As local authorities and providers of services and infrastructures, cities can advance sustainability transformations through instruments like public procurement. However, a disconnect exists between broad (supra)national sustainability challenges and public procurers’ local needs. We examine innovation contests as a tool for articulating societal challenges as local demands for innovation. We study

We present the concept of “transition imaginary”, defined as a discursive effect of the relational work of the state to strategically select and reconfigure landscape pressures through national sociotechnical imaginaries for the sake of legitimizing particular transition projects. Using the case study of the Polish project of an electric vehicle (EV) IZERA, we illustrate a model that helps understand

In this paper we enrich the concept of place-based leadership. Building on social movement theory, our analysis of the clean growth mission development in Greater Manchester (UK) reveals the role of place-based leadership in mobilising and coordinating framing processes that linked the global climate change problem with local challenges, articulated local benefits of its resolution, and provided justification

The sustainability transition literature has paid scant attention to incumbent generation equipment manufacturers, constituting a complementary element in electricity systems. To fill this research gap, this study develops the concept of networked sustainable business model innovation (SBMI) as an analytical framework to explore how incumbent manufacturers change business models in response to changes

In the last four years, since Austria enabled the establishment of energy communities (ECs), their numbers have rapidly increased, and their role in Austria's energy transition has been widely discussed. This study explores how storylines of ECs, as social innovations, have changed during their introduction and diffusion. We adopt a dialectic perspective of niche diffusion and discursive struggles

Scholars have yet to devote sufficient attention to the reciprocal relationship between renewable energy (RE) and the dynamics of political borders. This oversight is surprising given the tangible examples demonstrating how RE projects are strategically sited as part of, near, across, and even distant from political borders. This study asserts that the selection of border sites for RE is influenced

Public sector organisations (PSOs) such as municipalities, regulatory bodies, and public utilities are key actors in sustainability transitions. However, the conceptualisation of their transformative capacity is underdeveloped, as several strands of literature pay attention to the topic but remain disjointed. The article takes stock of the literature, reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of the main

Domestic heating systems need to change to meet climate targets. We draw on practice theoretical concepts to understand what is needed to integrate heat pumps in Dutch households. From a design orientation, we view households as creative actors integrating technologies into daily life. We report on an ethnographic study of the disruptions and resulting reconfigurations that occur when heat pumps are

This article contributes to a deeper understanding of the role of capitalism in sustainability transitions by exploring the potential of green entrepreneurs to cultivate alternative economic forms. To this end, we will introduce the classic sociological concept of the spirit of capitalism to sustainability transition research and bring it into dialogue with the concept of economic alterity. Based on

In the transition to a renewable energy system, the European Union champions community-based initiatives like energy communities to promote decarbonization as well as broader societal benefits. Despite these goals, there is a marked underrepresentation of women in energy communities. In 15 qualitative interviews with experts in community-led energy organizations mainly from Germany, our study addresses

This policy brief encourages urban policymakers to embrace a stronger circular economy (CE) ambition by applying discontinuation policies. While discontinuation already plays a major role in sectors such as energy, cities have so far mainly focussed on supporting innovations in the CE transition. Using circular construction as an example, this policy brief demonstrates how to apply informational, economic

Mission-oriented innovation policies (MOIP) do not operate in a vacuum. How missions align with innovation actors, infrastructures and discourses in regional contexts is an ongoing discussion. In this paper, we draw on the case of regional dialogues that aspired to facilitate exchange and learning for the missions of Germany's High-Tech Strategy (HTS). We examine the interactional process of 'regioning'

Reuse is suggested as a strategy to reduce mounting single-use packaging consumption and the related pollution. In this exploratory study, we investigated how governance can create conditions for the uptake of reusable food packaging in Finland when phasing out the existing single use system is not viable. We identified policy instruments addressing packaging reuse and analyzed how key stakeholders

Transformative mission-oriented innovation policy aims to redirect innovation, but evidence of this directional ability is limited. This paper examines whether transformer missions redirect values reflected by mission-oriented projects. We study the EU Mission ‘Restore our Ocean and Waters’ and use probabilistic topic modelling and thematic analyses to identify, conceptualize, and compare latent values

The paper addresses tensions in organizing civil society activities in urban sustainability transitions. It argues that these activities need focus to be impactful while also demanding flexibility to remain adaptive. The latter can hardly be achieved by individual organizations alone but requires closer examination of the of organizations in which civil society actors operate. This paper contributes

In order to reach climate neutrality by 2050 the EU needs to overcome challenges relating to accelerating innovation, creating infrastructure, redirecting investments, and fostering cross-sectoral integration. In this policy brief, we present key policy lessons relating to these four challenges based on seven case studies on transformative policies from the period 2005–2022 in different EU countries

Transformative social innovation policy encompasses more than the idea that policy defines directions about the expected outcomes of innovation. It also promotes new forms of governance and rationales based on more intersectional and decentralized processes of innovation. Such policy has thus to be studied primarily as a perpetual process of redefinition, rather than as an end in itself to achieve

Sustainability transitions research and policy treat households and the home in a narrow way. The paper reviews niche-based experimentation and social-practice theory informed sustainability transitions literature to develop a novel framework for deliberate household experimentation. The usefulness of the framework is explored in an action research project on low-waste living in Melbourne. Data was

Sustainability transitions research is increasingly engaged with the complexities of justice and equitability. In housing, policy lock-ins and infrastructural inequalities expose people to volatile energy markets, energy poverty and climate impacts. These problems have often been dealt with reactively, without resolving their underlying systemic and structural causes. We examine household energy vulnerabilities

This paper investigates the development of a mission-oriented innovation policy approach at a national level. The empirical case that forms the core of the paper is a policy process towards shaping future research and innovation policies and priorities in Norway. The concept “mission-oriented research and innovation policy” was introduced in the policy process and steps were initiated to develop and

Experimentation is a key theme in the sustainability transition literature, where cities are recognized as key intermediaries in experimentation. Whilst attention has focused on the role of the cities as intermediary actors, the ways in which municipalities engage in and support experimentation is less known. In a collective case study of four Finnish municipalities, we draw on the transformative innovation

Resilience is traditionally seen as the capability to bounce back to normal from undesired change, while sustainability transitions research seeks to understand how a radical change can be promoted. This may be seen as a puzzle, not least considering the increasingly frequent combination of both sets of concepts in policy and scholarly approaches. In this article we systematically review scientific

The Circular Economy (CE) is promoted as a sustainable model of economic growth and a quintessential example of a “sustainability mission.” Despite expected co-benefits in job creation, waste reduction and poverty alleviation, the Global South is largely missing from both missions and CE literature. Employing cross-disciplinary insights from environmental policy and the geography of sustainability

Solar photovoltaic and wind power generation is expanding fast globally, fuelled by technological progress and rapid cost reductions. Other renewable power technologies fare much worse: deployment stagnates despite substantial technological progress. Here, we explore why these technologies fall off political agendas although they are improving, proposing that negative cross-technology feedback from

The growing call for public policy to begin addressing more robustly the challenges posed by sustainability transitions puts the onus on researchers to study how new meta-frameworks of transformative innovation policy and accompanying practices are implemented, applied, and received when they travel across different geographies. We discuss this question by tracing debates with reference to geography

In this paper, we develop a holistic policy evaluation framework that aims to harness a fuller potential of just transitions. Although appeals for broader understanding of just transitions are becoming louder, applicable frameworks supporting consideration of justice in the planning and evaluation of transition policies are still lacking. The evaluation framework developed integrates the multidimensional

Over the last two decades, researchers, policymakers, and practitioners have focused on the innovations in the informal sector, particularly grassroots innovations (GI) from low-income countries. Such innovations' diffusion dynamics, however, are uncharted territory. As a result, this paper explores the diffusion of GI from India's informal sector. We chose ten GI and gathered data in ex-situ and in-situ

The geographical understanding of directionality in the literature on mission-oriented innovation systems is still underdeveloped. Therefore, this article reflects on whether the allocation of funding for R&D activities to different places can direct innovation systems in space. A place-based approach to the allocation of funding and its effects on innovation systems is developed to analyze how the

The social practices of householders are crucial for the realisation of energy policies, but their political aspects have been overlooked in previous research. The aim of this paper is to deepen the understanding of the possibilities of householders for political participation in energy transitions in the home. By analysing the social practices of householders in a low-energy building, the paper demonstrates

Few studies on legitimation of new technologies were able to provide insights into the longitudinal changes in legitimacy outcomes and the social dynamics that underpin such outcomes. Using a novel mixed-methods approach, combining Natural Language Processing with a qualitative text analysis, and drawing on the concept of social cohesion to investigate the social relations among actors, the study offers

Considering that recycling is seldom economically viable, this study analyzes how recycling organizations perceive institutional voids and adapt their business models to propel a transition from waste crisis to establishing waste management services. The analysis is embedded in the sustainability transitions literature and is approached from an institutional void and business model lens. Qualitative

Existing transitions literature often highlights successful experiments for changing practices through multi-actor processes but overlooks the challenges of adjusting incumbent practices and engaging actors in reflexive learning. The current article addresses this gap through two qualitative case studies of water-related co-creation processes in the Netherlands. Each case met inertia and resistance

Local governments are placing greater requirements on households to sort and reduce their waste. The research draws on experimental governance scholarship to explore the transformative capacity of local government in low waste sustainability transitions and how this is given form through engaging households in new waste management initiatives. Australia, a high-income county with one of the highest

As Longyearbyen, Svalbard, embarks on a transition away from the century-long reliance on coal as the backbone of the Arctic community, existing understandings of place are destabilised. However, as an important Norwegian outpost in an increasingly tense Arctic geopolitical landscape, the phase-out transcends local visions for Longyearbyen and its new energy system. Drawing upon a mix of semi-structured

Authors dealing with the geography of sustainability transitions argue for increasing understanding of how innovations emerge and develop on multiple scales. In this article, memory studies is adopted to research the development of technology in the energy transition to gas and electricity within, across and beyond the Dutch household.

Current food transition studies predominantly examine the role of food actors in challenging dominant food regimes. However, there is a notable gap in understanding changes within the spaces where individuals interact with the food system—the food environment. In this paper, we seek to support the development of a new research agenda that engages assemblage thinking with the practicalities of transformation

While literature on transition intermediation is burgeoning, the implications of a sensitivity to “place” in transition intermediation remain ill understood. In this paper, we empirically explore the dynamics of “place-based transition intermediation”, through a case study of the ‘Dune farmers’ in the Netherlands. The farmers initiated a collaboration that serves as a bottom-up, non-state intermediary

Micro-missions represent small-scale, place-based strategies for societal innovation, distinct from grand missions that target national-level transformations. They offer potential for collaborative engagement among local stakeholders in the public sector, businesses, and civil society that aims to address local needs and promote wider innovation, particularly for social and ecological progress. Despite

Fixed-bottom offshore wind is exploited as a maturing technology in many European countries. Floating wind has impressive potential for deep waters but needs technological and market development. How these two partially related technologies interact remains unclear. We address the ambiguity of these interactions to investigate floating offshore wind's development. The interactions are divided into

This study focuses on citizen participation as a co-productive and knowledge-intensive process in innovation policies concerned with regionally anchoring grand challenges. We apply a process-tracing approach and analyse citizen participation in two regional challenge-based innovation policies in the Ruhr, Germany. Local sensemaking, problem ownership, iterations and knowledge co-production are discussed

This paper links the literature on energy poverty and energy vulnerability with the experimental focus of current energy transition initiatives and argues for the need to expand household experimentation beyond technology adoption. Drawing on an analysis of low-income households’ energy using practices we develop a framework consisting of three key dynamics, 1) predictability – flexibility, 2) sufficiency

The objective of this paper is to build an integrative framework that aims to explain the specific functions of systemic intermediaries in connecting actors/ network of actors to institutions. Relying on both Sustainable Transitions Theory (STS) and New Institutional Economics (NIE), we argue that systemic intermediaries could govern this process by playing the role of meso-institutions. Empirically

Sustainability transitions and innovation policy research has studied barriers and drivers of structural change at different spatial scales, but lacks attention to how scale is discursively invoked by actors to (il)legitimate such change. We address this gap by studying how scale is framed by actors in the issue field of a Norwegian seafood mission. Based on an analysis of ‘scale frames’ in consultation

We engage a community of ca. 200 voluntary Swiss households in using a smartphone app that provides energy consumption feedback and offers peer-to-peer interaction possibilities to share experiences on household routine change. Surveys prior to and three months after app use, in-app usage analytics, and analysis of in-app posts indicate that most households preferred individual-level consumption feedback:

The deliberate destabilisation of regimes has gained attention in sustainability transitions scholarship regarding the urgency of transitions. However, there has been little focus on justice in deliberate destabilisation literature Without attention to justice, destabilisation policies can cause unforeseen negative social, economic, or environmental impacts. Justice has mainly been explored in terms

Aviation and maritime shipping are hard-to-abate transport sectors that are heavily dependent on fossil fuels. They jointly account for nearly 10 % of global greenhouse gas emissions, while infrastructure and investments are locked into high-carbon pathways for decades. Fuels and technologies to decarbonize include advanced biofuels, electrofuels, hydrogen and electric propulsion. This research aims

Alternative Food Networks gain increasing importance in sustainability transitions of food production, retail, and consumption. This paper explores the role of AFN consumers as critical food sustainability change agents, with a special focus on low-income consumers. It challenges preconceived notions that associate sustainable living exclusively with affluent communities, highlighting the substantial

Intermediaries are recognized as influential actors in advancing local bottom-up experimentation and strengthening its impact on urban sustainability transitions. Recent studies have articulated intermediation by listing diverse roles and activities that intermediaries perform and by presenting theory-based typologies of different intermediaries. However, such listings and typologies fail to capture

Few sectors in the global economy need deep decarbonization as much as heavy industry, which is currently the largest and fastest growing source of global carbon emissions. Based on an original dataset of 111 expert interviews and 52 site visits, this paper asks: what sociotechnical pathways, capabilities, and regional innovation systems are emerging to support industrial decarbonization? It combines

Despite recent studies which emphasize the importance of human-nature connections (HNCs) in sustainability transitions, the literature on the geography of sustainability transitions focuses mainly on urban areas and transnational aspects, ignoring the role of HNCs. In this paper, we study HNCs in rural areas through a case study of the French mountains. Based on 31 interviews with local actors, the

While recent research has advanced our conceptual understanding of social tipping points, empirical studies are called for to support and advance the theories. Here, we present a conceptual method to identify whether a tipping point exists and its possible location, in terms of peer effects on green technology adoption. This conceptualization is tested using Shanghai's adoption of electric vehicles

Multi-system interactions are receiving increasing attention within transition research. However, understanding the consequences of increasing couplings between adjacent systems for transitions requires further research. In response, this paper applies the concept of institutional work to understand the role of actors creating institutional couplings for the reconfiguration of multiple systems. We

The literature on sustainability transitions departs from the idea that social and environmental problems call for transformative change but employs socio-technical frameworks that treat nature as a passive context. In this paper, we argue that transitions research should adopt a socio-techno-ecological approach that accounts better for ecological elements. To take steps in this direction, we review

This article unpacks the power relations in urban logistics to understand why cities follow different policy pathways to sustainability. Drawing on the literature on power in sustainability transitions, we investigate key actors’ framings of sustainability in urban logistics and assess how they leverage their positions to pursue their framing of sustainability. We utilize a mixed-method approach, with

In this paper, we analyzed Hong Kong's sustainable energy transitions innovation policy, and compared it to the policies in 11 small, high-income jurisdictions. To do this, we identified 696 innovation interventions implemented between 2008 and 2020. We classified them into 42 types of policy instruments. Then we visualized the policy mixes of the jurisdictions with the assistance of correspondence

Sustainability transitions literature has insufficiently explored the potentially constructive role of industry incumbents and transition intermediaries that cooperate with incumbents for industry energy transition. This study elaborates on transition intermediary functions by building on evidence from sectors where decarbonisation faces severe structural challenges and incumbency. An examination of

Green innovations aim to improve and reduce the environmental impact of economic activities. Thus far, research focus on the positive trajectories of green transition. Continuing in this direction we focus on brown regions (i.e. specialized in fossil-fuel technologies) and the challenges that they face to become sustainable. Taking as example German Labour Market Regions we identify brown regions and