Search results for "sustainability transition"
showing 10 items of 21 documents
The impact of COVID-19 on alternative and local food systems and the potential for the sustainability transition: Insights from 13 countries
2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a major stress test for the agri-food system. While most research has analysed the impact of the pandemic on mainstream food systems, this article examines how alternative and local food systems (ALFS) in 13 countries responded in the first months of the crisis. Using primary and secondary data and combining the Multi-Level Perspective with social innovation approaches, we highlight the innovations and adaptations that emerged in ALFS, and how these changes have created or supported the sustainability transition in production and consumption systems. In particular, we show how the combination of social and technological innovation, greater citizen involvement,…
The Spanish Turn against Renewable Energy Development
2018
[EN] In this study, we focus on the case of Spanish energy policy and its implications for sustainable energy development. In recent years, Spanish legislation has changed dramatically in its approach to sustainable energy sources. This change is despite EU and international efforts to increase energy efficiency, and to accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources (RES) in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Based on the socio-technical transitions literature, this paper assesses the role of the new legislation in this altered scenario, and analyzes the evolution of energy production in Spain in the EU context. The results are triangulated with two expert assessments. We find…
Regional sustainability transition through forest-based bioeconomy? Development actors' perspectives on related policies, power, and justice
2022
Forests and forest-based bioeconomy have central roles in the contemporary sustainability transition. However, the transition towards a bioeconomy is loaded with tensions regarding economic growth, ecological integrity, and social justice. These tensions reproduce varying transition discourses. Political actors at the level of the European Union (EU) and nation states take part in the processes creating the discourses and aim to govern the forest bioeconomy-based transition in certain directions viewed as favourable. The transition tensions are strongly felt in regions that are rich with forest resources but poor in terms of economic and political power, called ‘forest peripheries’. In this…
Reconfigurations in sustainability transitions : a systematic and critical review
2021
Two streams of literature have become especially prominent in understanding social change toward sustainability within the past decades: the research on socio-technical transitions and applications of social practice theory. The aim of this article is to contribute to efforts to create dialogue between these two approaches. We do this by focusing on the concept of reconfiguration, which has become a much-used, but poorly defined notion in the discussion on sustainability transitions. To understand what is defined as reconfiguration in systems and practices, and how the understanding of reconfiguration in regimes could benefit from insights about reconfiguration in practices, we conducted a …
Ecosocial Innovations and Their Capacity to Integrate Ecological, Economic and Social Sustainability Transition
2019
The article contributes to sustainability transition research by indicating the significance of transformative grassroots innovations in the context of social work research. We introduce the integrative concept of ecosocial innovation in order to demonstrate how grassroots innovations can successfully combine social, ecological and economic aspects of a sustainability transition. By ecosocial innovations, we refer to social innovations with a strong ecological orientation (e.g., recycling workshops, urban gardening, participatory unemployment projects and new local economies). The data consists of 50 examples of ecosocial innovations in Finland, Italy, Germany, Belgium and the UK. We invest…
Hvordan skapes rom for «omvendt deltakelse» i bærekraftig lokal samfunnsutvikling – aksjonsforskningens roller og bevegelser
2021
Det er økende oppmerksomhet på potensialer for borgeres engasjement i bærekraftig omstilling og lokaliseringen av FNs bærekraftsmål. Flere forsknings- og policyrapporter etterlyser bedre forståelse for hvordan bærekraft kan «oversettes» og implementeres i lokal planlegging og handling. Bærekraftig samfunnsomstilling krever bedre forståelser for hvordan offentlige/kommunale systemer kan samarbeide med borgerinitiativer – samtidig som de lokale initiativene bevarer selvstendighet og lokal forankring. I denne artikkelen tar vi utgangspunkt i en aksjonsforskningsprosess med borgerinitiativer i Oslo og ByKuben, Oslo kommunes senter for byøkologi. Vi utforsker hvordan det kan skapes rom for delta…
Socio-cultural lock-ins and the difficulty of sustainability transition in fertilization : response to Struckman
2021
This commentary discusses the socio-cultural context of farming and proposes ways to break related lock-ins in the context of sustainability transition research. To be able to change farming practices and design policies to promote the changes, it is essential to understand what actually needs to change. Do we need to change the ways farmers think, the ways that food markets operate, the requirements of plant varieties or the requirements related to protecting water quality? In a complex situation the needed change emerges from the intertwinement of many different issues, which simultaneously work to create the locked-in situation. A focus on people and their practices provides a good start…
Los museos etnológicos como instrumentos de formación ciudadana para la sostenibilidad
2008
La investigación que se presenta estudia el papel que los museos etnológicos pueden jugar en la educación científica para contribuir a sociedades más sostenibles, dado que dichos museos pretenden mostrar aspectos esenciales de la vida de los grupos humanos y las relaciones que se establecen entre ellos y el medio que les rodea. Pueden ser así un instrumento idóneo para abordar, tanto los problemas locales que afectan a un grupo humano concreto, como los globales a los que ha de hacer frente la humanidad. Se ha analizado en qué medida el contenido de los museos etnológicos incorpora la problemática socioambiental y, a la luz de dicho análisis, se han diseñado herramientas -entre ellas un mus…
Agri-Food Markets towards Sustainable Patterns
2020
In recent decades, the confluence of different global and domestic drivers has led to progressive and unpredictable changes in the functioning and structure of agri-food markets worldwide. Given the unsustainability of the current agri-food production, processing, distribution and consumption patterns, and the inadequate governance of the whole food system, the transition to sustainable agriculture and food systems has become crucial to effectively manage a global agri-food market able in supporting expected population growth and ensuring universal access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food for all. Based on a critical review of the existing international literature, the paper seeks to…
Participation for just governance of food-system transition
2022
Sustainability transitions governance needs to be inclusive and participatory and the question of justice is crucial for making effective and acceptable changes possible. But how do we ensure adequate participation in governance processes and enable reconciliation between competing goals in relation to sustainability transitions? Transition management highlights the need for participatory and reflexive governance processes to enable sustainability transitions. However, due to participant selection and limitations in chosen approaches, deliberative and participatory forums may have difficulties ensuring justice and legitimacy. A systemic and practice-oriented perspective on deliberation poin…