京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(地球環境学) / 甲第21239号 / 地環博第175号 / 新制||地環||35(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院地球環境学舎地球環境学専攻 / (主査)准教授 森 晶寿, 准教授 SINGER JANE, 教授 宇佐美 誠 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Global Environmental Studies / Kyoto University / DFAM

The transition from one energy system to another has been analysed by many researchers especially in the context of developed countries. Community renewable energy transition in rural areas is largely under-researched, particularly in developing countries. This study developed a model based on indicators from transition theory and concepts to assess the transformative potential of the processes and governance approaches to community renewable energy in accelerating energy and sustainability transition in off-grid communities in Nigeria. The exploratory research adopted a case study approach and analysed renewable energy planning and decision-making processes as well as evaluated the development of a pilot community renewable energy project in Shape rural community in Nigeria. In addition to documentary evidence, the study gathered data primarily by interviewing 24 relevant actors in the Nigerian electricity industry as well as actors involved in the pilot community renewable energy project. The study reveals that the processes and governance approaches adopted are in line with transition theory and have the potential of contributing to the transformation of the rural electricity provision in Nigeria. However, there is still a long way to go for Nigeria to effectively implement an integrated governance approach capable of accelerating the transition processes. The study found that community renewable energy is motivated by several determinants including: the lack of energy accessibility; removing carbon emissions; meeting environmental obligations; achieving energy security; and, addressing cracks in the current system of rural electrification. The study further found a lack of local initiatives at the grassroots level that can add pressure to make the transition happen. The study found the establishment of an arena for the identification of the challenges facing rural communities and development of strategies. However, some prominent actors are not involved in both strategic decision-making and the implementation process. Of concern, the study revealed a lack of clearly defined responsibilities with most of the government agencies carrying out renewable energy activities independently. Similarly, the study found several barriers which are classified as: actor; interaction; institutional; infrastructural; and, socio-political that are challenging the successful transition to community renewable energy. This work contributes to current attempts to operationalise transition theory and concepts to assess on-going transition processes and governance. This is a significant contribution to the literature because it helps in linking theoretical development with sustainability in practice in a developing country context. The study may assist policy makers, communities and other relevant stakeholders in designing an integrated governance framework for renewable energy transition in rural areas.

Urban areas will play a decisive role in the sustainability of future societies. As such, there is a need to understand the processes through which cities can become more sustainable. Based on a qualitative case study of a community food waste initiative in Gothenburg, Sweden, this thesis explores the phenomenon of urban sustainability transitions in relation to learning. The thesis attempts to explain how learning at the level of socio-technical niches could be instrumental to broader systemic changes at the regime level. The theoretical framework for the thesis draws on the transactional perspective on learning developed from pragmatist educational philosophy, as well as practice theoretical approaches to studying sustainability transitions which have emerged in recent years. The empirical results gathered from the case are analysed using dramaturgical analysis and practical epistemology analysis. Based on these analyses, the thesis argues that the role and significance of learning in urban sustainability transitions can be understood in terms of educative practices, a concept which is elaborated in the discussion chapter. Thus, it is argued that learning through educative practices can contribute to urban sustainability transitions by challenging prevailing institutional norms and structures, and by establishing pathways through which unsustainable elements within the socio-technical regime can be reconfigured. / Wicked Problems and Urban Sustainability Transition

Both the ecological and social system are systematically degrading, resulting in decreasing capacities to support human civilization. Product development and manufacturing companies play a key role in driving society’s transition towards a sustainable path. Besides moral arguments, the motivation for companies can be expressed as a matter of smart risk management, i.e. avoiding threats and exploiting opportunities. Such sustainability risks can be related to, for example, brand and reputation, legislative change, or attracting top-talented employees. But, more importantly, it is about understanding changes that are inevitable on markets to come. Based on Maxwell’s interactive qualitative research approach and following the structure of the Design Research Methodology, this thesis aims to contribute (i) to knowledge by increasing the conceptual understanding of what sustainability risks are; and (ii) to practice by researching decision-support for how sustainability risks can be managed in a product development company context. The first study reviewed existing literature and identified characteristics of sustainability risks, which make them particularly difficult to manage. A following exploratory and descriptive study investigated companies’ current risk management practices and preconditions for sustainability integration. It showed that the effects of uncertainty from the sustainability transition need to be identified, assessed, and managed in relation to how they can affect objectives anchored in both internal and external stakeholder value creation. In parallel, the Framework for Strategic Sustainable Development was applied as a lens to understand the implications of the sustainability transition for company risk management. This resulted in a new definition, stating that sustainability risks are threats and opportunities that are due to an organization’s contribution or counteraction to society’s transition towards strategic sustainable development. A questionnaire study then investigated some case companies’ challenges and preconditions to build sustainability capabilities. Finally, a workshop method is proposed that aims to support design teams in early sustainable product development. Future research will leverage on the findings to develop and test decision support for how product development companies can manage sustainability risks on different organizational levels in practice to increase competitiveness, while taking leadership in the transition towards a sustainable society.

Background:  Entering a new geological epoch where humans are the main force shaping of the biosphere, have forced an immense stress onto society and the Planet with regards to sustainability. The United Nations and the Paris Agreement have strongly emphasized the urgent need to allocate finance onto urgently mitigating climate change. The financial sector has confronted this challenge through providing sources of finance to meet sustainability requirements. Thus, green bonds emerge as an instrument aimed to cooperate in the transition towards advancing sustainability.    Purpose: Given the ambiguity of green bonds impacts on environmental sustainability, this study explores the contributions of green bonds towards a fruitful transition towards sustainability. Being crucial stakeholders in the transition towards sustainability, these contributions have been examined in the context of Swedish municipalities    Method: To examine the contributions of green bonds in the given context, an exploratory research was conducted using a multiple case study design. Five municipalities, two investors and a municipal funding agency were interviewed though semi-structured interviews. A thematic analysis was performed on the empirical data. First, a within-in case analysis was conducted following a cross-case analysis allowing to find emergent and common patterns.   Conclusion: The green financial instrument does not appear to be a main driver of sustainability, nor does it have a significant influence on the environmental impact of the municipalities’ investment projects. Nevertheless, the study finds that green bonds contribute to advancing sustainability in municipalities through three main areas: Financial impetus, organizational effects and structure and requirements. Thus, the municipalities studied provide evidence that green bonds grant a small reduction in the cost of capital, produce organizational effects like increasing collaboration between the environmental and financial department and enhances transparency through its structure and requirements.

The growing interest in sustainability amounts pressure on organisations to operate in more environmentally friendly ways, sparking the need for radical sustainable change. The purpose of this study is to discover what factors and conditions facilitate and hinder organisational learning for sustainability transitions (ST), a topic that has caught recent academic attention and thus needs further interdisciplinary research. The conceptual framework derives inspiration from the Four Factors of Learning for ST whilst the Competing Values Framework and the Three Loops of Learning are used as additional lens to better understand the conditions of learning for ST. The thesis will take a qualitative approach through conducting a content analysis of three company documents and seven semi-structured interviews with employees from a public service agency in Scandinavia currently implementing a transition lab. A descriptive analysis of the coded data highlights the levels of understanding and acceptance towards sustainability transitions from the case organisation and the conditions that facilitate and hinder organisational learning. The results show that the most prominent of the Four Factors of Learning for ST in the early phase of a sustainability transition is interpersonal, followed by material, institutional and intrapersonal. Within these factors, the discussion further highlights the most prevalent sub-codes and themes that reoccur in the data. Moreover, five key findings under the themes of flexibility versus control, resource availability through digitalisation, communication, collaboration and facing complexity using institutional logics were identified as the primary facilitating and hindering factors that promote learning for STs. Finally, recommendations are presented to inform both theory, and practice, as further analysing learning for ST is of high relevance to better understand and design these learning journeys and a more sustainable (organisational) future.

The topic of Impact Investing has been creating waves and generating a lot of interest in the funding ecosystem with the growth of impact startups & because of pressure from the populace in the face of global challenges. At the same time the field has been under-explored by scholars. The exploration of the investment industry is performed by collecting investors' perspective on the self defined concept of Impact investing. The research attempts to portray the perspective of the established Venture Capital regime on Impact Investment and understand whether it is still perceived as philanthropic endeavors investing in an alternative asset class, suggested by previous academic research or an industry wide transition and change of investment practices as portrayed by the industry research. This study is focused on the Swedish & U.S. Venture Capital regimes. Sweden, a country that has been described as the “Impact Capital”, and the U.S. that represents worlds largest VC capital sector. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were used in this study to explore the industry dynamics using a MLP(Multi Level Perspective) framework. The interviews with VCs help understand the current sentiment on the growth in impact investing and why the Swedish market is seeing an industry-wide transition while the U.S. VC’s treat it as a separate asset class.  The authors identified that the U.S. regime is currently in the emergence phase of transition while the Swedish regime has reached the transformation phase. Additionally four key themes that differentiate the perspective of the Swedish and US regimes were identified; Risk, Profitability, Use-Case & Branding. / Impact Investing är ett ämne som har skapat vågor och genererat ett stort intresse för finansieringsekosystemet i samband med tillväxten av nystartade företag och påtryckningar från befolkningen inför de globala utmaningarna. Trots det har ämnet sett begränsad akademisk forskning. Explorationen av investeringsbranschen utförs genom att samla investerarnas perspektiv på det självdefinierade konceptet Impact Investing. Forskningen försöker skildra hur den etablerade riskkapitalregimen ser på Impact Investment och förstå om det fortfarande uppfattas som filantropiska initiativ av att investera i en alternativ tillgångskategori, som föreslås av tidigare akademisk forskning eller en branschomfattande övergång och förändring av investeringspraxis som framställts av industriforskningen.  Denna studie fokuserar på riskkapitalsregiment i Sverige och Amerika. Sverige, ett land som har beskrivits som "Impact Capital", och USA som representerar världens största VC-kapitalsektor. Semistrukturerade kvalitativa intervjuer används i denna studie för att utforska industridynamiken med hjälp av MLP(Multi Level Perspective)-ramverket. Intervjuerna med riskkapitalister hjälper till att förstå den nuvarande uppfattningen om tillväxten av impact investment och varför den svenska marknaden ser en branschomfattande förändringsprocess medan amerikanska VC:s behandlar det som en separat tillgångskategori. Författarna identifierade att den amerikanska regimen för närvarande befinner sig i begynnelsefasen medan den svenska regimen har nått transformationsfasen. Dessutom identifierades fyra nyckelteman som skiljer de svenska och amerikanska regimernas perspektiv; Risk, Lönsamhet, användningsfall & varumärke.

Sustainability has been considered a novel research field emerging from the desire to protect the environment, and equally emerging in transition discourses. This research explores the construction of sustainability transition processes and pathways in a public sector organization implementing a sustainability oriented program. The study takes on an explorative, qualitative longitudinal approach. Through antenarrative inquiry, analysis is made on the stories and discussions as a reflexive way in expressing experiences and by giving meaning to these experiences. Assessed within sustainability transition theories, processes and pathways emerge from socio-technical transitions and its micro-foundations. Results indicate that pathways of transition exist in socio-technical systems, socio-political systems, socio-institutional systems and in socio-ecological systems as achored in public sector processes. The narrative character and sustainability formations potray inclusivity of actors, continuity and gradual transition processes. It is therefore opined that  sustainability oriented programs and projects implemented in developing nations by the public sector have the ability to enable niche level changes by creating necessary momentum at the micro-foundations required to distabilize dominant regimes. Methodoligally, antenarratives provide an avenue for prospective sensemaking necessary in prospected and wholistic sustainability transitions.

The electrification of the transportation sector plays an important role in the sustainability transition as successful electric vehicle (EV) integration allows for the reduction of CO2 emissions. Moreover, bidirectional capabilities of the EVs (vehicle-to-grid) further facilitate this transition by supporting the electricity grid while lowering the cost of ownership of EVs when revenues from grid-supporting services are split between stakeholders. Due to sustainability challenges facing several domains, fundamental transformation processes are needed to transition away from our current global energy system. However, with the strong inertia of the current system together with the sheer complexity and vexed interests during transitions, neither private markets nor government agencies seem likely to spur this transition on their own. Transitions are thus political processes, in which standards can play an important role since they point to the direction of the transition. This thesis investigates the role of standardization in sustainability transitions. The aim was to improve the understanding of the diverse stakeholder attitudes towards the standardization process of the communication protocol between the vehicle and its charging equipment. While exploring this topic, the thesis further aimed to investigate the power relations that govern the interactions and coordination efforts between the diverse stakeholders involved in the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) standardization processes. To achieve this, a qualitative study was conducted where two transcripts from the California Energy Commission, adding up to a total of 667 pages, were coded in a mixed inductive-deductive manner. In addition, as a complement, 13 expert interviews were conducted. The results showed that power was expressed by actors on (and between) all levels in the system. Mutual dependency was the most frequently expressed power relation among the actors. The mutual dependency was assumed to be widely present due to the interdependent nature between the components in the V2G system. The automotive manufacturers were observed to have a strong position in the vehicle-to-grid ecosystem and it was noted that other actors conformed with their political and/or economic goals. Another finding related to power was the sense of powerlessness and frustration expressed by actors on all levels, likely enabling the status quo to prevail. There was also clear frustration towards policymakers concerning the lack of policy direction and actors expressed the need for market signaling. The policymakers seemed to adhere to both disruptive innovations and the existing regime, causing uncertainty in policy decisions. The empirics also showed that the standardization discussions have little focus on competition between standards at this point of the transition. The debate seemed to rather be shaped by the conflict between advocates and opponents of standardization, where the opponents argued against standardization due to fear of prematurely mandating a single standard. Advocates dominated over opponents at this point of the transition and the communication standard, ISO 15118 seemed to have significant industry support. Automotive manufacturers were found to be the most vocal stakeholder group against standardization. Furthermore, the results highlighted the functions and features of standards commonly mentioned in the V2G standardization discussions, where compatibility, market signaling, and future proof features belonged to the most frequently mentioned. / Elektrifieringen av transportsektorn spelar en central roll för omställningen till ett hållbart energisystem eftersom elbilar bidrar till minskade utsläpp av koldioxid. Bidirektionella laddningsmöjligheter (V2G) kan möjliggöra omställningen ytterligare genom att stötta svaga elnät på lokal nivå samtidigt som funktionen kan minska kostnaderna för att äga en elbil. Fundamentala omställningar krävs för att lösa de hållbarhetsutmaningar som flera industrier står inför men på grund av komplexiteten i dessa system kan varken privat eller offentlig sektor driva denna förändring på egen hand. Omställningsprocessen är en politisk process där standardisering kan spela en viktig roll eftersom de kan indikera vilken riktning omställningen rör sig mot. Den här uppsatsen undersöker därför standardiseringens roll i hållbarhetsomställningar. Syftet var att öka förståelsen av olika aktörers ståndpunkter i standardiseringsprocessen av kommunikationen mellan en elbil och dess laddstation. För att undersöka detta ämne granskades även maktförhållanden som genomsyrar en standardiseringsprocess. Detta gjordes genom kvalitativ kodning av två transkriberade diskussioner om standardisering från California Energy Commission vilka totalt uppgick till 667 sidor. Utöver detta hölls 13 intervjuer som komplement. Resultatet visade att makt utövades av aktörer på samtliga nivåer i systemet. Ett ömsesidigt beroende kunde identifieras mellan aktörerna. Detta antogs vara framträdande på grund av de beroendeförhållanden som uppstår sig då samtliga aktörer krävs för att ett V2G-system ska fungera. Vidare observerades att maktutövande som förstärker och reproducerar existerande strukturer och institutioner uttrycktes av många aktörer i V2G-ekosystemet. En annan observation var att biltillverkare verkar ha en stark position i V2G-ekosystemet och det noterades att andra aktörer anpassade sig efter deras politiska och/eller ekonomiska mål. Ett ytterligare resultat var att det fanns en känsla av maktlöshet och frustration på alla nivåer i systemet vilket bidrog till upplevelsen av status quo. Det fanns en tydlig frustration speciellt mot beslutsfattare vilken grundade sig i bristen på tydliga riktlinjer. Beslutsfattare verkade anpassa sig såväl mot disruptiv innovation som till den existerande regimen vilket orsakade passivitet och osäkerhet vid beslutsfattande. Eftersom ramverket Multi-Level Power-in-Transition som användes för analysen inte tar hänsyn till att beslutsfattare kan svara både mot dominanta och mer radikala makrotrender, modifierades ramverket något innan det appliceras på empirin. Vidare visade analysen att det inte pågår någon konkurrens mellan standarder i denna fas av omställningen, däremot identifierades en konflikt mellan förespråkare och motståndare till standardisering där motståndarna var oroliga över att det var för tidigt att ge mandat åt en enskild standard. Förespråkare dominerade över motståndare i denna fas av omställningen och kommunikationstandarden ISO 15118 verkade ha betydande stöd från industrin. Biltillverkare befanns vara de aktörer som till största grad motsatte sig standardisering. Resultaten gav ytterligare en inblick i de egenskaper hos standarder som vanligtvis nämndes i diskussioner om kommunikationsstandarder. Några av de egenskaper som regelbundet belystes som viktiga var kompatibilitet och att den bör vara framtidssäker. En ytterligare viktig funktion med standardisering ansågs vara att ge tydliga signaler till marknaden.

As a purposive sustainability transition requires environmental innovation and innovation policy, we discuss potentials and limitations of three dominant strands of literature in this field, namely the multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions (MLP), the innovation systems approach (IS), and the long-wave theory of techno-economic paradigm shifts (LWT). All three are epistemologically rooted in an evolutionary understanding of socio-technical change. While these approaches are appropriate to understand market-driven processes of change, they may be deficient as analytical tools for exploring and designing processes of purposive societal transformation. In particular, we argue that the evolutionary mechanism of selection is the key to introducing the strong directionality required for purposive transformative change. In all three innovation theories, we find that the prime selection environment is constituted by the market and, thus, normative societal goals like sustainability are sidelined. Consequently, selection is depoliticised and neither strong directionality nor incumbent regime destabilisation are societally steered. Finally, we offer an analytical framework that builds upon a more political conception of selection and retention and calls for new political institutions to make normatively guided selections. Institutions for transformative innovation need to improve the capacities of complex societies to make binding decisions in politically contested fields.