Transcript Governance for Sustainability through Transition management

Sustainability: a long-term
journey
René Kemp
MERIT & DRIFT
On sustainability









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 (with
transition policies)
(Kemp, Gibson and Parto, 2004)

Innovation is part of SD
-- this is accepted by the European Commission

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).
But innovation is different
things
Policy
innovation
Technological innovation
New sociotechnical systems
that are interrelated
SD is a non-ending process of
adaptive change involving
multiple transitions
Policy should be concerned
with “managing” transitions
A transition is the result of many changes and not a deterministic process
(source: Butter et al., 2002)
Transitions are multi-level processes
Stabilisation
Magnitude of
societal change
Breakthrough
Take off
Predevelopment
Time
The Dutch model of
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
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
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

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
Incrementalism
Goal-oriented
modulation —of which
transition management
is an example
Planning
Key actors
Private and public
actors
Private and public actors
Bureaucrats and
experts
Steering
philosophy
Partisan mutual
adaptation
Modulation of
developments to
collectively chosen
goals, government is
facilitator & mediator
Hierarchy
Structuring
form
Polyarchy
Heterarchy
Hierarchy
Role for
anticipation
Limited (no longterm goals)
Dynamic anticipation of
desired futures as basis
for interaction
Future is
anticipated and
implemented
Type of
learning
First-order:
learning about
quick fixes for
remedying
immediate ills
Second-order and firstorder (rethink following
problem structuring)
First-order
(instrumental)
Mechanism
for
coordination
Markets and
emergent
institutionalisation
Markets, network
management,
institutionalisation (both
designed and emergent)
Hierarchy (topdown)
Degree of
adaptivity
Adaptive
Highly adaptive thanks to
especially created
adaptive capacity
Hardly adaptive
Role for
strategy and
plans
Limited role
Important role for goals
and strategic experiments
for exploring social
trajectories, as apart of
adaptive programmes for
system innovation.
Plans with steps
Interest
mediation/
conflict
resolution
Individual gains for
everyone
Rewards for innovators,
phase out of nonsustainable practices
through markets and
politics
Little mediation
(implementation
and enforcement)
Type of
change that
is sought
Incremental, nondisruptive change
System innovation and
system improvement
Predetermined
outcome