan, 2017), spreading over to other transport segments. However, Lazarevic and Valve (2020), in a study of biogas solutions in Finland, show the importance of specific niche configurations to steer towards the visions/goals (like a circular economy), and in a comparison between Sweden and the Brazilian state Parana, Magnusson et al (2021) point to the strong influence of socioeconomic structures. ...
... Visions/Imaginaries and expectations may be important (e.g. see Auvinen and Tuominen, 2014), but expectations should be reasonable and endurance is required for larger transformations to be realized (Kemp and Loorbach, 2006;Mutter, 2020;van der Laak et al., 2007). Changes regarding legitimacy may strongly influence the development (Markard et al., 2016). ...
This is an IEA Bioenergy, Task 37 report, addressing biogas, or biomethane, used in the transport sector.
The report summarizes essential information on technology, economics, sustainability transitions, policy, and sustainability performance. The concluding chapter is a summary for policy makers
... The transitions literature describes experiments in multiple ways, ranging from niche-level experimentation in the multi-level perspective (MLP) and strategic niche management (SNM) frameworks (van der Laak et al. 2007;Schot and Geels, 2008), through entrepreneurial experimentation in the context of technological innovation systems (Hekkert et al., 2007), to transition experiments in transition management (Frantzeskaki et al., 2012;Loorbach et al., 2015). The main idea behind experimentation in transitions lies in radical or disruptive novelty, the involvement of new types of actors, and on-the-ground activities feeding into the nurturing of sustainable innovation niches and societal problem solving (Berkhout et al., 2010;Kivimaa et al., 2017;Sengers et al., 2019). ...
... First, the MaaS case shows the overall dynamics of strategic niche management: visioning, learning and network formation (cf. van der Laak et al., 2007;Schot and Geels, 2008) which benefitted policy experimentation. Non-state actors took part in policy experimentation, businesses and research actors being most common (while experimentation could have been more inclusive to more vulnerable or marginal groups of population (cf. ...
While experimentation is at the heart of sustainability transitions, little attention has been paid to policy experimentation and its effects in advancing transitions. Drawing on the literatures on policy experimentation and institutional change in the context of sustainability transitions, we analyse an in-depth case study of the development of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) in Finland – one of the first countries globally to advance MaaS by government support. Our findings show how a potentially disruptive innovation, MaaS, can be traced back to a longer process of administrative reorientation and restructuring, i.e. gradual transformation in institutions, and has benefitted from cycles of policy experimentation, combined with the sequencing of policy strategies and further changes in the policy mix. Administrative restructuring has enabled policy experimentation that has led - via new vision building, networking and learning - to major regulatory change allowing market creation for MaaS. We conclude that the dynamics of policy mixes in transitions are influenced by short-term policy experimentation and long-term institutional change. More generally, institutional change is vital for enabling a favourable context for policy experimentation in sustainability transitions that in turn provides cognitive and normative learning to inform further institutional change.
... Learning by doing and experimenting in a local project context is critical in the case of "configurational technologies, "such as energy technologies, where multiple components have to work together effectively. By following this process, actors within the niche gain valuable insights, acquire technical know-how, and refine the innovation to increase its chances of successful diffusion ( Van der Laak et al., 2007). Kamp and Vanheule (2015) ...
The aim of this WaterWarmth project Work Package 6.1 report is to present a number of relevant frameworks available to analyse and/or assess the governance of current heating systems and future energy system innovation, in particular with a focus on aquathermal energy (AE) systems. At the basis of the report was a broad survey of the academic and other literature by project researchers on ways to conceptualise the greater use of AE energy systems in the European Union. To keep the report succinct, and based on discussions by WaterWarmth project researchers, we have decided to present a combination of theoretical approaches to frame and understand AE system transitions instead of the broad collection of frameworks and theories that exist today. These are the Multi-Level Perspective, Strategic Niche Management, Contextual Interaction Theory, the Governance of Change and Community Energy Systems. The report contributes to the project by providing a strategic way to understand renewable energy transition processes, and more specifically, pathways for how AE systems can play a more significant role in a renewable energy system transition in the North Sea Region and beyond. The result is a heuristic that allows practitioners to discover how AE system developments in particular places can be viewed in a broader energy system transition context, the measures that may be needed to guide the transition process, and to gain a deeper understanding about the motivations, cognitions and resources of the actors involved in the energy transition process.
To demonstrate the proposed frameworks, we exemplify using two case studies: AE system development at the household in Sweden, and AE transitions in the Fryslân region, in the Netherlands. For the Swedish case we use the Multi-level Perspective (MLP) framework to provide the background of the niche, landscape level and the socio-technical regime which illustrate the influence of policies and regulations, as well as technologies and markets. For the Netherlands case, we place a stronger emphasis on Contextual Interaction Theory (CIT) framework to analyse how the different actors and their characteristics such as motivations, cognitions and resources influence the interaction process in the planning and implementation of AE systems projects. Using the CIT, we are also able to assess how the specific, structural and wider contexts influence the implementation process as well as how the actors interact with each other. Each case provides a unique structuring, both enablers and hindrances, of the institutional and governance dynamics for AE system innovations in their respective countries. Extending from the exemplary studies, we lastly discuss each of the cases as well as broader insights gained when using the approach, and what it can mean for broader AE system transitions in the European Union.
... In 2005, the North-Brabant government took up biofuels as an option to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, along with contributing to a sustainable energy system, creating new market opportunities for the agricultural sector. The level of success of these projects in the Netherlands is analysed by using strategic niche management (SNM) (Msangi et al. 2008;Thompson 2008;van der Laak et al. 2007;Zhang 2011). A relationship has also been explored between biofuels and sustainable development goals (SDGs). ...
The dwindling supply of fossil fuels and environmental issues have raised awareness of alternative energy sources like biofuels. Microbial engineering, on the contrary, presents a viable approach for sustainable biofuel production considering the rising demand for renewable energy sources and the pressing need to mitigate climate change. This technique involves the strategic manipulation of microbes to maximize the production of biofuels, a renewable and sustainable substitute for fossil fuels. However, stepping up biofuel production poses numerous challenges, such as cost-effectiveness, sustainability, and regulatory concerns. Therefore, overcoming challenges of scaling up microbial biofuel production and creating cost-effective downstream processing are need of the hour. Through the exploration of concepts such as techno-feasibility, resource sustainability, resilience, and techno-economic analysis, it is conceivable that the development of technologies aligned with the principles of the circular economy can be achieved. In the present chapter the importance of metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, systems biology, and multi-omics for the design and optimization of microbial strains for biofuel production is reviewed and discussed. Also, a brief overview of the current state of microbial engineering for biofuel production globally is presented. The development of more effective and resistant microbial strains with the integration of an omics knowledge base for comprehension of systems-level knowledge of metabolic networks along with the use of novel bioprocessing methods for large-scale production have also been emphasised in this chapter.
... 2 A (sociotechnical) regime can be understood as the 'deep-structure' or grammar of sociotechnical systems, including technical and social aspects that account for the stability of sociotechnical configurations. This includes engineering practices, production technologies, skills and procedures, and the institutions and infrastructures they are embedded in (Geels, 2002(Geels, , 2004. 3 To understand the internal niche dynamics and evaluate a niche's performance, the Strategic Niche Management (SNM) framework was developed based on similar conceptual grounds (Schot and Geels, 2008;Markard et al., 2012); SNM provides conceptual tools to assess the performance of niche dynamics (e.g., Van der Laak et al., 2007;Hoogma et al., 2002). 4 The TIS framework has emerged within a broader field of Innovation System (IS) concepts, including national innovation systems (NIS) (Freeman, 1987;Lundvall, 1992), regional innovation systems (RIS) (Asheim and Isaksen, 1997;Cooke et al., 1997) and Sectoral Innovation Systems (SIS) (Breschi and Malerba, 1997;Malerba, 2002). ...
This paper systematically reviews the literature on sociotechnical multi-system innovation frameworks that broaden the usual focus on one sociotechnical system to encompass influences from multiple systems. The review includes 75 peer-reviewed papers that span a broad range of energy-demanding systems and mainly build upon the core frameworks of the Multi-level Perspective (MLP) and Technological Innovation Systems (TIS). The analysis identifies three key aspects to consider in multi-system frameworks. The first aspect is the importance of considering the overarching directionality of multiple sociotechnical systems and how they influence each other. The second is to explicitly analyse the phase of each transitioning system. The third aspect is a need for explicit system configuration analysis. This includes analysing the value chain and the number and types of sectors linked to it, typifying the distinct characteristics of sectors internally and how they interact, and analysing complementary or competitive technologies. The paper concludes by providing recommendations for future research, with a particular focus on the further development of new multi-system frameworks that include one or more of the prior-mentioned three key takeaways. Firstly, focusing on dynamics within multi-system niches. Secondly, performing actor-level analysis, including demand-side analysis. Finally, applying quantitative methods, such as computer simulation modelling.
... Policy actors are thus increasingly concerned with standardization, formulating industry norms and facilitating the development of mass markets also in other cities, regions or countries (Miörner and Binz, 2021). This general upscaling and diffusion process has been illustrated in numerous single-case studies in transitions literature, e.g., on the diffusion of biofuels (van der Laak et al., 2007), photovoltaic power (Dewald and Truffer, 2011), or steam ships (Geels 2002). ...
... Drivers and challenges of biofuel projects in the Netherlands show that internal processes of the niche tend to be influenced by events or activities, such as collaboration of actors. These activities are a moderator that strengthens or weaken the dynamics of internal processes of SNM ( Van der Laak et al., 2007). Government support is the pivotal reason explaining the creation of the concentrated solar power (CSP) market niche in the US. ...
Transformation toward a low-carbon sustainable energy system is getting more recognition in oil-rich developing countries under pressure exerted by their growing environmental challenges and international treaties- including UN SDGs. This calls for concerted efforts for developing renewable energy technologies (RETs). In this regard, the current paper examines the historical development of the solar photovoltaic (PV) niche formation in Iran from 1990 to 2020 in two chronological phases, i.e., technological niches and market niches. We adopt strategic niche management framework and highlight the active role of government support should plays as a key prerequisite required for RET niches development in oil-rich developing countries (ORDCs) where market is heavily in favor of fossil sources of energy. Data was gathered through 19 semi-structured interviews as well as PV-related science and technology development activities. We found that while universities and research institutions played a pivotal role in PV technological niche formation, foreign direct investment (FDI) and local firms were instrumental in PV market niche development. Our findings provide recommendations to direct ORDCs in developing PV, which include proper implementation of feed-in tariff policy, enhanced collaboration among international and local actors, integrated and balanced development of the PV value chain, diversified application of PV in the residential and industrial sectors, and lastly, leveraging FDI and joint-ventures as means of promoting local technological capabilities, industrialization, and market expansion.
... In such a context, power and politics are expected to significantly influence the promotion or suppression of renewable energy deployment in this group of countries. SNM and MLP are useful approaches but have been largely applied to developed countries (Geels, 2011(Geels, , 2014, with a few examples from developing countries (Berkhout et al., 2010;Ulsrud et al., 2011;van der Laak et al., 2007), and hardly any application to oil-producing countries (with exceptions of Moe, 2015 andOsunmuyiwa et al., 2018). To enrich the 'regime' concept and to better understand the special context of oil-producing countries, such as the Gulf Arab states, Osunmuyiwa et al., 2018 were the first authors to combine MLP literature with a specific analysis of the political economy in rentier states (i.e., states that rely on generating a large proportion of their income from rents), with a focus, using RST, on Nigeria as a case study. ...
Despite the abundance of renewable resources, renewable energy accounts for less than 1% of the total installed power capacity in oil‐producing Gulf Arab states. While the political–economic structures of oil‐producing Gulf Arab states are thought to have played a role in determining these states' remarkably low uptake of renewable energy, these structures remain understudied. With a focus on Oman, we assess how political–economic structures have influenced its adoption of renewable energy. We implement an analytical framework that integrates insights from energy transition studies and the political–economic theory of rentier states. Drawing on secondary data and primary information from semi‐structured interviews with renewable energy developers and energy experts, this study reveals that renewable energy roll‐out in Oman has been delayed through three different strategies, namely the use media and public debate, a reduction of the power of renewable energy stakeholders, and the use of institutional mechanisms to strengthen hydrocarbon‐based technologies. Oman's renewable energy transition efforts aim to protect rents from oil exports rather than advance low‐carbon energy transition.
... Policy actors are thus increasingly concerned with standardization, formulating industry norms and facilitating the development of mass markets also in other cities, regions or countries (Miörner and Binz, 2021). This general upscaling and diffusion process has been illustrated in numerous single-case studies in transitions literature, e.g., on the diffusion of biofuels (van der Laak et al., 2007), photovoltaic power (Dewald and Truffer, 2011), or steam ships (Geels 2002). ...
... The rationale is that innovations may not yet: (1) have a proven track record of success; (2) be feasible; and (3) be either profitable or clearly meet the mandate of an organization. Therefore, a niche or safe space ensures that these concerns do not limit the efforts to generate innovations (see, for example, Van der Laak et al., 2007;Schot and Geels, 2008;Smith and Raven, 2012). ...
... Table 8 lists specific contributions on biofuel and SNM. [44] argued about the development of successful policies to promote biofuels by analyzing in depth three experiments in the Netherlands and using the SNM to justify success and failure of these projects. Van Eijck and Romijn (2008) [45], using SNM as analytical tool, presented a study in Tanzania centered on the production of biofuels through a plant called Jatropha Curcas Linnaeus. ...
With the aim of achieving a sustainable future, a new research area dealing with "sustain-ability transitions" has emerged. The focus on socio-technical niches and the related management activities are paramount to understand their aptitude to replace the dominant socio-technical regime. Strategic niche management (SNM) has become a renowned analytical framework for understanding the introduction and diffusion of very new sustainable innovations through societal experiments. With an emphasis on SNM, a systematic literature review (SLR) mainly looking at the environmental dimension of sustainability was carried out adopting the PRISMA statement. The increase in publications over the years, the enlargement of the geographical borders interested, the presence of points of reference in the literature, as well as the adaptability of the theoretical framework to both a generic and specific issue related to sustainability, demonstrate the centrality of SNM for studying the transition towards sustainability in socio-technical systems.
... Alternative technologies, however, face high commercialization barriers since they seldom align with the configurations of the incumbent regimes (e.g., Dijk et al., 2013;Bouwman et al., 2014). Thus, to facilitate the improvement of promising innovations, a common suggestion is to create protected spaces to shield the innovations from the commercial selection environment of established markets (Hoogma et al., 2002;Van der Laak et al., 2007;Nill and Kemp, 2009). Thanks to the weak structuration in such protected "niches" (Geels and Schot, 2007), experimentation is enabled so that the innovations in question can mature and gain momentum. ...
To navigate sustainability transitions, firms are often prompted to take an active role in business model innovation. Previous research has shown, however, that when attempting to change business models, incumbent firms frequently face challenges concerning the ambiguity of transition pathways. This paper is an inquiry into this intersection between business model innovation and sustainability transitions. Anchored in three case studies of sustainability-driven, pre-commercial projects of emerging technologies, it reveals how groups of organizations collaborate in time-limited, cross-industry networks, to explore potential business models for anticipated, profound, changes in socio-technical systems. Drawing on these findings, the paper introduces the concept of experimental networks and illustrates how experimental networks can facilitate business model innovation in relation to systemic change. By outlining the constituents of the experimental network concept, the paper contributes to theory by uncovering the interplay of interorganizational collaboration and network level business model innovation. In addition, it reveals how experimental networks constitute one way for incumbents to claim agency with respect to emerging sustainability transitions.
... Traditionally, the transition studies literature has emphasized qualitative investigations of inductive case studies, mainly in the domain of energy, directed at the identification of success and failure factors (Caniëls & Romijn, 2008;Geels & Raven, 2006;Hoogma et al., 2002;Kemp et al., 1998;Lane, 2002;Lopolito et al., 2011;Raven, 2006Raven, , 2007Rotmans et al., 2001;Truffer et al., 2002;Tsoutsos & Stamboulis, 2005; Van der Laak et al., 2007). More recently, scholars have raised the need for mixed-methods studies of sustainability transitions, due to the analytical challenges linked to the variables involved, including different geographical and temporal scales, uncertainty related to the performance of radical innovations, and governance factors in complex system transitions (Holtz et al., 2015;Turnheim et al., 2015). ...
This paper aims at increasing our understanding of the role of space dimensions in niche evolution dynamics. To accomplish this goal, an agent-based model is developed, locating agents in geographical space. The model is then used to show how local niches built on geographical proximity perform differently from global niches built on relative proximity, in terms of the timing of niche creation, the velocity of niche maturation, average profit, environmental uncertainty and knowledge exchange. It concludes that the spatial dimension of niches should be considered in the development of policies to promote sustainable transitions.
... This is partly due to early exploration of clean energy policies and experience accumulated over the past few decades. Energy policies in European countries, such as niche market development and electricity sector deregulation in Denmark (Laak et al 2007, Verbong andGeels 2007), community engagement in Finland (Ruggiero et al 2018), feed-in-tariff of Germany (Nordensvärd andUrban 2015, Akizu et al 2018), green technology innovations in Norway (Normann 2017, Nykamp 2017, generate abundant and important lessons for follower states to initiate more effective strategies based on each specific context. In addition, the highly integrated energy, climate and environmental policies among the European countries on the platform of the European Union not only complimented each other for managing individual shortfalls of energy security (Sencar et al 2014, Bouzarovski et al 2015, Strambo et al 2015, renewable integration (Fragkos et al 2017, Pereira et al 2018, Winfield et al 2018 and technology innovation (Kang and Hwang 2016), but also give them strong political incentive to engage in prolong international climate negotiations as a powerful group (Espa andHolzer 2018, Kurze andLenschow 2018). ...
We develop an evidence map of the academic research on energy transitions (ETs) with a focus on what that literature says about public policy for addressing climate change. In this article, the questions we ask are: What trends do we see in the topics that occur in journal articles on the energy transition? And to what extent has public policy been a focus? Where do we need or see energy transitions happening? Our approach involves: (1) using two literature databases to identify 4875 relevant ET articles over the period 1970–2018; (2) identifying important topics within ET using topic modeling via latent Dirichlet allocation on the abstracts of the articles; and (3) conducting a robustness check on the topics and analysis on the policy-relevant topics. This study contributes to the ETs research by providing the first systematic overview of peer-reviewed articles on ETs. We find that the number of academic articles covering ETs has increased by nearly a factor of 50 since 2008, 67% of them are policy related. Research on governance is pervasive in the literature and contains multiple topics differentiated by substantive foci. Some topics on the social-technical, social-behavioral, and political aspects of transition governance are becoming increasingly popular. Network analysis shows transition governance, energy economics and climate implications, and energy technologies comprise the three largest clusters of topics, but we observe a lack of connectedness between governance topics and technology topics. In the policy-relevant literature, we see a growing number of articles on technological and institutional innovation, and examples from leader countries, especially in Europe. We find only a quarter of articles discussed ETs in developing countries, which is not aligned with a recurring theme, their importance to the global ET.
... It is well established in the literature that transitions involve various manifestations of agency [4,8,31,32]. While a considerable body of research exists investigating what makes agency successful in enacting change at macro levels [33][34][35], our knowledge on the role of agency is limited by the fact that few sustainability researchers consider individual context [36][37][38], individual agency [39][40][41][42], and/or the dynamics of agency development [43]. ...
This paper explores how agency was used within a police-hospital collaboration to implement a planned change designed to increase the sustainability of a cross-sector collaboration. A longitudinal, qualitative case study involving pre-and-post interviews with 20 police officers and 20 healthcare workers allowed us to capture multiple perspectives of the planned change over time. Analysis of case study data reveals three major findings: (1) organizations with limited power can have agency in cross-sector collaborations when they are perceived to have legitimacy and urgency; (2) the extent to which the implementation of a planned change influences perceptions of agency depends on the organizational context of the perceiver; and (3) different levels of analysis (i.e., meso versus micro) support different conclusions with respect to the role of agency in the sustainability transition process. More broadly, our study highlights the role of perception when investigating agency within sustainability transitions.
... Further, it includes people's opinions regarding the risks involved in the process of development. It is also argued that the usage of edible biomass for the production of fuel may have an adverse influence on food security and inflate food prices [5,20]. Moreover, agriculture derived biofuels are associated with the ecological damages, and they are less efficient (lower energy content) as compared to the conventional fuel oils, which increase the consumption of biofuels [21e23]. ...
Biofuel can become a promising sustainable energy resource in India by substituting conventional fossil fuels. However, the biofuel industry is still in its initial stage due to barriers in technical, economic, social, and regulatory dimensions. In this study, thirty-eight barriers to the sustainable development of biofuels were explored by reviewing the literature and expert opinions. Then, an integrated approach combining "Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM)" and "Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL)" methodology was employed to establish a mutual relationship between the challenges and simultaneously obtaining the intensity of this interrelationship to identify the most significant ones. Further, these barriers are also clustered using "Matriced Impacts Crois es Multiplication Appliqu ee a un Classement (MICMAC)" analysis. The results of the study reveal that four challenges, i.e., "Lack of governmental support for sustainable supply chain solutions (B31), Lack of subsidies/incentives for creating competition among the producers of bio-energy (B30), Lack of entrepreneurship support (B21) and Lack of biomass supply chain standards (B19)" are the biggest hurdles. The study also presents a few strategies, which can be used as a guiding step by the decision-makers to formulate policies for the effective elimination of the barriers for the sustainable growth of the biofuel industry.
... They are most effective if they have a wide diversity of actors, including manufacturers, users, investors, policymakers and regulators. The livelier the interaction between them the better [21,64]. Opazo [20] notes that resources to support the platform must be available. ...
The transition towards a low carbon energy system requires significant deployment of renewable energy technologies. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) plants could contribute to a low carbon energy system, with an estimated potential global capacity of over 600 GW by 2030. Despite this potential, however, the CSP industry lags behind other renewable technologies, with only about 4% of its estimated global potential expected to be rea-lised in the next decade. This paper investigates the reasons for this by comparing CSP in the US, where 60% of worldwide capacity is currently located, with South Africa, where its development has been slow despite an abundance of natural solar-energy resources. Using strategic niche management analysis, we identify replicable success factors that could accelerate the uptake of CSP projects in developing countries. The results reveal that the main reason for the successful diffusion and adoption of CSP in the US is consistent policy support, which has made it possible to bridge the gap between research and development and emerge in the market. By contrast, the development of CSP in South Africa has been hindered by several technical and economic problems, including a lack of technological expertise, resources and funding.
... The potential of transition experiments engaging crossorganizational collaboration between diverse societal actors (government, industry, and citizenry) [24,25] can be enabled by interdisciplinary diagnostic frameworks providing for a shared and facilitated 'space' [often referred to as 'labs': see Ref. [26] for social learning through participation and user involvement in diverse contexts. Such strategic steer enables the structuration of political and technical coalitions and networks, and drives social-technical innovations in diverse areas such as energy and food production [27], urban and water sustainability transitions [28][29][30]. Some examples of such learning networks in large-scale ocean policy may be seen in the Pacific [16,31], Caribbean [32], Mediterranean [33], Atlantic [34] and Indian Ocean [35]. ...
This paper analyses the perception of Brazilian high-level ocean-related governmental authorities in charge of steering future pathways for the national ocean economy. We adapted and applied a model for evaluating sustainability transition experiments to visualize what ought to be the ingredients of an experimental agenda focused in advancing the country's marine spatial planning (MSP) as a fundamental instrument for achieving a shared Vision of blue economy for Brazil. Our results point that such a vision does not currently exist to guide the ocean governance system, raising attention for potential gaps in the consideration of environmental sustainability and social equity that needs to be addressed when shaping one. We discuss what ought to be the core ingredients of a national-level transition experiment for advancing MSP in Brazil (inputs, processes, outcomes and results). The adoption of a network-based MSP transition experiment in Brazil, from an initial technically-oriented to a subsequent process-oriented approach, may improve the sociopolitical arena's functional ocean governability, by (1) promoting a process-framework for improving the overall presence and quality of area-based governance-related knowledge-exchange; (2) supporting the policy-innovators quest for integrated governance through imagination and rationalization of appropriate institutional changes; (3) providing space for streamlining disparate governance responses into co-evolutionary pathways; (4) measuring improvements in the performance of innovative governance attempts; and (5) allowing for involved parties to confront asymmetric power relations in the shaping of a more environmentally sustainable and socially equitable ocean economy.
... The interaction with the end-users is seen as one of the key aspects of the learning process [17]. It enables market parties to learn what customers find important and to inform them of the most recent developments [15], and to listen to customers about what they prefer [77]. With wind turbines, solar collectors, and biomass combustion potential customers often appear to lack the knowledge to articulate their wishes. ...
This literature review study presents and discusses the learning strategies of organizations participating in sustainable energy demonstration projects. It finds that academic, commercial, and governmental organizations build on six major learning strategies. The first learning strategy is to capture intellectual property and benefit from knowledge spillovers. The second learning strategy comprises the building of a series of prototypes that are technically and commercially fit for purpose. The third learning strategy aims at operating production plants that produce the prototypes on a large scale. The fourth learning strategy concentrates on exploiting learning curves in these production plants. The fifth learning strategy focuses on creating supply-demand networks that serve increasing markets. Finally, the sixth learning strategy is to develop governmental regulation and funding schemes that support the emergence of an industrial and societal institutional infrastructure for sustainable energy technology, based on the lessons learned from the demonstration projects. This study also finds that the six learning strategies are facilitated by four key behaviors of participants in demonstration projects, which are mutual trust-building, decision-making in favor of sustainable energy technology, learning-network building, and demonstration program development. To academics, this study provides a comprehensive insight into organizations’ learning strategies in sustainable energy demonstration projects, regarding learning directions and outcomes. Its contribution to practice is that it supports academic, commercial, and governmental organizations in managing their portfolio of learning strategies in new sustainable energy demonstration projects.
... To become a successful innovation and to evolve from niche level to maturity at regime level, a niche must execute three processes: Voicing and shaping of expectations, building social networks, and the learning process. 29 A case example of an analysis of these three processes in a biobased application is the study of biofuels by van der Laak et al. 30 Applying the multilevel perspective to a technological innovation, technological change occurs by linkages between levels, and changes at the levels. 29 Changes at the landscape level -for instance a sharp rise or fall in oil prices -can put pressure on the energy regime or the chemistry regime, and may result in changes at the level of these regimes. ...
The transition towards a biobased economy requires innovations. In addition to the usual challenges of innovation trajectories, the characteristics of biobased innovations cause extra difficulties. To lower the failure rate of innovation trajectories in general, companies tend to form R&D collaborations. Choices made during the formation of such R&D collaborations play a key role in the project's success. Here, one may benefit from the social sciences. This paper presents a perspective on what the social sciences may bring to analyze and improve the formation process of biobased R&D collaborations. The paper also provides an overview of relevant innovation and transition models, and lists the dominant variables in such formation processes (biobased characteristics and general determinants), and the guidelines that seem useful. Although each model has its advantages, none of the innovation and transition models studied addresses both the phases of a formation process of a biobased R&D collaboration and the variables involved in each phase. Concerning the formation process of biobased R&D collaborations, the literature addresses social, organizational, technological, economic, and environmental variables. The key determinants of multi‐partner R&D collaborations are partner properties, motives to join a consortium, appropriability of a firm, and project properties. The descriptions of their influence on an R&D collaboration presented here can be used as guidelines, as recommendations, in processes for the formation of relatively less complex R&D collaborations. The influence of biobased characteristics – such as type of innovation (drop‐ins versus novel materials), biorefinery, biomass supply and technological challenges – on R&D collaboration have not been studied systematically as yet. © 2020 The Authors. Biofuels, Bioproducts, and Biorefining published by Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
Bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) plays a vital role in most climate change mitigation scenarios, where a solution for sustainable near‐term bioenergy expansion is to grow energy crops such as perennial grasses on recently abandoned cropland. There is a need to combine model‐based insights into theoretical potential and future biomass supply with more fine‐grained sociotechnical analysis to move toward realistic policies and innovation strategies. We combine natural science insights anchored in quantitative bioenergy modeling with qualitative social science anchored in the multi‐level perspective. Using these mixed methods enables a global‐to‐local‐to‐global level assessment of near‐term bioenergy recultivation opportunities for abandoned cropland. Norway is the local case. There are three main findings. First, the ongoing recultivation trends for food/feed production risks making gains in aboveground carbon stocks from natural regrowth on the mapped abandoned cropland over a 30‐year evaluation period almost negligible. Second, delaying a BECCS recultivation of abandoned cropland will make it impossible to reach high‐end mitigation potentials, and an accelerated BECCS recultivation guided by a policy push is needed to ensure stronger mitigation. Third, we unravel several real‐world challenges associated with bioenergy resource and supply modeling. Remote‐sensing techniques alone cannot capture actual land availability for land‐based climate change mitigation strategies. Local‐level sociotechnical conditions are generally found insufficiently supportive to align with the rapid near‐term bioenergy crop expansion found in 2°C scenarios from integrated assessment. The integration of mixed quantitative and qualitative methods is key to better understand the role of BECCS in climate change mitigation.
The importance of the current study was demonstrated by the possibility of addressing the administrative problems and obstacles that the Iraqi Sports League suffers from by introducing administrative approaches that enhance the position of its sports clubs at the strategic level, by providing an encouraging work climate to achieve sporting achievements, which in turn requires intensifying the marketing activities supporting them, which work to Sustaining its success in the Iraqi environment and launching regionally and then globally . The study aimed to test the mediating role of the work life quality (WLQ) in enhancing the relationship between marketing ambidexterity (MA) and the strategic niche (SN) of Iraqi sports clubs. The Ministry of Youth and Sports was chosen as an applied field for the study, by distributing a questionnaire that included (300) respondents from the administrative, scientific, and training leaders of the directorates affiliated with the Ministry, as well as About the boards of directors of Iraqi sports clubs. A five-point Laser scale was used, and in order to conduct descriptive and analytical tests of the respondents’ data, the programs (SPSS, AMOS) and the (Sobel) test were relied upon to ensure the significance of the mediation of the work life quality. One of the most important results reached is the presence of an effective mediating role for the work life quality in enhancing the relationship between marketing Ambidexterity and strategic niche, according to the study sample’s point of view. One of the most important conclusions reached is that adopting the marketing ambidexterity approach has an effective impact on enhancing the strategic niche of the sports clubs in the study sample in light of the growing competition in the Iraqi sports sector, and therefore there is a need to employ the mediating role of the work life quality in enhancing the positive relationship between marketing ambidexterity and strategic niche, in line with providing new training services and consultations that add value to these clubs.
Transition Experiments (TE) are seen as a key to trigger sustainability transitions. However, the role of space in processes of experimentation for new and future-oriented solutions has thus far remained under-explored. In this paper, we shed light on the spatial patterns between actors engaging in a more sustainable future by establishing publicly accessible areas with edible greenery. We empirically investigate the emergence and evolution of an edible city TE using the
heuristic of spatial and relational proximity in three different process phases: initiation, innovation, and acceleration. Based on expert interviews and document analysis, the results show that a lack of institutional proximity between actors is a major obstacle for the TE. In contrast, spatial and social proximities can bridge these distances. Overall, it can be said that the consideration of spatial and relative dimensions can provide a valuable contribution to an ever-growing debate on
the geography of transition processes.
Policy has been the driving force behind the rapid development of China's new energy vehicle (NEV) industry. However, the policy network that supports NEV development has been underexplored. This paper explores NEV as an innovative niche for sustainable transition and investigates the evolutionary mechanism of its policy network by combining insights from policy network, strategic niche management and technology innovation system (TIS) theories. Operationally, this paper adopted a social network analysis method to study the NEV policy network in various niche development stages consisting of 377 NEV policy documents formulated by government agencies between 2000 and 2021. Results show the NEV policy network evolves towards bigger, newer actors and is more heterogeneous in creating joint efforts in policymaking that promotes niche development and facilitates a transition to a market niche. Specifically, the policy network expands continually, and network density reaches the maximum of 0.635 at the end of the technological niche. Six agencies are identified as dominators in NEV policymaking. Collaboration on NEV policymaking exhibits obvious organisational heterogeneity, especially in the market niche with an E-I value of 0.576. This study enhances understanding of the evolutionary patterns of policy network and its function on supporting TIS development for immaturely sustainable technologies. The findings also provide important insights into the NEV policymaking process.
China’s biogas industry has experienced ups and downs over the past two decades, with various challenges pointing to misplaced expectations that biogas technology is overly focused on energy production. With the promotion of China’s low-carbon strategy, a more rational and sustainable transformation strategy is crucial for the development of the biogas industry. To elucidate the sustainable development process of the biogas industry, this study applies the socio-technical transition theory and the strategic niche management (SNM) approach to understand the multi-regime interactions of biogas systems and their possible future paths. At present, the Chinese biogas industry needs to abandon the expectation of energy recovery and establish the expectation of multi-functional combination, especially including nutrient cycling. This study proposes a sustainable transformation path for the biogas industry and predicts three phases based on the type of socio-technological transformation path: a transformation path to 2030 to promote niche innovation and develop core technologies; a reconfiguration path from 2030 to 2050, which will require a lot of trials and errors; and the expansion of market share in 2050 through technology replacement. This study highlights the importance of niche experimentations and broad advocacy coalitions for the biogas industry. This research also illustrates how the transformation of China’s biogas industry can be achieved through incremental innovation with consistent policy support.
The extensive oil and gas industrial sectors have caused several environmental problems in Iran. This motivated the governments to consider the potential capacity developing renewable energies such as biomass energy as an excellent strategic plan for sustainable sources. However, biomass energy is at the early stage because of multi-dimensional barriers (e.g., social, technical, and policy). Thus, there is a need to assess and evaluate the existing challenges and provide a strategic plan to assist decision-makers, for the country's sustainable biomass energy development. A novel approach is developed in the current study by extending the Interval-valued Spherical fuzzy best–worst method (IVSFS-BWM) and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (IVSFS-DEMATEL). n the seven steps methodology, IVSFS-BWM is utilized to derive the optimum importance weights of contributing factors in sustainable challenges of biomass energy. Then, IVSFS-DEMATEL is employed to find causality and interrelationships between the contributing factors. 39 numbers of challenges as influential parameters are taken into account to study the challenges of biomass energy. A comparison with familiar decision-making competitors’ tools has been conducted to show the advantages and robustness of the proposed methodology. The results indicated that the proposed method can adequately deal with subjective uncertainties from decision-making opinions, and the challenge of the contributing factors in biofuel energy as “fear of public health and safety hazards” needs necessary attention to the contributing factors in the system such as “lack of professional training institute,” “lack of infrastructural requirements,” and “lack of investors,” considering the resilience aspects. Moreover, the sensitivity analysis is conducted and by checking all contributing factors, concluded that the system is not fully sensitive to the variation, as it is less partially dependent and reflects the conformity of obtained results as accurately as possible. The outcomes assist decision-makers in providing an effective strategic plan by eliminating the multi-dimensional barriers in sustainable biomass energy development.
The present research aims to determine the role of talent management in achieving a strategic position. The research problem is the extent to which private universities in the Kurdistan Region can achieve a strategic position depending on the dimensions they possess of talent management. The research was based on a set of main and secondary hypotheses that were field-tested in universities. The respondents were (19) universities, and (9) of these universities agreed to distribute the questionnaire to their leaders, and the research included (103) of the academic leaders in the universities surveyed, and the data was collected based on the questionnaire prepared for this purpose, and the data were analyzed using a set of methods Statistics in the program (SPSS V.22). The outcome of the research was to reach several conclusions, the most important of which is the existence of a significant correlation between the dimensions of talent management and the strategic position, and the presence of a significant effect of the dimensions of talent management in achieving the strategic position in the universities surveyed, and in light of the conclusions, several proposals were formulated, the most important of which is that the surveyed universities should pay attention and care More on achieving interaction and communication with other universities to increase the culture and learning processes, which will have positive repercussions on their success.
Keywords: talents, talent management, strategic position, private universities in the region.
يهدف البحث الحاضر الى تحديد دور إدارة المواهب في تحقيق المكانة الإستراتيجية، تتمثل مشكلة البحث في مدى قدرة الجامعات الخاصة في إقليم كوردستان على تحقيق المكانة الاستراتيجية اعتماداً على ما تمتلكها من أبعاد إادارة المواهب، واستند البحث على مجموعة من الفرضيات الرئيسية والفرعية التي اختبرت ميدانياً في الجامعات المبحوثة وعددها (19) جامعة ووافقت (9) من هذه الجامعات على توزيع استمارة الاستبانة على قياداتها، وشمل البحث (103) من القيادات الأكاديمية في الجامعات المبحوثة، وتم جمع البيانات بالاعتماد على استمارة الاستبانة اعدت لهذا الغرض، وجرى تحليل البيانات باستخدام مجموعة من الأساليب الإحصائية في برنامج (SPSS V.22). وكانت حصيلة البحث التوصل إلى عدد من الاستنتاجات أهمها وجود علاقة ارتباط معنوية بين أبعاد إدارة المواهب والمكانة الاستراتيجية، ووجود تأثير معنوي لأبعاد إدارة المواهب في تحقيق المكانة الاستراتيجية في الجامعات المبحوثة، وفي ضوء الاستنتاجات، تمت صياغة عدد من المقترحات أهمها ينبغي على الجامعات المبحوثة الاهتمام والحرص بشكل أكبر على تحقيق التفاعل والتواصل مع الجامعات الأخرى لزيادة ثقافة وعمليات التعلم، والذي سيكون له انعكاسات إيجابية على نجاحها. الكلمات الافتتاحية: المواهب، إدارة المواهب، المكانة الاستراتيجية، الجامعات الخاصة في أقليم كوردستان العراق.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is an important strategic technology choice for the future reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, which plays a crucial role as part of an economically sustainable route. Although some studies have discussed CCS demonstration projects and early developments, CCS has not been investigated as an innovative niche for sustainable transition. In an attempt to fill this gap, this study studies CCS as an innovative niche and assess the niche development of CCS in China by using a strategic niche management (SNM) framework. The evolution of three interlinked niche processes (expectations, social networks and learning process) is analysed with a comprehensive analytical approach that includes policy, social network and bibliometric analysis. Results show that a CCS niche has formed in China, but it is at a relatively low level of niche development in terms of the three internal processes. The expectations for CCS evolved linearly and are constantly being reinforced. The actor network supporting CCS niche development is sparse, and network cohesion is gradually decreasing. CCS learning continues to deepen but remains insufficient; it focuses on technical aspects and provides little attention to policy and social issues. The results indicate that expectations have been well-established at various levels in China, but the network and the learning process still need to be improved. Our findings help to identify problems in the development of technology and provide useful references for technology planning and the further development of CCS.
Water Sensitive Design (WSD) is gaining attention as a Nature-based Solution (NbS) to urban water problems. It incorporates green infrastructure with engineered urban water systems through innovative design of the built environment and urban landscape. In Africa, Johannesburg and Cape Town are two cities engaging with WSD at a policy level. This paper uses the Strategic Niche Management (SNM) approach in a comparative analysis of ongoing engagement with WSD in Johannesburg and Cape Town. We explore the extent to which this engagement signals the launch of the transition towards water resilience. WSD represents a niche that is in synergy with the visions of sustainable urban (water and environmental) management in both cities. Results indicate a progressive engagement with WSD by different actors at regime and niche levels. However, the lack of coordination and capacity deficiencies due to limited social networks and higher order learning are challenges that constrain take-off and further consolidation of the WSD approach in the transition towards water resilient futures. Furthermore, we find urban governance practitioners struggle with reconciling the pursuit of visions of sustainability to be realised through nature-based urban development with the pressing infrastructure deficits that persist in most African cities.
Any separation between technology and society can be claimed to be artificial. Technological material systems are intertwined with human everyday life practices and ways of living, values, and belief systems. When we design and develop new technological systems, we are also designing opportunities for new daily living practices to emerge. The involvement of people for whom new sustainable systems are intended, and who will be using and consuming the novel systems, is therefore crucial for industry and societies aspiring to reduce carbon emissions, energy use, and overconsumption of material resources. People are not just a resource for design, nor are they merely users or consumers of technology. Rather, they are knowing and changing subjects with complex everyday lives, who can (re)format the existing unsustainable systems towards sustainable ones in multiple ways and through multiple identities and roles. People are co-creators in the modes of living and the technological systems supporting them. This dissertation is about co-creation, a design and development approach that seeks to share the design authorship of sustainability and drive collective transition. The purpose of this inquiry is to study how multiple actors can co-creatively design and develop sustainable systems, and the potential of the outcomes to support transition. The context of the study is primarily transportation systems as socially-critical systems supporting everyday living. Socially-critical systems imply those products, services, and technologies upon which human everyday life activities depend. The study takes an interdisciplinary perspective by bridging participatory, democratic, and inclusive design approaches and innovation studies to develop theory towards co-creation of new sustainable systems. Six individual papers are appended presenting empirical results from three research cases set up as living laboratories in real living and working environments, involving multiple private and public actors. A mixed-method research approach using both qualitative and quantitative methods has been employed to gather and analyse empirical data.
Six main findings are discussed: 1) The form of involvement defines who co-creates new sustainable systems; 2) Both users and non-users contribute to co-creating new sustainable systems at various intensities; 3) Users are driven by similar concerns as developers to co-create new sustainable systems; 4) Common design language aligns co-creation process and actors; 5) Co-creation generates learning and strategic direction; and 6) Co-creation immerses people in behavioural changes by exposing them to the possibilities for change. Based on the findings, three main conclusions are drawn: first, that people can be involved in new systems in various ways whether or not they are users of the system. Through their use or non-use practices, people can give direction to new sustainable systems, and through every involved or uninvolved person, a new system is affected both positively and negatively; thus, both users and non-users co-create sustainable systems. This thesis finds that involvement in co-creation is neither binary nor a one- time occurrence. Rather, it is a spectrum of varying intensities regarding how individuals immerse themselves in and throughout a process. The second conclusion is that co-creation generates multi-dimensional learning and strategic direction for all involved parties. In addition, it immerses people in behavioural changes by exposing them to possibilities for change, thus building trust in new energy-efficient and carbon-reducing alternatives, validating the logistical workability of new sustainable systems and its true impacts, and stimulating further engagement in new sustainable system development. Thirdly, the co- creation approach is still new in practice and proves challenging from a managerial standpoint when common visions and objectives are not sufficient to align stakeholders. The results suggest that common design language, which uses both cognitive and physical tools to facilitate co- creation among users and stakeholders, supports co-creation by aligning both actors and the process. Finally, this thesis provides empirical support that people can be meaningfully involved in creating opportunities and possibilities for change, which challenge the present mechanisms used to influence societal behavioural changes, e.g. incentives and nudging. It suggests that design can foster the presence of people for whom the designed systems are intended, and do so in places where they are contextualised, e.g., installation of proto-designs in real living/working environments. Through involvement of diverse users and non-users, co-creation shows to be quite necessary not only to develop new transport systems, but also to increase the accessibility of sustainable transport innovations. Increased involvement in design and development of new systems could serve to delegitimise participation in the old systems.
Purpose
Time analysis and institution analysis as well as journal analysis allow the study to show literature distribution in this research area. Research hotspots and trending among different times are revealed by network-structural properties and network-temporal property. The study aims to shed light on international cluster research progress on strategic niche management (SNM).
Design/methodology/approach
Using searched literature data on SNM from 1991 to 2018 from the database of Web of Science (WOS), the article maps the citation network and completes the citation analysis based on bibliometric citation analysis.
Findings
These eight research streams reveal the development of SNM from theoretical description to target-oriented study and finally diversification analysis.
Originality/value
The paper identifies eight continuous research streams in SNM: sustainable transition, dynamical diversity, complexity, social-technical system, social innovation, social-cognitive evolution, emerging market and policy mix.
‘Mediators’ are becoming recognized as necessary actors in managing complex socio-political dynamics in the ‘temporary use’ of vacant spaces. However, ‘mediation’ remains understudied and undertheorized in temporary use scholarship. To better articulate mediator roles in temporary use, I review literature on related ‘intermediary’ roles in ‘urban transitions’ literature vis-à-vis temporary use practice. Thereby, I propose a typology of roles in (inter)mediation and elucidate selected roles in practice. By articulating how mediators align interests, build networks and negotiate the conditions in planning and development, this article draws attention to changing professional roles in planning and sets a basis for future research.
This paper identifies three stages in the radical technological innovation process, namely formation process in niches, breaking out of niches and entering regimes, and new regime formation. It then adopts Multi-level Perspective (MLP) to explore the formation process, operating mechanism, breakthrough path, and impact factors of radical technological innovation. A three-phase model, which includes formation of radical innovation, breakout of radical innovation, and new regimes construction, is proposed to analyze radical technological innovation. The model is adopted in a case study to analyze the leapfrogging development of technologies in China’s mobile communication industry. This paper enriches technological innovation theory and provides supports for policy making and guidance for industries/enterprises practices regarding technological innovation in emerging economies.
Road freight represents approximately 8.5% of UK carbon emissions and therefore must be abated if the UK government’s objective to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050 is to be achieved. While several technology options exist, it is commonly viewed as a hard-to-abate sector and progress to decarbonisation remains slow.
Whereas techno-economic aspects of the low carbon transition of road freight are well studied, socio-technical and political aspects are much less so. This is in contrast with substantial socio-technical literature focused on the transition of passenger vehicles. Symptomatic of this, there is little direct engagement in research with freight industry operators and participants. This study seeks to address these gaps by considering the views of these key actors through qualitative social science research.
Fifteen semi-structured interviews were undertaken with key stakeholders within the road freight industry. These revealed a range of themes and relevant issues which underline the complexity of this transition. Further analysis of the data revealed six overarching viewpoints that reflect the primary concerns of the expert interviewees. These viewpoints suggest that the challenges for the road freight transition are principally political and socio-technical, and opportunities are identified to further explore these through future research.
This chapter is structured in two parts dealing with the very same problem – that is, assessing and modelling stakeholder interplay and policy scenarios forthe development of biorefineries and biodiesel production. They target, however, the problem from two distinct perspectives: micro and macro.
The first part of the chapter presents the micro-economic perspective, assessing the methodological approach for policy modelling and policy evaluation. This investigation builds on the multi-level approach (MLA) for the study of technological trajectories. MLA should be conceived as a nested framework formed by linked levels: socio-technical regime, socio-technical landscape and innovation niches. Within such a framework, we focus our attention on the innovation niche and its emerging process. This is done by a three-step methodology. The first step aims at assessing the niche development status and makes use of Social Network Analysis and Fuzzy Cognitive Maps. In the second step we employ agent-based analysis for the development of an archetype model to investigating the key internal dynamics of the niche. The third step focuses on the evaluation of policy actions using a well-known criterion, that is the efficiency of the actions studied by means of the Data Envelopment Analysis.
In the second part of this chapter we turn to the macro-perspective, presenting a computable general equilibrium model. Here, we use counterfactual simulations to assess how consumer welfare is affected in the following cases: (1) a change in technology to comply with the European Union commitment to renewable energy use; (2) the implementation of different tax (or subsidy) rates on energy inputs and emissions, at either national or EU level; (3) a change in land-use, if biorefineries and biodiesel are considered as inputs to production.
Both the micro- and the macro-economic approaches are designed to respond to two key policy objectives: (1) to develop policy scenarios for biodiesel and biorefinery production through the analysis of social network interactions across stakeholders and consumer welfare; (2) to understand the evolution of various environmental, economic and policy constraints within a sustainable development framework for biofuel and biorefinery energy sectors.
Entrepreneurship research and practice has received a great deal of attention in the past decade. Due to the role that entrepreneurial activities can play in tackling grand challenges, the predominant focus of such studies has been on the entrepreneurial journey, the network, the impact, the process, as well as the cultivation of ‘the entrepreneur’. However, as studies in entrepreneurship have grown, maintaining the balance between objective and subjective implications have proven to be challenging. To this end, there has been an increase in calls for ‘contextualizing’ entrepreneurship research, cutting across levels of analysis in order to be able to provide relevant suggestions for research and practice. In an attempt to address this call, this book provides the first theoretical and empirical collection of studies that are embedded in and borne out of the context of (south) Africa. The continent is home to seven out of 10 fastest growing economies in the world (WEF, 2017), and from a business perspective, it is considered by Alex Liu, chairman of A.T Kearney “a large-scale start-up” (WEF, 2019). Yet, little is known about the state of entrepreneurial activities that aim to shape the continent's future. This book delves into the micro and macro level foundations of entrepreneurial activities across southern (Africa), providing theoretical frameworks that take into consideration the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the continent, as well as the formal and informal economy that contribute to the growth and development of its countries.
In the context of open innovation business environments, more and more firms are joining together and creating innovation ecosystems to improve their innovation capabilities by interacting with heterogeneous actors. Yet, there has been little research that has examined the mechanisms regarding how and when firms within such open innovation ecosystems could enhance their innovation capabilities. To address this gap, we propose and empirically test a conceptual framework for understanding the internal mechanisms and contextual conditions in the relationship between a firm’s innovation niche and its exploratory and exploitative innovations. Using a sample of 327 Chinese manufacturing firms in strategic emerging industries, we find that a firm’s innovation niche within an open innovation ecosystem has a positive impact on its exploratory and exploitative innovations, and we demonstrate that these relationships are mediated by the innovation ecological network. Additionally, we find that the innovation ecological environment moderates the relationship between a firm’s innovation niche and the innovation ecological network. Furthermore, we show that the innovation ecological environment moderates the indirect effects of a firm’s innovation niche on its exploratory and exploitative innovations via the innovation ecological network. These results not only enrich the research on open innovation ecosystems but also provide important managerial implications for implementing innovation niche initiatives to foster firms’ exploratory and exploitative innovations.
In this paper, we offer a comprehensive and interdisciplinary review of ‘failure’ in transitions research. What is meant by failure, and is the community biased against it? How is failure explained through different perspectives? How can failures be addressed more appropriately in transitions studies? We synthesize a large body of evidence spanning transitions studies, innovation studies, science and technology studies, organisation and management studies, policy studies and the history of technology to probe and sharpen these questions. We examine within these literatures the instances and possibilities of success with transitions and discuss why this may be problematic, organising our analysis around four types of bias (selection, cognitive, interpretive, and prescription). In addition, we review three ‘families’ of framings of failure put forward in and around the socio-technical transitions literature, notably discrete failure events, systemic failings and processual accounts of failure, and discuss how they can be constructively put to work.
In this chapter, the shared visions and the latest activities for sustainability in the aviation sector are presented and perspectives on the innovations that this sector should achieve are discussed. To do this, the latest experts’ talks are collected from four international meetings for aviation and the environment held around the world between September 2009 and May 2010, which invited experts and researchers from Japan, Europe, and North America. The expansion of networks between agents of the sector, which is considered to be essential for the success of innovation transition, is found in the latest projects for aviation sustainability. To smooth the transition of innovation from sector’s initiatives including radical change such as low-carbon alternative fuels, we emphasize the need for more discussion about new economic measurements. Finally, we discuss directions for future research, using multi-level perspectives for a transition management of aviation innovation for sustainability.
Due to the non-renewable nature of fossil fuels and the impact they have on the environment, they will be completely used up in the near future. Mankind will be forced to retreat to more environment-friendly options. Although some companies are switching towards more eco-friendly options, it hardly meets the growing demand of the energy requirements. This paper portrays the important perspectives and significance of Biophysical Economics and why it is necessary for economies to consider the consumption of energy in such a way that would yield a higher efficiency in the economy. Traditional models used to neglect the importance of Biophysical energy keep the economy connected by the balanced flow of energy. Problems related to shifting towards renewable energy are often considered economic, institutional, political, social or biophysical. From an energy synthesis perspective, BPE is incorporated with the monetary economy within the global biosphere. The objective of this paper is to discuss how money, economy, and energy are interlinked Biophysical Assessment and models which are developed by successful economists help us to determine the methods we could collaborate biophysical approach in our economy some of which are discussed in this paper. The paper is concluded by how these approaches would help to gain economic efficiency by taking biophysical economics and renewable sources of energy as the primary sources in any industry for a promising future.
Appropriate policies for the development of renewable energy technologies require accurate identification and explanation of technological change. On the other hand, the development of renewable energy technologies in each country according to its native conditions has different requirements and depends on a range of social and technical factors. The present study analyzes the development of photovoltaic technology from the perspective of expectations, networks, and learning, with the approach of strategic niche management and in the form of historical case studies and qualitative research methods. Data gathering tools are semi-structured interviews and secondary data and the method of data analysis is through content analysis and axial coding. The statistical population for the expert interview is experienced in solar energy in Iran and 20 experts have been selected and interviewed by the snowball technique. Its temporal territory is between 1991 and 2019, and its spatial territory in Iran. Examining the Interaction between niche processes, it was shown that although the network of actors was weaknesses in the early 1991s, with overtime and the Enforcement of supportive laws and policies such as feed-in tariff and support for the development of renewable energy technologies, it has finally led to the growth of the network of educational and knowledgeable actors in the mid-2000s and the growth of the network of production and service actors in the 2010s. The impact of important events such as JCPOA and foreign investment on the development of expectations and the network of photovoltaic actors has also been described.
Technological change is a central feature of modern societies and a powerful source for social change. There is an urgent task to direct these new technologies towards sustainability, but society lacks perspectives, instruments and policies to accomplish this. There is no blueprint for a sustainable future, and it is necessary to experiment with alternative paths that seem promising. Various new transport technologies promise to bring sustainability benefits. But as this book shows, important lessons are often overlooked because the experiments are not designed to challenge the basic assumptions about established patterns of transport choices. Learning how to organise the process of innovation implementation is essential if the maximum impact is to be achieved - it is here that strategic niche management offers new perspectives. The book uses a series of eight recent experiments with electric vehicles, carsharing schemes, bicycle pools and fleet management to illustrate the means by which technological change must be closely linked to social change if successful implementation is to take place. The basic divide between proponents of technological fixes and those in favour of behavioural change needs to be bridged, perhaps indicating a third way. © 2002 Remco Hoogma, René Kemp, Johan Schot and Bernhard Truffer.
Research into technology and sustainable development has shifted upwards recently, from the level of individual artefacts to entire technological regimes. New theory into the public management of regime transformation privileges a role for innovative niches that diverge from the incumbent, mainstream regime and meet human needs in environmentally sustainable ways. However, the theory becomes sketchy on strategies for supporting and harnessing these diverse niches. This paper discusses some of the challenges confronting a theory of regime transformation, and how historical research into alternative technology may contribute. Copyright , Beech Tree Publishing.
Renewable energy technologies constitute a techno-economic system that is radically different from conventional systems, in terms of density, structure, regulatory and management practices. Consequently, their incorporation into the production and management of energy has to be approached as an innovative and sustainable diffusion process of an alternative technology with system-wide consequences for the whole energy system. Here, an alternative approach is proposed, which integrates the supply- and demand-side perspectives, arguing that a successful policy for the speedy deployment of renewables should focus on the systemic innovation processes that characterize the development and sustainable diffusion of renewables. It is suggested that a strategy that focuses on selected niches should aim at the integration of the innovation dimension into a policy for renewables. Such a perspective may contribute to the growth of successful applications as well as to the development of the corresponding industry of equipment production and services, leading to the deployment of a new technological regime.
This paper argues that important lessons about the theory and method of organizational classification may be learned from biological systematics, defined as the "science of differences." Three main components of systematics studies are discussed: (1) taxonomy, the development of a concept of organizational differences; (2) evolution, the tracing of the lineages of organizational form; and (3) classification, the development of procedures for identifying and placing organizational forms into classes. Furthermore, two kinds of classification are identified and several theories of classification are discussed. Systematics is seen as a necessary prerequisite to studies aiming to identify generalizable principles of organizational function and process. Finally, some implications for defining populations and drawing samples of organizations are noted, along with other implications for organization design and development and managerial practice.
In the mid-1980s, unique conditions in Canada favored the adoption of a compressed natural gas as an alternate transportation fuel. This work focuses on the factors that limited acceptance of the fuel, and that ultimately held the rate of adoption below a critical level which would enable healthy suppliers to survive in a competitive market. The main barrier was a lack of infrastructure to support converted vehicles. Lack of refueling facilities was particularly critical; failure of existing refueling stations to achieve profitability stalled further investment, which in turn depressed sales of vehicle conversions. Other problems in the industry included excessive parts markup by conversion dealers, exaggerated claims for environmental and economic benefits, and poor design of promotional programs. Fundamental shifts in the relative values of oil and natural gas in the late 1980s removed momentum from sales of conversions. Major players, who had not achieved profitability, exited the market, and natural gas as a vehicle fuel has since remained on the fringe in Canada and the US. Today, new technologies and driving forces are creating conditions that favor different alternate transportation fuels, including electricity and hydrogen. Many of the issues regarding growth to commercial viability, in particular, the need to build a supporting infrastructure, will be the same as with natural gas.
With 20 centralised plants and over 35 farmscale plants, the digestion of manure and organic waste is a well established technological practice in Denmark. These plants did not emerge without a struggle. Moreover, no new centralised plants have been established since 1998 and the development of farmscale plants has slowed down. This article reviews the experimental introduction of biogas plants in Denmark since the 1970s. We argue that three factors have been important for the current status of biogas plants in Denmark. First, the Danish government applied a bottom-up strategy and stimulated interaction and learning between various social groups. Second, a dedicated social network and a long-term stimulation enabled a continuous development of biogas plants without interruptions until the late 1990s. Third, specific Danish circumstances have been beneficial, including policies for decentralised CHP, the existence of district heating systems, the implementation of energy taxes in the late 1980s and the preference of Danish farmers to cooperate in small communities. The current setback in biogas plants is mainly caused by a shift in energy and environmental policies and limited availability of organic waste.
During the last two decades there has been a great deal of research on renewable energy technologies. It is commonly thought that very little has come out of this research in terms of commercially interesting technologies. The first objective of this paper is to demonstrate that this perception is no longer entirely correct; in the 1990s there has been a double-digit growth rate in the market for some renewable energy technologies. The consequent alteration in the energy system, is, however, a slow, painful and highly uncertain process. This process, we argue, needs to be studied using an innovation system perspective where the focus is on networks, institutions and firms’ perceptions, competencies and strategies. The second objective of the paper is therefore to present the bare bones of such an analytical framework. A third objective is to identify a set of key issues related to the speed and direction of that transformation process which needs to be studied further.
Strategic niche management is a recently developed policy approach which advocates claim, is important in seeding radical transformations in sociotechnical regimes, and transitions to environmentally sustainable regimes in particular. This paper examines a critically important aspect of this approach: the relationship between radically novel sociotechnical practices in niches and the mainstream social – technical regimes they seek to influence. Although the literature notes the significance of this relationship, it does so in a paradoxical way. It is argued that niches are more likely to influence mainstream change when they show a degree of compatibility with the incumbent regime. Yet this compatibility criterion blunts the scope for niches to be radically innovative, thereby undermining the degree of regime transformation being sought. The case of organic food is used to explore this paradox empirically. The history of the organic niche, and its engagement and entanglement with the mainstream food regime, suggests a dialectical relationship between sociotechnical niches and regimes.
Discussions of technological change have offered sharply contrasting perspectives of technological change as gradual or incremental and the image of technological change as being rapid, even discontinuous. These alternative perspectives are bridged using the punctuated equilibrium framework of evolutionary biology. Using this framework, it is argued that the critical event is not a transformation of the technology, but speciation--the application of existing technology to a new domain of application. As a result of the distinct selection criteria and the degree of resource abundance in the new domain, a new technological form may emerge. The new technological form may be able to penetrate other niches and, in particular, may precipitate a process of 'creative destruction' and out-compete prior technologies. This framework is applied to an historical study of wireless communication from the early experimental efforts of Hertz to the modern development of wireless telephony. Copyright 1998 by Oxford University Press.
This paper distinguishes between two ecological perspectives on organizational evolution: population ecology and community ecology. The perspectives adopt different levels of analysis and produce contrasting views of the characteristic mode and tempo of organizational evolution. Population ecology limits investigation to evolutionary change unfolding within established populations, emphasizing factors that homogenize organizational forms and maintain population stability. Population ecology thus fails to explain how populations originate in the first place or how evolutionary change occurs through the proliferation of heterogeneous organizational types. Community ecology overcomes these limitations: it focuses on the rise and fall of populations as basic units of evolutionary change, simultaneously explaining forces that produce homogeneity and stability within populations and heterogeneity between them.
Although foresighting has gained widespread acceptance in the context of strategy formulation in industry and governments, its actual impact on technology development remains unclear. The authors propose the approach of strategic niche management in order to couple longterm visions more tightly with short-term and medium-term action. Such coupling, they argue, is strengthened by developing technological niches: i.e. protected spaces in which learning about the technology takes place and its embedding in society can be observed and tested before large-scale diffusion begins. Real-world experiments with new technologies are a major instrument for developing technological niches. Empirical illustration is taken from recent attempts at sustainable technology development in the realm of individual transportation. Many foresighting exercises have identified the electrification of the vehicle drive train as a promising route. Three major experiments with alternative approaches to the electrification of carsbattery-run vehicles, hybrid vehicles and fuel cell vehicleswill be compared with regard to the coupling of viewing and doing. Based on the analysis of these examples, the authors claim that the development of scenarios without an explicit dedication to taking action risks the generation of more confusion than guidance; similarly, experimentation without taking a long-term view will result in very mediocre results, with limited practical impact on sustainable development.
The unsustainability of the present trajctories of technical change in sectors such as transport and agriculture is widely recognized. It is far from clear, however, how a transition to more sustainable modes of development may be achieved. Sustainable technologies that fulful important user requirements in terms of performance and price are most often not available on the market. Ideas of what might be more sustainable technologies exist, but the long development times, uncertainty about market demand and social gains, and the need for change at different levels in organization, technology, infastructure and the wider social and institutional context-provide a great barrier. This raises the question of how the potential of more sustainable technologies and modes of development may be exploited. In this article we describe how technical change is locked into dominant technological regimes, and present a perspective, called strategic niche management, on how to expedite a transition into a new regime. The perspective consists of the creation and/or management of nichesfor promising technologies.
The disappointing performance of U.S. firms during the 1980s in technology-intensive, global markets (such as consumer electronics, office and factory automation, and semiconductor memories) has been widely attributed to a failure to continuously and incrementally improve products and processes. In "The Breakthrough Illusion", Florida and Kenney wrote that "The United States makes the breakthroughs, while other countries, especially Japan, provide the follow-through" on which competitive advantage is built. Gomory made a similar point. contrasting "revolutionary" innovations with "another, wholly different, less dramatic, and rather grueling process of innovation, which is far more critical to commercializing technology profitably...Its hallmark is incremental improvement, not breakthrough. It requires turning products over again and again, getting the new model out, starting work on an even newer one. This may all sound dull, but the achievements are exhilarating." In "The Machine that Changed the World", the most influential work on the subject of the 1980s, Womack, Jones, and Roos measured the competitive effects of this lack of attention to continuous incremental improvement throiugh a benchmarking study of the global automobile industry. Other studies reinforce this message: compared to their Japanese competitors, U.S. firms lagged in cost, quality, and speed; and in large measure, the problem stemmed from a relative........
Non-linearity and changes in the direction of technological trajectories, are related to changes in cognitive rules and expectations that guide technical search and development activities. To explain such changes, the article uses the literature on niche development, which highlights interactions between learning processes, network building and expectations. A long-term case study on Dutch biogas development illustrates how these interactions explain non-linearity, but the case study also shows the importance of external regime dynamics. It is concluded that non-linearity and changes in niche expectations are related to both internal learning processes and external developments.
There is a renewed attention for distributed generation (DG) in European electricity sectors, but implementing DG is often problematic. This article studies the current relative success of DG in Denmark. We take into account not only recent drivers of change such as energy policy and green activism, but also long-term stability and change in the electricity supply sector. In particular we analyse the lock-in on centralized electricity supply, that still frustrates DG development elsewhere. We discuss three successive national electricity regimes, analysing regime lock-in and change in terms of technologies, actors, institutions and the position of DG. Our analysis shows that Danish energy policy as well as innovative activity by key actors indeed were crucial to the recent DG revival in Denmark. On the other hand, our long-term perspective shows that Danish energy policy and actor strategies were tuned to specifically Danish opportunities and barriers created during earlier regimes. These include experience with wind turbines and CHP as well as urban municipal and rural cooperative involvement. Copying the Danish energy policy model to other countries, regardless of national specific opportunities and barriers, will therefore not guarantee a similar outcome.
This paper is based on a review of the technical literature on alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs) and discussions with experts in vehicle technology and energy analysis. It is derived from analysis provided to the bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy.The urgent need to reverse the business-as-usual growth path in global warming pollution in the next two decades to avoid serious if not catastrophic climate change necessitates action to make our vehicles far less polluting.In the near-term, by far the most cost-effective strategy for reducing emissions and fuel use is efficiency. The car of the near future is the hybrid gasoline–electric vehicle, because it can reduce gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions 30 to 50% with no change in vehicle class and hence no loss of jobs or compromise on safety or performance. It will likely become the dominant vehicle platform by the year 2020.Ultimately, we will need to replace gasoline with a zero-carbon fuel. All AFV pathways require technology advances and strong government action to succeed. Hydrogen is the most challenging of all alternative fuels, particularly because of the enormous effort needed to change our existing gasoline infrastructure.The most promising AFV pathway is a hybrid that can be connected to the electric grid. These so-called plug-in hybrids or e-hybrids will likely travel three to four times as far on a kilowatt-hour of renewable electricity as fuel cell vehicles. Ideally these advanced hybrids would also be a flexible fuel vehicle capable of running on a blend of biofuels and gasoline. Such a car could travel 500 miles on 1 gal of gasoline (and 5 gal of cellulosic ethanol) and have under one-tenth the greenhouse gas emissions of current hybrids.
To assess which biofuels have the better potential for the short-term or the longer term (2030), and what developments are necessary to improve the performance of biofuels, the production of four promising biofuels—methanol, ethanol, hydrogen, and synthetic diesel—is systematically analysed. This present paper summarises, normalises and compares earlier reported work. First, the key technologies for the production of these fuels, such as gasification, gas processing, synthesis, hydrolysis, and fermentation, and their improvement options are studied and modelled. Then, the production facility's technological and economic performance is analysed, applying variations in technology and scale. Finally, likely biofuels chains (including distribution to cars, and end-use) are compared on an equal economic basis, such as costs per kilometre driven. Production costs of these fuels range 16–22 €/GJHHV now, down to 9–13 €/GJHHV in future (2030). This performance assumes both certain technological developments as well as the availability of biomass at 3 €/GJHHV. The feedstock costs strongly influence the resulting biofuel costs by 2–3 €/GJfuel for each €/GJHHV feedstock difference. In biomass producing regions such as Latin America or the former USSR, the four fuels could be produced at 7–11 €/GJHHV compared to diesel and gasoline costs of 7 and 8 €/GJ (excluding distribution, excise and VAT; at crude oil prices of ∼35 €/bbl or 5.7 €/GJ). The uncertainties in the biofuels production costs of the four selected biofuels are 15–30%. When applied in cars, biofuels have driving costs in ICEVs of about 0.18–0.24 €/km now (fuel excise duty and VAT excluded) and may be about 0.18 in future. The cars’ contribution to these costs is much larger than the fuels’ contribution. Large-scale gasification, thorough gas cleaning, and micro-biological processes for hydrolysis and fermentation are key major fields for RD&D efforts, next to consistent market development and larger scale deployment of those technologies.
Energy transitions to sustainability receive much interest in politics and science. Using a socio-technical and multi-level theory on transitions, this article draws important lessons from a long-term analysis of the Dutch electricity system. The article analyses technical developments, changes in rules and visions, and social networks that support and oppose renewable options. The article is multi-level because it looks at novel renewable energy technologies and structural trends in the existing electricity regime. The analysis shows that an energy transition, with roots in the 1960s and 1970s, is already occurring, but driven mainly by liberalisation and Europeanisation. Environmental aspects have become part of this ongoing transition, but do not form its main driver. Many barriers exist for a sustainability transition, but there are also some opportunities. A long-term analysis of renewable niche-innovation trajectories (wind, biomass, PV) provides lessons about socio-technical dynamics, problems and windows of opportunity.
The substitution of fossil fuels with biofuels has been proposed in the European Union (EU) as part of a strategy to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from road transport, increase security of energy supply and support development of rural communities. In this paper, we focus on one of these purported benefits, the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The costs of subsidising the price difference between European bioethanol and petrol, and biodiesel and diesel, per tonne of CO2 emissions saved are estimated. Without including the benefits from increased security of energy supply and employment generation in rural areas, the current costs of implementing European domestic biofuel targets are high compared with other available CO2 mitigation strategies. The policy instrument of foregoing some or all of the excise duty and other taxes now applicable to transport fuels in EU15 on domestically produced biofuels, as well as the potential to import low-cost alternatives, for example, from Brazil, are addressed in this context.
Vehicle fleets are a poorly understood part of the economy. They are important, though, in that they purchase a large share of light-duty vehicles and are often targeted by governments as agents of change. We investigate fleet purchase behavior, using focus groups, interviews, and mail and telephone surveys. We categorize fleets into four different decision-making structures (autocratic, bureaucratic, hierarchic, and democratic), determine what share of the market sector each represents, describe salient features of each behavioral model, and explore implications of that behavior for industry investment and public policy.
This paper narrative argues that industrial economies have been locked into fossil fuel-based energy systems through a process of technological and institutional co-evolution driven by path-dependent increasing returns to scale. It is asserted that this condition, termed carbon lock-in, creates persistent market and policy failures that can inhibit the diffusion of carbon-saving technologies despite their apparent environmental and economic advantages. The notion of a Techno-Institutional Complex is introduced to capture the idea that lock-in occurs through combined interactions among technological systems and governing institutions. While carbon lock-in provides a conceptual basis for understanding macro-level barriers to the diffusion of carbon-saving technologies, it also generates questions for standard economic modeling approaches that abstract away technological and institutional evolution in their elaboration. The question of escaping carbon lock-in is left for a future paper.
The purpose of this work is to investigate fuel characteristics of biodiesel and its production in European Union. Biodiesel fuel can be made from new or used vegetable oils and animal fats, which are non-toxic, biodegradable, renewable resources. The vegetable oil fuels were not acceptable because they were more expensive than petroleum fuels. Biodiesel has become more attractive recently because of its environmental benefits. With recent increases in petroleum prices and uncertainties concerning petroleum availability, there is renewed interest in vegetable oil fuels for diesel engines. In Europe the most important biofuel is biodiesel. In the European Union biodiesel is the by far biggest biofuel and represents 82% of the biofuel production. Biodiesel production for 2003 in EU-25 was 1,504,000 tons.
Californian and Dutch efforts to produce electric vehicles are explored and compared. Three strategies are put forward that could turn electric vehicles from an elusive legend, a plaything, into a marketable product: technology forcing creating a market of early promises, experiments geared towards niche development and upscaling (strategic niche management), and the creation of new alliances (technological nexus) which bring technology, the market, regulation and many other factors together. These strategies deployed in the Californian and Dutch context are analysed in detail to explore their relative strengths and weaknesses and to argue in the end that a combined use of all three will increase the chances that the dominant technological system will change. The succesful workings of these strategies crucially depend on the coupling of the variation and selection processes, building blocks for any evolutionary theory of technical change. Evolutionary theory lacks understanding of these coupling processes. Building on recent insights from the sociology of technology, the authors propose a quasi-evolutionary model which underpins the analysis of suggested strategies.
The study addresses the issue of technological “lock-in” and the possibilities of escape from it. Earlier literature on technological lock-in has tended to focus on intraindustry sources of positive feedbacks that are at the core of the technological lock-in phenomena. This study draws attention to the importance of interindustry sources in contributing to technological lock-in. Several possible avenues of escape from lock-in are discussed: crisis in existing technology, regulation, technological breakthroughs, changes in taste, emergence of niche markets, and new scientific results. The study includes a brief history of the competition among automobile technologies. The analysis of the current state of the electric vehicle, its technology, and the surrounding supporting industries and infrastructures is relatively pessimistic about a rapid transition away from the internal combustion engine technological lock-in. However, regulation could create enough niche markets so that some self-reinforcing processes would become possible. In this way, the electric vehicle might emerge as a visible part of the automobile market.
This paper assesses two patterns in transition processes for using them as strategies towards a sustainable energy system, i.e., niche accumulation and hybridisation. Both play important but different roles in transitions. The expected success of these strategies depends on the innovation's history and the innovation context. The different strategies are illustrated with several examples from the energy domain.
In this paper some issues concerning the nature of technological development are examined, with particular reference to a case study of the implementation of Computer Aided Production Management (CAPM). CAPM is an example of a configurational technology, built up to meet specific organizational requirements. It is argued that there is scope in the development of configurations for significant innovation to take place during implementation itself, through a distinctive form of learning by ‘struggling to get it to work’, or ‘learning by trying’. Some policy implications are outlined in conclusion: the need to recognize the creative opportunities available in this type of development, and the need to facilitate industrial sector-based learning processes.
In the early 2000s Dutch electricity companies are increasingly investing in technologies that enable them to replace coal with biomass. Replacing large amounts of coal (up to 40%) requires the companies to invest in technological trajectories alternative to the ones they have supported over the past decades. This paper aims to understand why these incumbent firms in the Dutch electricity regime are developing alternatives. The second aim of the paper is to provide a way for assessing the potential of innovations. The paper does so by bringing together insights from literature on (socio-) technical regimes and insights from literature on technological and market niches (strategic niche management). The main conclusion is that both niche processes (at the level of experimenting with alternatives) and changes in the incumbent regime are necessary for understanding the innovation journey of a new technology. A two-by-two matrix is developed that can be used for both analysis and governance purposes.
Despite its worldwide success, the innovation systems approach is often criticised for being theoretically underdeveloped. This paper aims to contribute to the conceptual and methodological basis of the (technological) innovation systems approach. We propose an alteration that improves the analysis of dynamics, especially with respect to emerging innovation systems. We do this by expanding on the technological innovation systems and system functions literature, and by employing the method of ‘event history analysis’. By mapping events, the interactions between system functions and their development over time can be analysed. Based on this it becomes possible to identify forms of positive feedback, i.e. cumulative causation. As an illustration of the approach, we assess the biofuels innovation system in The Netherlands as it evolved from 1990 to 2007.
Thesis (doctoral)--Universiteit Twente, 1993. Includes bibliographical references (p. [241]-256).
"The critique of the inanities and injustices of present society, however obvious they may be, is disqualified by a simple reminder that remaking society by design may only make it worse than it was. Alternative ends are invalidated on the strength of the proved ineffectuality of means" (Bauman 1991; 269) Green (2006) is not alone in contending that "environmental 'crises' require fundamental changes in the socio-technological structure of the way we live and work". For those concerned with sustainability, the idea of transition - of substantial change and movement from one state to another - has powerful normative attractions. If 'we' can steer change, shape future development and manage movement in desired directions, perhaps 'we' can make the environment a better and more sustainable place in which to live. But how so to do? In a manifestly complex world dominated by hegemonic ideologies of neoliberal capitalism, global finance and commodity flows is it really possible to intervene and deliberately shift technologies, practices and social arrangements - not to mention their systemic interaction and interdependencies - on to an altogether different, altogether more sustainable track? Across the board there is growing recognition of the holistic, unavoidably interrelated nature of contemporary environmental problems and of the need for fresh approaches and forms of governance capable of engaging with complex challenges of this kind. Theories and models of sustainable transition management (STM), derived from a blend of academic traditions in innovation, history and technology, appear to fit this bill and it is no wonder that they are now catching on across a number of policy domains. In the Netherlands, government sponsored programmes have explicitly adopted methods of 'transition management' (Kemp and Loorbach 2006) and in the UK, the policy relevance of similar theories and methods is being explored and actively promoted through projects and events like those supported by the ESRC's Sustainable Technologies Programme. Academically, and in just a few years, there has been rapid growth in the 'transition management' literature and in the appeal of approaches characterised by an alluring combination of agency, complexity, uncertainty and optimism. We do not intend to provide a thorough review or critique of what is in any case a burgeoning and quickly evolving literature, but at a time when the notion of transition management is capturing so much attention it is as well to reflect on the distinctive features of this particular policy innovation. With this
Imperfect measurement of uncertainty (deeper uncertainty) in climate sensitivity is introduced in a two-sectoral integrated assessment model (IAM) with endogenous growth, based on an extension of DICE. The household expresses ambiguity aversion and can use robust control via a `shadow ambiguity premium' on social carbon cost to identify robust climate policy feedback rules that work well over a range such as the IPCC climate sensitivity range (IPCC, 2007a). Ambiguity aversion, in combination with linear damage, increases carbon cost in a similar way as a low pure rate of time preference. However, ambiguity aversion in combination with non-linear damage would also make policy more responsive to changes in climate data observations. Perfect ambiguity aversion results in an infinite expected shadow carbon cost and a zero carbon consumption path. Dynamic programming identifies an analytically tractable solution to the IAM.
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