The residential sector represents 27% of global energy consumption and 17% of global CO2 emissions. Scaling up what we already know how to do through the use of solar PV technologies could decarbonise electricity demand and play a considerable role in mitigating climate change. Therefore, the overall objective of this thesis is to develop a novel step by step approach in order to assess the potential of implementing roof-top solar PV/battery technologies, defined as grid-independent systems, that target the complete decarbonisation of electricity demand per household. The approach adopted was to use Oman as a primary case study and Mexico as a secondary case study in order to determine the characteristics of the solar panel and the battery facility required to provide grid-independence. This was then compared to a similar grid-connected system and any techno-economic targets necessary to enhance the feasibility of residential roof-top PV systems were identified. Such an analysis was achieved through developing a detailed techno-economic mathematical model describing four sub-systems; the solar panel DC source, the grid-independent sub-system, the grid-connected sub-system and the economic sub-system. The model was implemented in gPROMS and uses real hourly weather and climate conditions matched with real demand data, over a simulated period of 20 years. Following the techno-economic assessment, an enviro-economic analysis was applied to the main case study, Oman, where the wider impacts of residential roof-top PV systems on the economy and the environment were assessed through quantifying any financial benefits, avoided CO2 emissions and net jobs created. The results indicate that, in the context of the systems studied, grid-independent PV systems are not feasible. However, combined with a high enough electricity price, grid-independent systems can become economically feasible with significant reductions in battery costs (> 90% reductions). This can only be achieved through further research and innovation in battery technologies. Comparatively, with the appropriate electricity prices, PV costs and policies, grid-connected systems were identified to have great potential in countries that are characterised with high solar irradiance such as Oman and Mexico. In terms of enviro-economic benefits, residential roof- top PV systems were found to have the potential to significantly reduce overall CO2 emissions and result in notable economic benefits to a specific country. However, this is dependent on the country under consideration. Finally, it was recommended that in order to achieve more accurate net job creation estimations from renewable systems, country specific models should be developed since current analytical models are characterised with great uncertainty.

The research investigates whether financial evaluations in electricity system models can adequately represent investment decisions and analyse power generation technology change. A screening of 51 existing models found that 31 utilised cost minimisation, 16 profit maximisation, and 3 growth rate approaches. A statistical analysis of investment metric values from 1980-2013 for the UK, NL, and DE found that positive threshold financial evaluations coincide with 70%+ of historic capacity investments. A separate empirical model validation of this period, where 64 model variants were tested using the TEMOA optimization model, established that profit seeking gives the best matching result to historical outcomes. Divergence of modelled results and history does occur in two ways due to non-financial factors. First, the impact of political-economy support or exclusion of technologies. Second, constraints to technology scaling limiting the speed of build-out, due to factors including public perception, land availability, and manufacturing/installation scale limitations. Interviews with electricity sector experts established that financial evaluation is the primary means for narrowing down of technology options, after which non-financial factors are considered. If electricity system models are to be employed for testing policy decision impacts on technology selection, investment, and scaling, the incorporation of non-financial factors is essential.

This thesis explores the emergence of transformative innovation policy, which can be understood as a reframing of the political agenda of innovation policy to address societal challenges such as climate change. This thesis conceptualises transformative innovation policy as an emerging policy paradigm, layered upon but not fully replacing earlier paradigms of Science & Technology Policy and Innovation Systems Policy. Grounded in argumentative discourse analysis, this thesis assesses the discourse institutionalisation of this emerging policy paradigm. The four empirical chapters focus on international policy organisations operating in a European context, namely the European Commission, Climate-KIC, the OECD and the European Environment Agency. The chapters are framed around three common questions, namely how transformative innovation policy is expressed in practice, to what extent it is institutionalised, and why events unfolded the way they did. The cases demonstrate that a paradigm shift in innovation policy is underway. There is a widespread recognition that existing ideas about innovation policy and its goals and instruments are failing to address current crises and that alternative solutions should be pursued. However, there is still much ambiguity about how exactly these new goals need to be addressed. This leads to clearly identifiable discursive struggles between broad and narrow articulations of transformative innovation policy. As a result, different directions of policy travel can be identified. This process is messy, and characteristic of the more evolutionary nature of policy change. The thesis also presents a closer assessment of the so-called ‘administrative battle of ideas’ representative of this broader paradigm shift. They display that organisational legacy and path dependency matter but that agency and path creation also play a crucial role. The presence of assumption surfacing and institutional entrepreneurship seem vital in achieving organisational change, which may well underlie any significant change in policy paradigm. This thesis contributes to knowledge by providing a conceptually and empirically informed framework to compare and contrast consecutive paradigms in innovation policy, and to identify and discuss different groups currently occupying this newly created discursive space. Furthermore, it makes some modest methodological and conceptual elaborations to the study of policy paradigms and policy paradigm change. In addition, this thesis shows that participant observation has potential to form a valuable contribution to STI policy studies.

This research proposes a Policy and Legal Framework for Green Technology Innovation for Malaysia, focusing on (i) Funding and Financing and (ii) Governance and Institutional Mechanisms. The concept of Green Technology gained attention in Malaysia in 2009 after the inception of the National Green Technology Policy and the establishment of a dedicated Ministry that oversees Green Technology. The motivation for the scope of this research was a result of the emphasis placed by the National Green Technology Policy on the area of Research, Development and Innovation (RD&I), as a strategic thrust that could contribute to the development and application of Green Technology in Malaysia. However, preliminary research reveals existing issues with the governance and institutional mechanisms, where there is a lack of policy coherence, institutional gaps, and jurisdictional discrepancies that hinder implementation of Green Technology and Green Growth measures in Malaysia. The researcher, through this research, identifies the gaps and discrepancies, provides justifications for strategic actions and recommends a comprehensive policy and legal framework with an Implementation Guide for Green Technology Innovation, specifically focusing on funding and financing and governance and institutional mechanisms. This research is purely qualitative which derives best practices and qualitative data from case studies. To support the validity of the research findings, interview sessions were conducted in the European Commission, relevant agencies in South Korea and Malaysia. A survey was administered amongst the key players of the innovation ecosystem in Malaysia that derived qualitative data which was used to strengthen the data on the current scenario in Malaysia. A case study analysis of the policies and legal interventions employed in the European Union, South Korea and Malaysia were used to support the findings of this research further. In addition to the recommendations and an implementation guide, a Multi-Criteria Framework was developed to assist in prioritising Green Technologies for funding and financing decision making. This research hopes to unveil the issues indicated above with suitable recommendations that could assist in reducing the barriers and limitations faced by Malaysia in achieving its goal of being a sustainable and inclusive High-Income Nation.

Sustainable development and climate change are at the forefront of today’s political agendas, as signified by the 2016 Paris Agreement and the 2015 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technologies are being investigated for their contribution to reducing atmospheric greenhouse gas levels. The PhD assesses the potential of biochar systems as a sustainable CDR technology for climate change mitigation at a European scale. The potential sustainability impacts of biochar production and land application are evaluated by applying life cycle approaches to analyse the environmental, economic and social impacts within the overarching Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) framework. Scenario modelling is incorporated to estimate feedstock potentials and the scale of biochar production within Europe, as well as the corresponding levels of carbon sequestration. The research results indicate that gasification biochar systems have potential as CDR technologies, though the uncertainty regarding biochar’s stable carbon fraction remains a significant knowledge gap. The use of ‘wastes’ as the input material is more likely to reduce potential negative impacts in all three sustainability components. Though overall, the current economic climate limits the feasibility of sustainable biochar systems. The results are sensitive to the modelling approach, especially the incorporation of ‘consequential’ elements, which was shown to significantly benefit the outcomes of the environmental and economic assessments. The scenario modelling outputs suggest that large-scale implementation of biochar systems within Europe can contribute an important share of the EU emission reduction targets. However, to incentivise the uptake of biochar and/or to generate policy support, further certainty and evidence of biochar’s impacts following land application is needed. Overall, a single-issue focus is no longer applicable in today’s policy climate. It is important to assess all three pillars of sustainability when evaluating whether a product system/process is capable of contributing to sustainable development. The novel LCSA framework shows potential to assist with such assessments at the micro-level.

The scale and urgency required to address the interconnected economic, environmental, and social challenges currently facing society is significant. Business increasingly looks to natural systems for inspiration, one example being codified in the circular economy discourse (CE). CE, based on a biological ecosystem analogy, emphasises creation of environmental and economic value from converting waste into a productive resource. What it disregards is the social dynamics of sustainable value creation within social systems, neglecting the role of power and influence in the discussion. Equally, a gap exists in the nascent literature on sustainable business models (SBMs) in respect of the social dynamics of value creation. The relationship dynamics enabling sustainable value creation need to be better understood and integrated with a perspective which takes the impact of power relations into account. This thesis seeks to contribute insights to the understanding of how power relations impact sustainable value creation. To address these gaps, an analytic framework of organizational influence is developed. It draws on a resource based approach to power-dependency, based on Margaret Archer’s (1995) concepts of first and second order power and her distinction between structural and cultural resources. It also integrates Emerson’s (1962) emphasis on both relative power differentials and the degree of dependency in exchange relationships. This framework is used to interpret qualitative data gathered from Adnams Plc., a UK brewery and sustainability pioneer. A case study is developed based on observation and semi-structured interviews related to 30 inter-organizational relationships within Adnams’ business ecosystem. The findings have theoretical implications for the strategic management and sustainability literature, particularly the SBM literature, resource dependence theory (RDT) and the CE discourse. This research illustrates the importance for organizational actors to consider the power relations within inter-organizational relationships when developing sustainable value creation strategies.

In an n-country intra-industry trade model we study the formation and stability of various designs of climate change agreements in the context of international trade. In the first paper we introduce two new features to the literature. Firstly, firms produce a horizontally differentiated good, i.e. the same good but in different varieties where each firm produces one unique variety. Secondly, consumers can have various degrees of taste for the varieties of this good. Our results in this paper show that if consumers have a low taste for variety (TFV) agreement formation fails. Only with a sufficiently high TFV, strategic interaction among governments is sufficiently mitigated such that small agreements are stable. In the second paper we analyse the effects of instrumenting climate change agreements with a trade policy called border tax adjustment (BTA) in order to assess its ability of mitigating the free riding incentives. Our results show that when varieties do not matter to consumers, BTAs lead to a global agreement on climate change if coalition membership is open to all countries. If membership is exclusive, then fewer countries form an agreement and do not allow other countries to join. When consumers have high TFV, large, but not global, agreements are stable. In the third paper we analyse the case where governments have to deal with two issues: climate change and trade. We examine coalition formation and stability under three scenarios where governments are either cooperating on one issue only or on both issues at the same time. Our results show that whenever governments cooperate on trade, either individually or with climate change, the grand coalition is always stable. More interestingly, we find that when governments cooperate on climate change only the grand coalition is also stable. However, this holds only when varieties are perfect substitutes.

Until recently climate change adaptation was not on the agenda of international climate negotiations. Only at the 7th Conference of the Parties in 2001 in Marrakech, the particular vulnerability of developing countries to climate change and the need for adaptation was recognised. At the COP 15 in 2009 in Copenhagen the importance of the private sector in funding adaptation projects was emphasised amid the global economic crisis and the public sector’s inability to finance adaptation projects alone. In the Middle East water scarcity presents one of the largest challenges of the future, worsened by climate change. This thesis highlights the importance of adaptation to climate change, with particular focus on the water sector in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a country which has been identified as a prime example of an emerging economy and Middle Income Country with one of the lowest freshwater availabilities per capita in the world. Despite water scarcity, water usage and management is inefficient, levels of unaccounted-for-water are high and agriculture consumes around two thirds of water resources on extremely low tariffs. At the same time, Jordan’s economy has suffered considerably under the economic crisis, and as an emerging economy is not able to independently finance projects to improve water management and access to safe drinking water over the long term. Jordan will therefore be heavily dependent on foreign development aid as well as private sector investments. Consequently, Jordan was chosen by the author as it makes a good case study for analysis. The thesis aims to identify the drivers and barriers to private sector responses to water scarcity in Jordan and will produce a set of policy recommendations for attracting private sector capital to invest in, what has been identified as, adaptation technologies in a resource poor country. These guidelines will be useful to policymakers and private companies alike. The recommendations given herein provide a basis for enhancing private sector investments in the water sector in Jordan. Though they are specific to Jordan, these recommendations are valid and can be translated to other scenarios under which a Middle Income Country government aims to attract private sector finance for climate change adaptation projects provided that similar political, economic, cultural and environmental conditions prevail: 1. Eliminate corruption 2. Create long-term prospects for investors (especially under uncertainty about climate change and its effects) 3. Build confidence for investors 4. Develop a solid legislative framework and risk-sharing scheme 5. Adaptation makes business sense: open adaptation to climate change as a new market for innovation and investments 6. Achieve high levels of transparency in the award of projects and contracts 7. Develop a regulatory framework that defines the water consumption for agriculture (proportionate to GDP and available water resources) 8. Ensure consistency and coherence in policy-making. Avoid an implementation deficit 9. Frame a trend in climate that requires an adaptation strategy in the context of climate change.

Since the transformation from command-and-control to laissez-faire capitalism in the late 1980s, China has stood out as one of the largest and fastest growing emerging economies. The phenomenal rate of development has brought about auspicious growth, at the expense of damaging the environment. One of the key problem facing energy policy makers in China revolves around climate change due to the interrelationship between economic development and energy use. Chinese CO2 emissions exceeded the US for the first time in 2006, resulting from heavy reliance on coal, strong emphasis on economic growth, focus on developing energy intensive sectors, and an inefficient energy infrastructure. This path of energy generation and consumption calls for a greater commitment to a more balanced set of energy policy goals encompassing not only stronger pollution abatement, but also security of energy supply, social equality, and governance. The research seeks an in-depth understanding of what constitutes a successful energy policy with a particular focus on other collateral goals that Chinese policy makers should take into consideration. As a result, the research has proposed and successfully tested a Chinese Framework for Energy Policy Strategy (CFEPS). CFEPS employs and assesses a combination of qualitative analysis of Chinese energy policies and quantitative analysis of energy generation pathways by using Integrated Assessment Modelling (IAM). This study has been one of the first applications of the hybrid IAM on the Chinese energy sector and involved customising the hybrid IAM to make it applicable to the Chinese context. It has resulted in a decision support tool for Chinese authorities to make informed energy policy choices. CFEPS provides guidance on the identification of relevant factors in energy policy assessment and implementation in China. The most important factors, as CFEPS has highlighted for an improved energy policy outcome in China, includes pollution abatement, security of energy supply, economic growth, social equality, and governance. The extensibility to other similar nations has been suggested. Empirical studies at different stages of the research have been carried out to establish the applicability and validity of CFEPS.

The collection of data though environmental monitoring is critical to the success of integrated water management, therefore this PhD investigated its role in the management of surface water bodies, providing recommendations for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD). The monitoring requirements of the WFD have been reviewed and a comparison to previous arrangements in England and Wales was made. Findings demonstrated the challenges associated with a transition from established networks to those that support more integrated approaches. Using a river basin in England the role of monitoring in both ecological and chemical assessments was evaluated. Results revealed the need to evaluate data produced and ensure that networks are risk based and adaptive, both responding to and aiding understanding of the processes that determine water quality. The need to supplement regulatory monitoring with technical analyses to understand source-pathways-receptor models for contaminants, along with the need to combine chemical and biological assessments so that the risks to ecosystems can be identified was highlighted. The use of data to enable the identification and management of the pressures on surface water bodies was then explored. It was demonstrated that a systems approach to understanding the interactions between the abiotic, biotic and functioning of the ecosystem was needed so that pressures could be managed sustainably. The need to monitor the effectiveness of measures implemented to improve water bodies was also highlighted, with examples of both the structural and functional elements that could be used provided. Finally, recommendations on the communicating of data to stakeholders, along with their involvement in the management and monitoring of water bodies, were made. This work highlights the potential role monitoring has in the successful implementation of the WFD, demonstrating the need for review and flexibility in monitoring networks, along with frameworks which enable monitoring to contribute to understanding of ecosystems and allow collaboration and knowledge sharing within decision making processes.