{"title":"Analyzing policy mixes for the circular economy transition: The case of recycled plastics in electronics","authors":"David Pfeffer, Denise Reike, Catharina R. Bening","doi":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100982","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100982","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study analyzes how policy mixes influence the transition to a circular plastics economy, focusing on recycling in the electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) sector. Our research contributes to the literature on how policy mixes can accelerate sustainability transitions by proposing an adjusted framework tailored to the circular economy transition. We use qualitative content analysis of 14 EU legislative documents and conduct 20 semi-structured interviews with actors across the plastics and EEE value chain. We find that the current policy mix is not conducive to promoting this transition and highlight three key barriers. First, we find short-term inconsistencies between increasing plastic recycling rates and tightening chemical regulations on hazardous substances. Second, we identify a lack of economic incentives to stimulate demand for recycled content and note the absence of harmonized, mandatory criteria for defining end-of-waste and recycled content. Finally, coordination between product users, producers, and recycling operators shows deficits.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54294,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions","volume":"56 ","pages":"Article 100982"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143611013","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Avoiding plastics at the household level: Household agency as a mechanism in transitions","authors":"David O. Reynolds","doi":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100983","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100983","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This article provides a perspective on concrete sustainability actions to avoid plastic at the household level in Australia to examine the contributions and involvement of household-level agency and social innovation in socio-technical systems transitions. Asking ‘what can household-level actions for sustainability reveal about the position of household agency in sustainability transitions?’ investigates links between household and systems change. Plastic avoidance involves four types of action: mental, material, social and spatial, which capture how householders' agency creatively adapt and diffuse social innovations, revealing a powerful mechanism in sustainability transitions driven by effort rather than novel technologies. In addition, the entanglement of material actions with creativity and mental, spatial and social actions highlight dynamics and potential barriers to innovation adoption as part of transition pathways. The case and the four categories of action presented offer a starting point to identify and minimise such barriers in designing pathways for change and implementing transitions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54294,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions","volume":"56 ","pages":"Article 100983"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143580166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Thomas Berker, Thomas Edward Sutcliffe, Ruth Woods
{"title":"The role of households in sustainability transitions: An infrastructural inversion","authors":"Thomas Berker, Thomas Edward Sutcliffe, Ruth Woods","doi":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100984","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100984","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Starting from the observation that households are infrastructurally entangled, this conceptual article investigates the role of households’ agency in relation to socio-technical sustainability transitions. It is argued that when household members engage in infrastructuring activities such as developing and maintaining their household they perform practices that are relevant for sustainability transitions on a societal scale. Three forms of this kind of infrastructural household agency are identified: Households appropriate sustainable innovations, they establish new standards of normality both within and in relation to other households and they engage in experiments with sustainable infrastructural futures by reframing the role of households in society in fundamental ways.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54294,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions","volume":"56 ","pages":"Article 100984"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143570519","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Arthur Lauer , Carlos de Castro , Óscar Carpintero
{"title":"Beyond Green capitalism: Global scenarios for fast societal transitions toward sustainability","authors":"Arthur Lauer , Carlos de Castro , Óscar Carpintero","doi":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100981","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100981","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Addressing the theoretical underpinnings of state involvement in transformative societal changes, this study employs a neo-Gramscian and functionalist framework to develop six Fast Sustainability Transitions (FST) scenarios: <em>Greener growth</em> (FST1), <em>Greener inclusive growth</em> (FST2), <em>Survivalist capitalist economies</em> (FST3), <em>Greener South-led development</em> (FST4), <em>Sufficiency economies</em> (FST5) and <em>Gaia economies</em> (FST6). These scenarios depict different pathways through which states approach ‘sustainability’, emphasizing reductions in the world economy's scale and shifts toward post-growth and/or ecocentric societies. The scenarios underscore the necessity of structural changes in the global politico-economic system alongside technological advancements. While FST1-6 outline opportunities for fast societal transformation catalyzed through ‘Black Swans’, they also point to significant obstacles to timely transitions. To build bridges between policy research and technology-focused modelling we complement the storylines and associated policies with a proposal facilitating the introduction of the scenarios into quantitative models.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54294,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions","volume":"56 ","pages":"Article 100981"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143520448","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jair K.E.K. Campfens , Mert Duygan , Claudia R. Binder
{"title":"Initiating social tipping dynamics in energy transitions: A novel analytical approach for exploring feedback loops and intervention points","authors":"Jair K.E.K. Campfens , Mert Duygan , Claudia R. Binder","doi":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100973","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100973","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Social tipping dynamics illustrate how minor interventions can catalyse non-linear changes in energy transitions. Despite their importance, the feedback loops driving these dynamics are often analysed in isolation and predominantly qualitatively. This study addresses this gap by employing a novel analytical approach to systematically explore intervention points that trigger feedback loops as a mechanism for initiating social tipping dynamics. We applied this framework to Pully, Switzerland, a pioneering municipality that has ambitious energy targets. Cross Impact Balance Analysis was used to develop consistent scenarios, which were then analysed to identify dominant feedback loops, both stabilizing and reinforcing. Succession Analysis was employed to pinpoint intervention points that initiate social tipping dynamics and lead to the most desired scenario. Our research contributes to the empirical analysis of social tipping dynamics by providing a detailed understanding of the interplay between socio-technical factors for sustainability transitions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54294,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions","volume":"56 ","pages":"Article 100973"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143520531","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Policy coherence of low-emission transport transition in the Global South: The case of Dhaka City, Bangladesh","authors":"Tohmina Khatoon","doi":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100967","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100967","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Global South megacities have been adopting various policies to stimulate a shift towards a low-emission road passenger transport system but have yet to make progress. Simultaneously, sustainability transitions research has insufficiently studied policy interactions in Global South contexts. This paper applied a policy coherence analysis to a Global South context to study the policies adopted during 2000–2020 to stimulate a shift towards low-emission road passenger transport systems in Dhaka City, Bangladesh. Top-down and bottom-up approaches were combined to analyse policies. Results show that policies were more coherent around the politically prioritised transport technologies and practices than those not politically privileged. Political prioritisation matched the government's electoral manifesto and its long-term pro-climate development masterplans. Political disfavour resulted from financial constraints and resistance due to the vested interests of incumbent actors. This discrepancy resulted in policy incoherence inhibiting transformative change in the road passenger transport system as a whole.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54294,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions","volume":"56 ","pages":"Article 100967"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143478826","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Comparing public and private intermediaries co-existing in ecologies of intermediation","authors":"Lisa Bastås, Ingrid Mignon","doi":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100972","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100972","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Ecologies of intermediation are important in facilitating the adoption of renewable electricity technologies by supporting adopters. However, previous research has suggested that this support is fragmented and uncoordinated. This paper draws attention to the support provided by two actor-types co-existing in an ecology of intermediation: public and private intermediaries. While differences between these intermediary types have earlier been suggested, these assumptions have not been tested on a larger sample. The analysis of novel survey data shows that public and private intermediaries co-existing in the studied ecology exhibit complementarities regarding target groups, activities, and timing of the provided support. The extent of these complementarities and potentials reasons are finally discussed, raising the question of innovation system maturity and well as additional characteristics of the ecology of intermediation in the specific context of solar PV technology.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54294,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions","volume":"56 ","pages":"Article 100972"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-02-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143465117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Multiple-challenge regional industrial transitions: The example of chemical regions","authors":"Maximilian Benner","doi":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100971","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100971","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While climate change is arguably the most urgent global environmental challenge, there are further, and often related, worrying human overshoots of planetary boundaries. These multiple challenges can express themselves differently in regions and have, therefore, implications for the course and shape of regional industrial transitions. This article focuses on specific regional industrial transitions which are particularly complicated but have attracted scant scholarly attention so far. As the example of the chemical industry shows, the environmental challenges that some regions face are multiple in the sense that industrial transitions in these regions have to respond not only to the global challenge of climate change but also to local environmental challenges such as various types of toxic pollution associated with adverse impacts on the natural environment and public health. Due to their particularly sophisticated demands, multiple-challenge regional industrial transitions merit more scholarly attention.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54294,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 100971"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-02-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143429006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Exploring (De)politicization in policy-driven urban sustainability experiments: Insights from a case study in Amsterdam","authors":"Darren Sierhuis","doi":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100969","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100969","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Urban experimentation has gained traction with (supra-)national and local politics as a method for catalyzing change in urban systems and practices. Yet, with experiments becoming more commonly driven by established actors, concerns persist about their potential to sidestep political issues of power, exclusion and conflict fundamental to societal change. This paper seeks to unpack what exactly is at stake when the political is ignored or neutralized during an urban experiment. Using theories on the political as an analytical lens, the paper presents a case study of an urban experiment in Amsterdam, dissecting the ways in which (de)politicization operates in the experiment. The findings demonstrate that ignoring the political in urban experimentation risks excluding certain voices and options from being considered, which ultimately leads to stagnation. The paper concludes by outlining future challenges for research and practice that addresses (de)politicization in urban experiments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54294,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 100969"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-02-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143422001","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jasper G.W. van Dijk , Anna J. Wieczorek , Josette M.P. Gevers , Martijn L.P. Groenleer
{"title":"“Developing governance capacities for regional energy transition: The case of Eindhoven Metropolitan Region”","authors":"Jasper G.W. van Dijk , Anna J. Wieczorek , Josette M.P. Gevers , Martijn L.P. Groenleer","doi":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100968","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eist.2025.100968","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>While the literature increasingly highlights the importance of governance capacities for transformative change, their development remains understudied. This paper responds to this research gap by proposing an integrative analytical framework to study how governance actors exercise their collective agency to develop governance capacities for transformative change. We introduce shared intentions as a core aspect of collective agency through which governance actors develop governance capacities and integrate this notion with a perspective of strong structuration. We illustrate the framework's application with a case study of the Eindhoven Metropolitan Region, drawing from a set of in-depth interviews with key civil servants, policy document review and participant observation. Application of the framework allowed us to identify two key underlying forces driving governance capacities development: (1) social learning processes through which governance actors learn about how to collectively respond to external developments and challenges and (2) path dependence, which provides directionality to capacities development.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":54294,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions","volume":"55 ","pages":"Article 100968"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7,"publicationDate":"2025-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143349916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}