Transcript Governance for Sustainability through Transition management

Sustainability: a long-term
journey
René Kemp
MERIT & TNO-STB
On sustainability
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Sustainability is about protection and creation
Requirements of sustainability are multiple and
interconnected
Pursuit of sustainability hinges on integration
Core requirements and general rules must be
accompanied by context-specific elaborations:
Diversity is necessary
Surprise is inevitable
Transparency and public engagement are key
characteristics of decision making for sustainability
Explicit rules and processes are needed for
decisions about trade-offs and compromises
The end is open
Key elements of SD strategy
policy integration
 common objectives, criteria, trade-off
rules and indicators
 information and incentives for practical
implementation
 programmes for system innovation
(Kemp, Gibson and Parto, 2004)
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To sustain means
to innovate
This is accepted by the Commission
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The Commission emphasises the role of
policy at the EU scale, to generate major
public and private investments in crucial
sustainability-related areas – including the
development and application of new,
“environmentally-friendly” technologies – and
more broadly to be catalyst for “institutional
reform”, changes in corporate and consumer
behaviour, and “innovative solutions” that
create new, high-quality jobs (EC 2001b:2-3).
And by the OECD in its 4 policy
priorities
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Making markets work for SD
 Strenghtening the decision-making processes
for SD
 Fostering SD through science and
technology
 Making their policies more coherent
andmutually supportive, and opening markets
in ways that ensure that the benefits from
globalisation and technological advance are
widely shared
But innovation is different
things
Policy
innovation
Technological innovation
New sociotechnical systems
that are interrelated
Improvement in
environmental efficiency
System innovation
= new system
Factor 10
Partial system redesign
Factor 5
System optimimisation
Factor 2
5
10
20
Time horizon (years)
Example of system innovation
Coal
 Natural gas
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Hydrogen?
SD is a non-ending process of
adaptive change
But:
It is useful to view it as a
transition process--to
something more sustainable
A transition is the result of many changes and not a deterministic process
(source: Butter et al., 2002)
CO2 policy
Indicators
for social
change
System
innovation
(chain mobility)
Personalized
public transport
Mobility leasing
Advanced
collective transport
Organized car
sharing
P+R, bus lanes
Anti congestion
policy
System
Optimization
(cleaner
cars)
Urban cars
Car electronics
Intelligent
motorways
Fuel cell vehicles
System optimization versus system innovation in passenger road transport
(Kemp and Rotmans, 2001)
Transition management
…. is a deliberate effort to work towards a transition in
a stepwise, adaptive manner, utilising dynamics and
visions
… in which different visions and routes are explored:
system innovation and optimisation
Transition Management: bifocal
instead of myopic
Political
margins for
change
Existing policy process: short-term goals (myopic)
State of
development
of solutions
Transition management: oriented towards longterm sustainability goals and visions, iterative and
reflexive (bifocal)
Societal
goals
Sustainability
visions
The cyclical, iterative nature of
transition management
Organizing a multiactor network
Developing
sustainability
visions and
transitionagendas
Evaluating,
monitoring
and learning
Mobilizing actors and
executing projects and
experiments
Mathematically transition management =
current policies + long-term vision + vertical
and horizontal coordination of policies +
portfolio-management + process management.
... is bottom-up and top-down, using strategic
experiments and control policies
Transition management in
the Netherlands
The energy transition
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Sustainable energy economy:
– economically efficient (‘profit’)
– reliable (‘people’)
– minimal negative environmental and social
impacts (‘planet’)
Long term goals, combined with
 Concrete short term steps
 …and successes...
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Areas of interest in the Energy
transition
Biomass
New Gas
Policy
Renewal
Eff. Energy
Chains
Sustainable
Rijnmond
2050
2020
Biomass 20-40% of primary energy supply
10-15% in power prod.
15-20% in traffic
‘Vision’
‘Strategic goals’
A. Gasification
B. Pyrolysis
C. Biofuels
2à3%
2003
: experiments
: R&D
‘Transition
Paths’
No definitive choice is made as
to technological means
Different routes are investigated
 Decisions are made in an interative way
 Support is temporary
 Each option has to proof its worth
 Technology choices are made at the
decentralized level
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What’s new about transition
management?
1. The orientation to transition goals (less short-termism)
2. The orientation to learning and innovation (helps to
overcome the preference for quick results, and policy
reliance on technical fixes)
3. Alignment of different policy domains (helps to deal
with fragmented policies)
4. Programmes for system innovation based on visions of
sustainability
5. Less domination by vested interests: opening up of
policy process
Would this be something for
the EU?
The
Commission expects much from
sustainability assessment and good governance (-)
 Innovation is a strategic area for EU policy:
Lisbon strategy, Innovation Action plan, ETAP (+)
 The Commission has demonstrated a willingness
and capacity for engaging in transitions (single
market, EMU, economic convergence) (+)
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Transition management
and other governance approaches
Planning
 Incremental Politics
 Adaptive governance
 Interactive governance
 Multi-level governance
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Transition policies and institutions
Science police
-------------- Assessment of
system innovations
 Knowledge about
past transition
 Policy analysis
Innovation policy
---------------------- Innovation alliances
 R&D programmes for
sustainable technologies
 User experiments
 Alignment policies to
transition goals
Programmes
for system
innovation
Sector policy
----------------------------- niche management
(procurement)
 infrastructure for system
innovation
 longer term goals and
visions
Transition
councils
Jointdecision
making
Transition
goals
Transition
agendas
Transition
arenas
Conclusion
Transition management is not a
“megalomaniac” attempt to control the future
But an attempt at goal-oriented modulation:
It is a “journey to a better world” in which
system innovations are explored, gradually
(alongside the route of system improvement)
Strategies for eco-innovation
Making companies proactive
 Improving sustainability assessment by
companies and customers
 Improving the system of innovation for
eco-innovation
 Targeted policies for eco-innovations
 The use of market-based instruments
 Policy integration
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Kemp and Munch Andersen (2004)