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In the face of persistent sustain ability problems challenging economic development, ecological integrity as well as social justice, transformational changes are crucial. Proposed changes shall include, for instance, large-scale transitions of practices, infrastructures as well as values and priorities. In Germany, real-world laboratories are proposed for research in and with society, aiming to understand and contribute to transformations.
Questions regarding the societal impact of research, how to reach impact and what is needed to stabilize the effects are rising from various sides. Societal impact is seen as part of a social contract that exists between science and society. This entails that research must address pressing social issues which in turn implies a number of core challenges such as gathering evidence or the creation of actionable knowledge. The transdisciplinary research approach "real-world laboratory" is discussed as possible way to address and to overcome some of the challenges. A "real-world laboratory" currently being established in the city of Wuppertal serves as case study, linking conceptual and empirical investigations.
"Sufficiency" is beginning to emerge as a new value throughout Western societies and the question asked in this article is: Can we observe cases with actual opportunities to link successful business strategies of incumbents to principles of sufficiency? Thus, how feasible is sustainable entrepreneurship for incumbents? As an innovative conceptual approach, it will be analyzed how brand claims function as narrative translation mechanisms in situations where tensions emerge between corporate narratives and unexpected societal trends, e.g. the emergence of sufficient lifestyles. It will be shown that even though these are still a niche phenomenon, a focus on powerful brands and the narratives connected to them are an important element in understanding the role of incumbents in transitions to sustainability.
The transition towards a circular economy is high on the political agenda and support for innovative business models can be seen as one of the key strategies for its implementation. Nevertheless most of these business models rely on an increasing generation of waste and thus undermine the prevention of waste as top of the waste hierarchy. The paper aims to link this debate to more systemic eco-innovations that offer economic market potentials by reduced material inputs and waste generation. This directs the attention to sufficiency strategies that surpass the level of individual consumer choices and regards the potentials of entrepreneurial sufficiency strategies. It takes the example of waste contracting modelsin Germany as a possible approach of resource-light business models that provide existing utility aspects with altered consumption patterns and decreased resource consumption. It describes environmental and economic benefits and draws conclusions on necessary policy framework conditions.
In 2009, the German government launched its "National Development Plan for Electric Mobility" which set the concrete target of having 1 million electric vehicles on the road by 2020. However, there have been hypes around e-mobility before and even if this goal were to be reached, a merely quantitative aim of a certain number of electric vehicles will not suffice to contribute to a more sustainable development in transport. This requires a more comprehensive vision of sustainable e-mobility as a system innovation. Thus, the question addressed in this thesis is: How can we assess - at this critical early stage - whether there is potential for e-mobility developing as a sustainable system innovation? A theoretical framework will be developed for assessing the potential of a wider transition at an early stage by analyzing current patterns of socio-technical co-evolution and embedding these in a wider framework of the structural dynamics involved in transitions. The aim of the analysis is to identify whether 'system-innovative' projects do emerge in the case of Germany/Baden-Württemberg and what patterns (e.g. in terms of specific actor constellations, institutional adjustments etc.) can explain this. It will be shown that the system-innovative potential of this e-mobility niche remains limited, due to the powerful influence of incumbents, conflicting political goals and traditional science approaches. A few more system-innovative activities emerge where powerful actors from outside are involved, who are capable of viewing mobility in a more systemic way (e.g. actors from the public transport or housing sector). It is argued that the role of large demonstration projects is important, but they need to be designed as transdisciplinary research projects from the beginning.
The current momentum in the electrification of the car fuels hope for a transition in mobility. However, electric vehicles have failed before and it is thus asked: What is the potential of e-mobility developing as a sustainable system innovation? In order to deal with this challenge analytically, a theoretical framework is developed: the concepts of transformative capacity of a new technology (do electric vehicles trigger "social" innovations, e.g. new business models or use patterns?) and system adaptability (how stable is the mobility regime?) are introduced and the issue of sustainability is discussed. This framework will be explored for the German innovation system for e-mobility. It can be shown that electric cars will only be successful when part of a system innovation and that the German innovation system is dominated by regime actors and thus potentially used as a way to fend off more substantial change.