How to build (in) the future? Legitimacy of socio-technical visions in a bio-based construction sector

IF 5.7 2区经济学 Q1 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions Pub Date : 2025-04-28 DOI:10.1016/j.eist.2025.100996

Lennart Fischer , Sebastian Losacker

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Abstract

The use of bio-based materials offers opportunities to mitigate the climate impacts of construction, with buildings potentially acting as carbon sinks. However, it remains unclear what a future bio-based construction sector will look like. One reason for this are diverse socio-technical visions for the use of bio-based construction materials. In this paper, we use discourse analysis across a comprehensive set of expert interviews to pinpoint (competing) socio-technical visions of a bio-based construction sector in China, India, Germany and Italy. Drawing on the sociological literature on legitimacy, we examine the legitimacy of socio-technical visions as a necessary condition for their collective adoption by stakeholders in the sector. It enables us to conceptualize the development and validation of visions, providing a framework for transition studies to track one part of the collective adoption of visions. This, in turn, adds to the understanding of the formation of ideations that potentially influence transition processes.

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如何建设未来？以生物为基础的建筑部门的社会技术愿景的合法性

生物基材料的使用为减轻建筑对气候的影响提供了机会，因为建筑可能充当碳汇。然而，目前还不清楚未来以生物为基础的建筑行业会是什么样子。其中一个原因是使用生物基建筑材料的不同社会技术愿景。在本文中，我们通过一套全面的专家访谈来使用话语分析，以确定中国、印度、德国和意大利生物基建筑行业的（竞争）社会技术愿景。借鉴关于合法性的社会学文献，我们研究了社会技术愿景的合法性，作为该部门利益相关者集体采用的必要条件。它使我们能够概念化远景的开发和验证，为转换研究提供一个框架，以跟踪远景的集体采用的一部分。这反过来又增加了对可能影响过渡过程的观念形成的理解。

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来源期刊

Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions Energy-Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

CiteScore

13.60

自引率

19.40%

发文量

审稿时长

56 days

期刊介绍： Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions serves as a platform for reporting studies on innovations and socio-economic transitions aimed at fostering an environmentally sustainable economy, thereby addressing structural resource scarcity and environmental challenges, particularly those associated with fossil energy use and climate change. The journal focuses on various forms of innovation, including technological, organizational, economic, institutional, and political, as well as economy-wide and sectoral changes in areas such as energy, transport, agriculture, and water management. It endeavors to tackle complex questions concerning social, economic, behavioral-psychological, and political barriers and opportunities, along with their intricate interactions. With a multidisciplinary approach and methodological openness, the journal welcomes contributions from a wide array of disciplines within the social, environmental, and innovation sciences.