Toward a Spatial Perspective on Sustainability Transitions

Introduction: Spatial Analyses of Sustainability Transitions

• Sustainability transitions research highlights the shift towards sustainable production and consumption, encompassing technological advancements and changes in markets, policies, and institutions.

• Transition is defined as shifts between socio-technical configurations, including new technologies, markets, policies, and institutions, aiming for sustainable models.

• Geels and Schot (2010) characterize transitions by:

  • Co-evolution and multiple changes in socio-technical systems.

  • Multi-actor interactions.

  • ‘Radical’ change in scope.

  • Long-term processes (40–50 years).

• Examples include decarbonizing energy/transport, biodiversity/food security in agriculture, and sustainable waste/water management and urban development.

• Transition analysis neglects spatial dimensions, focusing on long-term socio-technical change. This paper integrates sustainability transition geographies from an economic geography perspective to address this gap.

• The paper aims to:

  • Identify key spatial dimensions of sustainability transitions.

  • Suggest how spatially sensitive transition analyses can improve future research.

Missing or Naive Conceptualizations of Space

• Two frameworks for researching innovation dynamics:

  • Technological Innovation Systems (TIS): Focuses on technology development and diffusion.

  • Multi-Level Perspective (MLP): Examines interactions between niches, regimes, and landscapes.

• Both approaches view socio-technical systems as interrelated sets of actors, networks, institutions, and technologies/artifacts but lack spatial considerations.

Technological Innovation Systems (TIS)

• TIS relates to national (NIS), regional (RIS), and sectoral innovation system (SIS) approaches.

• It explains competitive advantages based on context-specific factors.

• Focus is on generating new technologies and services rapidly and with high quality.

• TIS analyzes socio-technical configurations that cross-cut established sectors and spaces.

• Transitions emerge through market penetration by ‘green’ technologies.

• Sustainability transitions enhance ecological efficiency.

• The spatial dimension was conflated in the NIS approach.

• Early TIS work recognized geographical patterns but later focused on spatially undifferentiated entities.

• Empirical work often focused on TIS structures in a single country or comparative analyses, downplaying spatial dimensions.

• The absence of spatial conceptualization leads to:

  • Insufficient elaboration of coupling structures between TIS and context systems.

  • Underconceptualization of relationships between sub-system structures.

• Understanding TIS coupling to spatial contexts can generalize TIS analyses.

• TIS literature often treats spatial context as an external factor.

• Neglecting inter-dependencies in spatial contexts risks oversimplified conclusions.

• A spatially naïve TIS concept risks obscuring place-specific causal relationships.

• Actors' access to resources varies geographically.

• Disconnected TISs may exist in parallel in different regions.

• Context conditions create a variegated landscape influencing TIS development.

Multi-Level Perspective (MLP)

• MLP is a hybrid framework bridging science and technology studies and evolutionary economics.

• A central tenet is the stabilizing influence of socio-technical regimes.

• ‘Niches’ nurture novelty and protect radical innovations.

• The landscape is the external environment.

• MLP has been applied empirically in historical cases.

• MLP considers societal embeddedness but lacks explicit treatment of local institutional coherences.

• A key issue is agency and interventions triggering structural evolutions.

• Geels and Kemp (2000) distinguish macro-, meso- and micro- levels.

• Two omissions in MLP:

  • Implicit assumption of a single scale.

  • Weak treatment of the ‘global’.

• MLP could benefit from becoming a multi-scalar perspective.

• Geographical scale is a territorial level with actor relationships.

• Effective comparative transition analysis benefits from a multi-scalar approach.

• Local analyses may ignore external pressures.

• 'Level' and 'scale' classify transitions.

The Key Lines of A Geographical Critique

• Neglect of space is now unacceptable; understanding place-specific impacts is necessary.

  • Institutional embeddedness within spaces.

  • Multi-scalar conception of trajectories.

Contextualizing Transitions in Space

• TIS and MLP rely on institutions.

• Institutions are the ‘rules of the game’.

• Analyses demarcate systems nationally.

• Transitions need a spatially sensitive framing of institutional contexts.

• Economic geographers use institutional analysis to explain uneven development.

• Adding this perspective opens questions on how uneven processes are shaped by institutions.

Comparative Institutional Advantage

• Explains how environments favor certain innovation activities.

• Regional innovation systems identify local institutional environments.

Institutional Thickness

• Refers to governance bodies' ability to collaborate and gain external support.

• Explains regional innovation support.

• Analyses of institutional infrastructures contribute to understanding technology embedding.

• A spatial landscape gives rise to regions forging ahead or lagging behind.

• A spatial perspective accounts for local nodes and global relations.

Multi-Level, Multi-Scalar Transitions

• There is a risk that causalities arise from researchers' narratives.

• Introducing space helps explain timings and sequences.

• Without scale, inter-localization risks reifying socio-cognitive changes.

• A geographically nuanced understanding of scale requires:

  • socio-spatial construction of scale,

  • relational approaches,

  • avoiding scalar hierarchies.

• Inter-localization is central to transitions.

• Actors' power relates to resources across scales.

• Inter-localization is constructed by actors across scales.

• Relational approach: actors have relationships influencing behavior at different scales.

• Understanding behavior requires understanding all scales and relationships.

• Globally active actors depend on places with key relationships.

• Inter-localization can be bottom-up or coordinated across localities.

• There is debate over relationships between scales and hierarchy.

• Actors’ power depends on relationships across scales.

• Scales are constructed through socio-spatial struggles.

Conclusion and Discussion

• Two shortcomings in treating geography in TIS and MLP:

  • Analyses fail to explain if and how spatial contexts matter.

  • Existing analyses lack scale.

• Territorial embeddedness helps disclose institutional contingencies.

• The absence of territoriality overlooks advantages and conflicts.

• A relational perspective conceptualizes transitions as interdependent processes.

• A spatial perspective contributes by:

  • Providing contextualization.

  • Acknowledging diversity.

  • Connecting to literature on international dynamics.

• Transition research should examine global networks and local nodes in conceptual, methodological, and policy terms.

• Transition analyses should explore the meaning played by particular places.

• A “local node, global network” perspective helps reflect on scalar boundaries.

• Researchers should allow transitions to define spatial dimensions.

• Acknowledging socio-spatial construction improves transferability and policy advice.

• Unfolding networks clarifies actors involved in governance.

• Transition studies should generate empirical insights about local conditions while considering wider relations.