ALBERT

Description: The German "Energiewende" (energy transition) is meant to be a contract between generations. The rebuilding of the whole energy system is designed and financed today in order to safeguard our children and grandchildren against fundamental risks: the enormous economic, social and environmental costs of a fossil-nuclear energy system, the risks of the nuclear fuel-cycle and the impacts of climate change, as well as energy import dependency, price shocks and geopolitical disputes over scarce resources. In contrast, a successful Energiewende creates new business areas and qualified jobs and increases competitiveness in the "green race" - in particular on the lead markets for efficiency technology and renewable energy. Accordingly, the Energiewende is described in this book as the collective effort of post-war German history and as a unique learning arena for a positive socio-economic transformation with international relevance. The book covers the formation of both the social and scientific Energiewende consensus, quantitative scenarios, the state of the Energiewende in 2015, the need for further policy intervention - in particular with respect to energy efficiency, and not least the integration of efficiency, sufficiency and renewable energy policies.

Description: Societal transitions involve multiple actors, changes in institutions, values and technologies, and interactions across multiple sectors and scales. Given this complexity, this paper takes on the view that the societal transitions research field would benefit from the further maturation and broader uptake of modelling approaches. This paper shows how modelling can enhance the understanding of and support stakeholders to steer societal transitions. It discusses the benefits modelling provides for studying large societal systems and elaborates on different ways models can be used for transitions studies. Two model applications are presented in some detail to illustrate the benefits. Then, limitations of modelling societal transitions are discussed, which leads to an agenda for future activities: (1) better cooperation in the development of dynamic models, (2) stronger interaction with other transition scholars and stakeholders, and (3) use of additional modelling approaches that we think are relevant to and largely unexplored in transitions studies.

Description: Social innovations, which transform resource intensive routines and practices into low-resource ones, combined with socio-technically designed transition paths, which are created around sustainability and environmental criteria, are milestones for implementation and diffusion of SCP (Sustainable Consumption and Production). This paper analyses such processes based on eight key components in order to evaluate and explain transformation and transition towards a sustainable lifestyle. Actors on all levels of society are included in this approach, creating a whole framework. Global megatrends, such as climate change, demographic change or resource scarcity will be put into relation with current policies and production trends, which play an important role for the development of transition pathways and future scenarios. This will enable us to work out guidelines and ideas on how to create a more sustainable society specifically.

Description: To identify the main drivers of transformation, it is helpful to identify the transformation perspectives of three specific schools of thought: idealist, institutional, and technological innovation. By differentiating among these schools of thought, a more informed transformation debate becomes possible, thereby increasing transformative literacy in academia and society.

Description: Real-world laboratories aim to create relevant and transferable knowledge and foster societal transformation towards sustainability. Members of the existing laboratories in Baden-Württemberg and experts have discussed the progress and the challenges of these innovative research settings.

Description: The transition towards full decarbonisation has reached the political agenda. In September 2016 in Wuppertal, scientists and politicians discussed ways to meet the climate targets.

Description: On the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, several events took place in Wuppertal under the motto of Making Utopia Possible.

Description: In order to reconfigure global socio-economic systems to be compatible with social imperatives and planetary boundaries, a transition towards sustainable development is necessary. The multi-level perspective (MLP) has been developed to study long-term transformative change. This paper complements the MLP by providing an ontological framework for studying and understanding the role of narratives as the vehicle of meaning and intermediation between individual and social collective in the context of ongoing transitions. Narratives are established as an analytical entity to unpack how disturbances at the level of the socio-technical landscape are translated into and contribute to the transformation of socio-technical regimes. To illustrate and test the approach, it is applied to the case of the Fukushima catastrophe: The narratives in relation to nuclear power in Japan, Germany and the United Kingdom are scrutinized and it is explored how these narratives have co-determined the policy responses and thus influenced ongoing transformation processes in the power sectors of the respective countries.

Description: In the context of the larger sustainability discourse, "sufficiency" is beginning to emerge as a new value throughout Western societies, and the question asked in this article is: Can we observe and conceptually identify opportunities to link successful business strategies of incumbents to principles of sufficiency? Thus, how feasible is sustainable entrepreneurship for incumbents? In this paper, a conceptual approach is developed combining insights from sociology, transition research, management and sustainable entrepreneurship research with a focus on narratives as a translation mechanism in situations where tensions emerge between corporate narratives and unexpected societal trends, e.g., the emergence of sufficient lifestyles. It will be shown that even though these are still a niche phenomenon, a focus on corporate narratives is an important element in understanding the role of incumbents in transitions to sustainability.

Description: The author demonstrates that digital technologies and new mobility concepts can lead to a reduction of the automobiles in urban areas by a factor of 10. The book features two vivid case studies of such digital mobility concepts: TwoGo by SAP and smexx. The author proposes six prototypes of business models for "Shared Automobility Services". Janasz offers also the "Transformative Literacy" for designing sustainable urban mobility systems of the future. The author elaborates on the socio-political patterns of urban mobility by presenting the case of the City of Basel (Switzerland). He proposes the framework of "Integrated Sustainable Urban Mobility" to explain how to overcome car dependence in cities.

Description: This governance brief aims to provide practical examples on how investments in urban infrastructure, clean energy, and energy efficiency can be implemented; and how these are embedded in multi-level governance, experimentation, and policy-learning. It draws on examples from the German energy system transition, which can be understood as a large-scale, real-life laboratory for the governance of a sustainability transition of an entire national energy system. The federal state of North-Rhine Westphalia's experience illustrates the complexity of the governance challenge of implementing low-carbon system transitions.

Description: At the heart of transition research lies the question of how to "scale up" sustainable alternatives from a protected niche to the creation of mainstream practices. While upscaling processes are often seen as an essential element that contributes to societal transformation, upscaling itself remains a fuzzy concept. We argue that some fundamental dilemmas of upscaling can be identified, for example, the different understanding of the concept by researchers and practitioners. The dilemmas should be addressed in a more reflexive way by those from the worlds of science and practice who are involved in collaborative research settings.

Description: Since the middle of the 20th century, human society experiences a "Great Acceleration" manifesting in historically remarkable growth rates that create severe sustainability problems. The globally exploding potentials of information and knowledge exchange have been and are vital drivers for this acceleration. Society has now come to the point that it requires a "Great Transformation" towards sustainability to ensure the viability of the planet for a vital society. The energy transition plays a central role for this transformation. In this context, human society has developed a comparably good understanding of the necessary infrastructural changes of this transition. For transforming the patterns of energy production and use in an energy transition as part of the "Great Transformation", this process of change now needs to strengthen its focus on information, communication, and knowledge systems. Human society needs to establish a knowledge system that has the potential to create usable knowledge for sustainability solutions. This requires organizing a communication system that is sufficiently complex, interconnected, and, at the same time, efficient for integrating reflexive, open-ended, inter- and transdisciplinary learning, evaluation, and knowledge co-production processes across multiple levels. This challenge opens a wide field of research. This cumulative dissertation contributes to research in this direction by applying a systemic sustainability perspective on the content and organization of communication in the field of research on sustainable energy and the operational level of municipal climate action as part of the energy transition. Regarding sustainability, this thesis uses strong sustainability and its principles as a frame for evaluating the content of communication. Regarding the systemic perspective, the thesis particularly relies on the following theories: (i) the human-environment system model by R. Scholz as an overarching framework regarding interactions between humans and nature, (ii) social systems theory by N. Luhmann to reflect the complexity of society, (iii) knowledge management to consider the human character of knowledge and a practice-oriented perspective, and (iv) management cybernetics, in particular, the Viable System Model by S. Beer as a framework to analyze and assess organizational structures. Furthermore, the thesis leverages the potential of text mining as a method to identify and visualize patterns in texts that reflect prevalent paradigms in communication. The thesis applies the above conceptual and methodological basis in three case studies. Case Study 1 investigates the measures proposed in 16 municipal climate action plans of regional centers in Lower Saxony, Germany. It uses a text mining approach in the form of an Summary interpretation network analysis. It analyzes how different societal subsystems are connected at the semantic level and to what extent sustainability principles can be recognized. Case Study 2 analyzes and reflects paradigms and discursive network structures in international scientific publications on sustainable energy. The study investigates 26533 abstracts published from 1990 to 2016 using a text mining approach, in particular topic modeling via latent Dirichlet allocation. Case Study 3 turns again to the cases of municipal climate action in Lower Saxony examined in Case Study 1. It examines the involvement of climate action managers of these cities in multilevel knowledge processes. Using design principles for knowledge systems, it evaluates to what extent knowledge is managed in this field across levels for supporting the energy transition and to what extent local innovation potential is leveraged or supported. The three case studies show that international research on sustainable energy and municipal climate action in Germany provide promising contributions to achieve a transformation towards sustainability but do not fully reflect the complexity of society and still support a growth paradigm, in contrast to a holistic sustainability paradigm. Further, the case studies show that research and local action are actively engaging with the diversity of energy technologies but are lagging in dealing with the socio-epistemic (communication) system, especially with regard to achieving cohesion. Using the example of German municipalities, Case Studies 1 and 3 highlight the challenges of achieving coherent local action for sustainability and bottom-up organizational learning due to incomplete or uncoordinated multilevel knowledge exchange. At the same time, the studies also point out opportunities for supporting the required coherent multilevel learning processes based on local knowledge. This can be achieved, for instance, by strengthening the coordinating role of intermediary organizational units or establishing closer interactions between the local operational units and the national level. The thesis interprets and synthesizes the results of the three case studies from its systemic sustainability perspective. On this basis, it provides several generalized recommendations that should be followed for establishing viable communication systems, especially but not exclusively in policy-making: Systemic holism: Consider matter, energy, and information flows as an integrated triplet in the context of scales, structures, and time in the various subsystems. Knowledge society: Focus on the socio-epistemic (communication) system, e.g., using the perspective of knowledge systems and associated design principles considering, for instance, working environments across horizontal and vertical levels, knowledge forms and types, and knowledge processes. Sufficiency communication: Emphasize sufficiency approaches, make it attractive, and find differentiated ways for communicating them. Multilevel cohesion and innovation: Achieve cohesion between the local and higher levels and leverage local innovations while avoiding isolated local action. Organizational interface design: Define the role of organizational units by the interactions they create at the interfaces with and between societal subsystems. Local transdisciplinarity: Support local transdisciplinary approaches integrating various subsystems, especially industry, while coordinating these approaches from a higher level for leveraging local innovation. Digital public system: Exploit existing digital technologies or infrastructures in the public system and recognize the value of data in the public sphere for achieving cohesion. Beyond the above recommendations, this thesis suggests that potential for further research lies in: Advancing nature-inspired systemic frameworks. Understanding the structure and creation of human knowledge. Developing text mining methodologies towards solution-oriented approaches.

Description: The transdisciplinary research mode has gained prominence in the research on and for sustainability transformations. Yet, solution-oriented research addressing complex sustainability problems has become complex itself, with new transdisciplinary research formats being developed and tested for this purpose. Application of new formats offers learning potentials from experience. To this end, we accompanied fourteen research projects conceptualized as real-world labs (RwLs) from 2015 to 2018. RwLs were part of a funding program on "Science for Sustainability" in the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg. Here, we combine conceptual and empirical work to a structured collection of experiences and provide a comprehensive account of RwLs. First, we outline characteristics of RwLs as transformation oriented, transdisciplinary research approach, using experiments, enabling learning and having a long-term orientation. Second, we outline eleven success factors and concrete design notes we gained through a survey of the 14 RwLs: (1) find the right balance between scientific and societal aims, (2) address the practitioners needs and restrictions, (3) make use of the experimentation concept, (4) actively communicate, (5) develop a "collaboration culture", (6) be attached to concrete sites, (7) create lasting impact and transferability, (8) plan for sufficient time and financial means, (9) adaptability, (10) research-based learning, and (11) recognize dependency on external actors. Characteristics and success factors are combined to illustrate practical challenges in RwLs. Third, we show which methods could be used to cope with challenges in RwLs. We conclude discussing the state of debate on RwLs and outline future avenues of research.

Description: Practices of urban experimentation are currently seen as a promising approach to making planning processes more collaborative and adaptive. The practices develop not only in the context of ideal-type concepts of urban experiments and urban labs but also organically in specific governance contexts. We present such an organic case in the city of Wuppertal, Germany, centred around a so-called change-maker initiative, "Utopiastadt." This initiative joined forces with the city administration and collaborated with a private property owner and the local economic development agency in an unusual planning process for the development of a central brownfield site. Ultimately, the consortium jointly published a framework concept that picked up the vision of the "Utopiastadt Campus" as an open-ended catalyst area for pilot projects and experiments on sustainability and city development. The concept was adopted by the city council and Utopiastadt purchased more than 50% of the land. In order to analyse the wider governance context and power struggles, we apply the social-constructivist theory of Strategic Action Fields (SAFs). We focused on the phases of contention and settlement, the shift in interaction forms, the role of an area development board as an internal governance unit and the influences of proximate fields, strategic action, and state facilitation on the development. We aim to demonstrate the potential of the theory of SAFs to understand a long-term urban development process and how an episode of experimentation evolved within this process. We discuss the theory's shortcomings and reflect critically on whether the process contributed to strengthening collaborative and experimental approaches in the governance of city development.

Description: The results presented in this article illustrate how the local public was informed on specific Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects by regional newspapers in Germany. The analyzed articles were published in four daily newspapers within the German regions where four CO2 onshore storage projects took place or have been planned. The articles were published between 2007 and 2011. In total, 1,115 newspaper articles about the four CO2 onshore storage projects were gathered and analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Our results showed that the regional media coverage of CCS projects in Germany reached peaks in 2009 and 2010. The main topics changed within the media coverage and it is worth mentioning to what extent the media coverage of CCS disregarded topics with regard to economic, technical, ecological or scientific aspects on CCS. The overall evaluation of CCS within the articles is negative. While commercial CCS projects received more negative evaluation across newspaper articles; opinions about the research and industry project Ketzin were more neutral.

Description: In early September 2014, about 4.000 scientists, activists and artists at the 4th International Conference on Degrowth sent out two messages. 1. Industrialized societies will change, either by disaster or by design. Accelerated resource exploitation and climate change can force societies into a transition. Or they swiftly develop new forms of economic, political and social organization which respect the planetary boundaries. 2. "Degrowth" has become a new social movement which translates scientific insights into cultural change, political change and social practice. Hence, the conference itself was an experiment on the potentials and limits of share economy, commoning and sufficiency. A team of young scholars and activists from different German research institutes and non-govern- mental organisations prepared the conference. The team of the Wuppertal Institute was partly involved in the preperation of the conference. Scientists from all research groups took part in the conference, presenting and discussing project results. The publication is a collection of contributions of the Wuppertal Institute to the conference and covers pivotal issues of the degrowth-debate: indicator development (Freyling & Schepelmann), working time reduction (Buhl), feminist theory (Biesecker & Winterfeld), and urban transition (Best).

Description: The International Sustainability Transitions Conference (IST) will discuss advances in the field of sustainability transformations. The conference will be organized by the Sustainability Transitions Research Network, in which both the Wuppertal Institute and Leuphana University of Lüneburg participate.

Description: Treating waste as a resource and the design of a circular economy have been identified as key approaches for resource efficiency. Despite ambitious targets, policies and instruments that would enable a transition from a conventional waste management to an integrated and comprehensive resource management are still missing. Moreover, this will require innovative policy mixes which do not only address different end-of-pipe approaches but integrate various resource efficiency aspects from product design to patterns of production and consumption. Based on the results of a project funded by the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development named "POLFREE - Policy Options for a resource efficient economy", this paper addresses several aspects of the conceptualization of policy mixes with regard to waste as a specific resource efficiency challenge. The guiding research interest of this paper is the combination of policies necessary to create a full circular economy. In a first step, the present waste policy frameworks, institutions and existing incentives at national level are examined in order to disclose regulatory and policy gaps. Based on this, the second part of the paper describes and analyses specific waste-related resource efficiency instruments with regard to their potential impacts under the constraints of various barriers. Based on the assessment of the country analyses and the innovative instruments, the paper draws conclusions on waste policy mixes and political needs.

Description: The present study investigates and compares the public perception of CO2 offshore storage, CO2 onshore storage and CO2 transport via pipeline in Germany nationwide and in two coastal regions. For this purpose, three representative surveys were carried out and analyzed with the methods of descriptive statistics and ordinal regressions. The results of our descriptive statistical analyses show clear regional differences with regard to self-reported awareness, factual knowledge, risk perceptions and general attitudes towards CO2 offshore/onshore storage and CO2 transport via pipeline. With regard to the public perception of the two storage options - offshore and onshore - no major differences could be identified: both are hardly accepted by the German public. In comparison to CO2 offshore storage/CO2 onshore storage, the attitudes towards CO2 transport via pipeline were perceptibly more positive in all regions. Our regression analyses revealed that the perceptions of the personal and societal risks of CO2 transport via pipeline/CO2 offshore storage/CO2 onshore storage as well as the perceptions of the personal and societal benefits of CCS are the most important direct determinants of general attitudes towards CO2 transport via pipeline, CO2 offshore storage and CO2 onshore storage.

Description: The lack of suitable tools to assess sustainable mobility measures' costs, benefits and overall impacts is a significant factor impeding their implementation. Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) is often applied to large-scale infrastructure projects, but does not capture all relevant socio-economic impacts. Small-scale but potentially highly cost-effective measures often do not have the critical mass to warrant a thorough cost-benefit analysis. This paper reviews existing assessment methodologies, including their advantages, limitations and application to different urban mobility measures, and current assessment practice in cities based on survey results. Based on these analyses, a holistic approach for project appraisal is proposed, consisting of aspects of a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) and CBA and applicable to a variety of urban mobility measures.

Description: For 20 years, the number of resource policy approaches with direct and indirect relations to raw materials, resource and material efficiency has grown enormously at national and international level. This discussion paper makes an inventory of different political and regulatory approaches that contain a direct or indirect reference to resources such as construction materials, industrial minerals, or metals. They are examined and evaluated regarding foci and resource priorities as well as further categories such as target lines, governance levels, indicators used, integration into wider target systems, specification, and implementation. The aim is to provide an overview of the spectrum of resource objectives in international, European, and national strategies, programs, and initiatives. The closer analysis of raw material targets embedded in the policy programs and legal approaches reveals that most goals lack a time frame and a concrete vision, thus remain at a strategic level. To complement the overview, the state of research in the field of modeling and simulation is briefly discussed. Concluding remarks concerning their relation to the objectives identified and the task of target setting complete the discussion.

Description: In the face of persistent sustain ability problems challenging economic development, ecological integrity as well as social justice, transformational changes are crucial. Proposed changes shall include, for instance, large-scale transitions of practices, infrastructures as well as values and priorities. In Germany, real-world laboratories are proposed for research in and with society, aiming to understand and contribute to transformations.

Description: A reduction in working hours is being considered to tackle issues associated with ecological sustainability, social equity and enhanced life satisfaction - a so-called triple dividend. With respect to an environmental dividend, the authors analyse the time use rebound effects of reducing working time. They explore how an increase in leisure time triggers a rearrangement of time and expenditure budgets, and thus the use of resources in private households. Does it hold true that time-intensive activities replace resource-intensive consumption when people have more discretionary time at their disposal? This study on environmental issues is complemented by introducing the parameters of voluntary social engagement and individual life satisfaction as potential co-benefits of rebound effects. In order to analyse the first dividend, a mixed methods approach is adopted, enabling two models of time use rebound effects to be applied. First, semi-standardised interviews reveal that environmentally ambiguous substitutions of activities occur following a reduction in working hours. Second, estimates for Germany from national surveys on time use and expenditure show composition effects of gains in leisure time and income loss. For the latter, we estimate the marginal propensity to consume and the marginal propensity to time use. The results show that time savings due to a reduction in working time trigger relevant rebound effects in terms of resource use. However, both the qualitative and quantitative findings put the rebound effects following a reduction in working time into perspective. Time use rebound effects lead to increased voluntary social engagement and greater life satisfaction, the second and third dividends.

Description: Optimization and simulation models are fit to work on a multitude of technical, economic, and techno-economic questions. However, they are by now not able to satisfactorily include societal aspects like acceptance, spatial implications and legal frameworks. In order to advance scope and explanatory power of simulation models, collaboration in interdisciplinary research teams is needed. Yet the exchange in such teams and its coordination can prove challenging. Furthermore, disciplinary approaches and methods for simulation and optimization might not be familiar to all participants. To this end, a new conceptual model is introduced. The conceptual model employs few basic elements and concepts for describing and explaining arbitrary societal and technical relationships. Most notably, the conceptual model is general in its design, so contributions to the problem formulation and design components can be made by all team members regardless of their discipline. The procedure is based on common agent-based concepts without using their terminology. Consequently, an exchange among all team members becomes possible without them necessarily being proficient in agent-based modeling. A reduced presentation of workshop results exemplifies the use of novel elements for deriving an emergent agent-based simulation.

Description: Climate change induces various risks for supply chains of manufacturing firms. However, surveys have suggested that only a minority of firms conducts strategic adaptations, which we define as anticipatory and target-oriented action with the purpose of increasing resilience to climate change. While several barrier-centered studies have investigated the causality of non-adaptation in industry, the examined barriers are often not problem-specific. Furthermore, it has been shown that even in cases when managers perceive no barriers to adaptation at all, strategic adaptations may still not be conducted. On this background, the present analysis focuses on the logic of adaptive inaction, which we conceive, in particular, as inaction with regard to strategic adaptations. Adopting an action-theoretical perspective, the study examines (a) which aspects may shape the rationality of adaptive inaction among managers, (b) which more condensed challenges of conducting strategic adaptations emerge for managers, and (c) how the theoretical propositions can be tested. For this purpose, the study employs an exploratory approach. Thus, hypotheses on such aspects are explored, which may shape the rationality of adaptive inaction among managers. Subsequently, predictions are inferred from the theoretical propositions, which allow testing their empirical relevance. Methodologically, the hypotheses are explored by reexamining existing explanatory approaches from literature based on a set of pretheoretical assumptions, which include notions of bounded rationality. As a result, the study proposes 13 aspects which may constrain managers in conducting adaptations in such a way, which serves the economic utility of the firm. By condensing these aspects, 4 major challenges for managers are suggested: the challenges of (a) conducting long-term adaptations, of (b) conducting adaptations at an early point in time, of (c) conducting adaptations despite uncertain effects of the measures, and of (d) conducting adaptations despite cross-tier dependencies in supply chains. Finally, the study shows how the propositions can be tested and outlines a research agenda based on the developed theoretical suggestions.

Description: Real-world laboratories (RwLs) often put researchers in highly demanding research contexts regarding their roles and self-conceptions. Helpful roles of researchers have been described but still little is known about the factors influencing the adoption of certain roles. Using data from three parallel RwLs in Wuppertal, Germany, we found four roles of researchers: the reflective scientist, the facilitator, the change agent and the (self-)reflexive scientist. We sequenced the RwLs into situations and analysed them by RwL process steps and conditions, considering the roles of researchers as outcomes. Although the conditions convey only limited explanatory power, there was a consistent picture that being pressured to carry out real-world action, having a practice partner with fewer resources and working without a functional project group is (in conjunction) sufficient to cause the researcher to partake in activities beyond conventional research. Process steps played a minor role. Our research on factors influencing the adoption of roles may help RwL researchers to perform their roles as intended.

Description: Energy sufficiency has recently gained increasing attention as a way to limit and reduce total energy consumption of households and overall. This paper presents both the partly new methods and the results of a comprehensive analysis of a micro- and meso-level energy sufficiency policy package to make electricity use in the home more sufficient and reduce at least the growth in per-capita dwelling size. The objective is to find out how policy can support households and their members, as individuals or as caregivers, but also manufacturers and local authorities in practicing energy sufficiency. This analysis needed an adapted and partly new set of methods we developed. Energy sufficiency does not only face barriers like energy efficiency, but also potential restrictions for certain household members or characteristics, and sometimes, preconditions have to be met to make more energy-sufficient routines and practices possible. All of this was analysed in detail to derive recommendations for which policy instruments need to be combined to an effective policy package for energy sufficiency. Energy efficiency and energy sufficiency should not be seen as opposed to each other but work in the same direction - saving energy. Therefore, some energy sufficiency policy instruments may be the same as for energy efficiency, such as energy pricing policies. Some may simply adapt technology-specific energy efficiency policy instruments. Examples include progressive appliance efficiency standards, standards based on absolute consumption, or providing energy advice. However, sufficiency may also require new policy approaches. They may range from promotion of completely different services for food and clothes cleaning, to instruments for limiting average dwelling floor area per person, or to a cap-and-trade system for the total electricity sales of a supplier to its customers, instead of an energy efficiency obligation.

Description: We conducted a random allocation experiment at fashion week in Berlin in 2017, testing how face-to-face (f2f) communication affects sales of a fashion start-up focusing on second-hand. The experiment revealed that 11% of guests of an f2f event afterwards turned paying customers with an average basket size 11.8% higher than the overall sales event average. We add insights to research on entrepreneurial practice as well as on offline operations in the context of circular consumption in fashion, exposing the leveraging effect of f2f communication for customer acquisition and revenue of start-ups in the field of sustainable fashion.

Description: Businesses like Airbnb have shown that a successful circular economy (CE) business can operate exclusively online. Although online communication and web appearance attributes have been subject to academic research given accelerated digitization, there is still a lack of knowledge about online attributes and their role in facilitating CE. We close the portrayed knowledge gap by conducting a discrete-choice experiment with best to worst scaling and focusing on the effect of CE experience on the perception of a CE website by ranking nine online attributes, grouped in three subsets. We therefore contribute by identifying online attributes that are perceived as favorable for CE businesses and detect how participation in CE activities affects the perception of these attributes. We find that third-party associated online attributes (e.g., user reviews or third-party guarantees) rank significantly higher throughout CE consumption patterns of the sample, being always amongst the top three attributes. This novel finding on online preferences opens a new direction for further research, as well as allows practitioners to optimize online operations accordingly. Furthermore, we find that users without prior touchpoints with CE have a higher need for information about the business model as compared to CE active users who are more interested in community related attributes.

Description: Citizen science is a transdisciplinary approach that responds to the current science policy agenda: in terms of supporting open science, and by using a range of science communication instruments. In particular, it opens up scientific research processes by involving citizens at different phases; this also creates a range of opportunities for science communication to happen This article explores methodological and practical characteristics of citizen science as a form of science communication by examining three case studies that took different approaches to citizens' participation in science. Through these, it becomes clear that communication in citizen science is "always" science communication and an essential part of "doing science".

Description: A fundamental change in societal values and economic structures is required to address increasing pressures on ecosystems and natural resources. Transition research has developed in the last decades to analyze the co-dynamics of technological, institutional, social and economic elements in the provision of key functions such as energy, water and food supply. This doctoral dissertation provides conceptual and methodological contributions to the pro-active governance of sustainability transitions. Three research gaps are identified that are addressed in this dissertation. First, a comprehensive conceptualization of learning in sustainability transitions is currently missing that comprises learning at multiple societal levels (ranging from individuals to policy-actors). Learning concepts are often not explicitly discussed in transition research even though learning is considered as fundamental for innovation processes, niche formation and development as well as breakthrough and diffusion of innovations. Second, methods for the analysis and design of transition governance processes are lacking that specify case-specific intervention points and roles of actors in the implementation of innovations. Third, participatory modeling approaches are only applied to a limited extent in transition research despite a high potential for supporting communication and learning. The conceptualization of multi-level learning developed in this doctoral research conceptualizes learning at different societal levels as specific learning contexts ranging from individual and group contexts to organizational and policy contexts. The conceptual framework further differentiates between learning processes, intensity, objects, outcomes, subjects and factors, allowing for a more detailed analysis of learning within and across learning contexts. Thus, learning contexts can be linked by processes that involve actors from different learning contexts (e.g., community groups and policy-makers), as well as exchanges of physical aspects, institutions and knowledge (in the form of "learning factors"). This research has also provided a classification of model uses in transition research that supports a purposeful discussion of the opportunities of modeling and promising future research directions. The methodology developed in this doctoral research aims at the analysis and design of transition governance processes by specifying the various opportunities to contribute to sustainability transitions through purposeful action at different societal levels, as well as related roles of stakeholders in implementing such processes of change. The methodology combines different streams of previous research: 1) a participatory modeling approach to identify problem perceptions, case-specific sustainability innovations as well as related implementation barriers, drivers and responsibilities; 2) a systematic review to identify supportive and impeding learning factors from the general literature that can complement case-specific factors; and 3) a method for the analysis and design of case-specific transition governance processes. Three case studies in Canada (topic: sustainable food systems), Cyprus (water-energy-food nexus) and Germany (sustainable heating supply) have been selected to test and iteratively develop the methodology described above. The results for each case study reveal that there are learning objects (i.e., learning requirements) in all learning contexts, which underscores the importance of multi-level learning in sustainability transitions, ranging from the individual to the group, organizational and policy levels. Actors have various opportunities to actively facilitate societal transformations towards sustainable development either directly through actions at their particular societal levels (i.e., context-internal learning) or indirectly through actions that influence learning at other societal levels. In fact, most of the learning factors require cooperation across learning contexts during the implementation process. The comparing of learning factors across case studies underline the importance of several factor categories, such as "physical a disturbance or crisis", "information and knowledge". Of the 206 factors identified by stakeholders, 40 factors are case-specific and not contained in the general, review-based factor list. This underscores the value of participatory research, as general, top-down analyses might have overlooked these case-specific factors. The methodology presented in this dissertation allows for the identification and analysis of case-specific intervention points for sustainability transitions at multiple societal levels. The methodology furthermore permits the analysis of interplay between individual, group, organizational and policy actions, which is a first step towards their coordination. The focus on sustainability innovations links the broad topic of sustainability transitions to a set of opportunities for practical interventions and overcoming their implementation barriers. The methodology presented allows for the analysis and design of these interlinkages between learning contexts. While the methodology cannot provide any "silver bullets" for inducing sustainability transitions, it is flexible enough to identify an appropriate abstraction level for analyzing and designing transition governance processes. The methodology developed in this doctoral research also provides several contributions for the development of participatory modeling methods in transition research. Thus, the participatory method supports an integrated analysis of barriers and drivers of sustainability innovations, and allows application in practice and education. The concepts and methods developed in this research project allow for reflection on transition governance processes from a systemic viewpoint. Experiences in the case studies underline the applicability of the concepts and methods developed for the analysis of case-specific transition governance processes. Despite substantial differences in the geographic location, culture and topics addressed, all case studies include promising sustainability innovations and the engagement of multiple actors in their implementation. The diversity and multitude of initiatives in the case study regions provides an optimistic outlook on future opportunities for large-scale sustainability transitions.

Description: 2015 was a watershed for international sustainability governance. With the Paris climate agreement and Agenda 2030, the international community adopted new targets and processes which are to guide policy for decades to come. Both emphasise the need for integration. In practice, however, climate change and sustainable development have so far been siloed issues.

Description: We present the results of a regression analysis of a large-scale integrated user online application that surveys natural resource use and subjective well-being in Germany. We analyse more than 44,000 users who provided information on their natural resource consumption (material footprint) as well as their personal socio-economic and socio-psychological characteristics. We determine an average material footprint of 26 tonnes per person per year. In addition, we endeavour to determine how much environment humans need by regressing natural resource use as well as relevant socio-economic and socio-psychological features on subjective well-being. We establish a slightly negative correlation between subjective well-being and material footprints. A higher material footprint is associated with lower subjective well-being. We conclude that consumer policies seeking to promote sustainable behaviour should highlight the fact that a lower material footprint may result in greater subjective well-being.

Description: This research project approached the emergence of social business innovations from the periphery, working towards the core: the first article features the representation of the concept of Social Business City, which was newly implemented by Wiesbaden in 2010. Here, social businesses are to be founded with the help of a network based on both public and private institutions. At the time of conducting the research, three such Social Business Cities existed: Wiesbaden (Germany), Fukuoka (Japan) and Pistoia (Italy); in 2016 Barcelona joined the list of Social Business Cities. The second article analyses the ways in which microfinance organisations that are based on the concept of social business according to Yunus differ from one another. Included in this research was Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, Social Business Women in Germany and Grameen America in the United States. Subsequently, a third article investigates the similarities and differences to be found between social businesses and charities. The research focuses on advantages and disadvantages on both sides and aims at answering the questions: which approach is appropriate under what circumstances and which aspects could be adopted by the other? Finally, we investigated the various cooperation of the Grameen Group with global players such as Danone, Veolia and Intel in Bangladesh and the particular challenges which result therefrom.

Description: Automakers close factories, the stock exchange crashes, empty streets and cafés everywhere and suddenly working from home is recommended or even required for a large part of the working population in Germany. The Corona pandemic is defining our current everyday life and hitting Germany, Europe and the world at a time when there are a multitude of huge challenges to be solved already. Economic aid is indispensable during and in the aftermath of such a crisis, but the primary focus is to prevent the spread of the pandemic and limiting the health implications. Economic stimulus packages and structural aid are an effective means of overcoming the long-term economic consequences of such disruptive developments. However, they must not be distributed according to the "watering can principle"; financial support must be provided in a future-oriented manner for urgently needed investments. The aim must be to promote the necessary sustainable transformation processes within our economy and society, such as climate protection. According to the authors, the preparations must be made now. This discussion paper shows which criteria and measures are needed.

Description: Addressing the prevailing mode of high-carbon lifestyles is crucial for the transition towards a net-zero carbon society. Existing studies fail to fully investigate the underlining factors of unsustainable lifestyles beyond individual determinants nor consider the gaps between current footprints and reduction targets. This study examines latent lifestyle factors related to carbon footprints and analyzes gaps between decarbonization targets and current lifestyles of major consumer segments through exploratory factor analysis and cluster analysis. As a case study on Japanese households, it estimates carbon footprints of over 47,000 households using expenditure survey microdata, and identifies high-carbon lifestyle factors and consumer segments by multivariate regression analysis, factor analysis, and cluster analysis. Income, savings, family composition, house size and type, ownership of durables and automobiles, and work style were confirmed as determinants of high-footprint Japanese households, with eight lifestyles factors, including long-distance leisure, materialistic consumption, and meat-rich diets, identified as the main contributory factors. The study revealed a five-fold difference between lowest and highest footprint segments, with all segments overshooting the 2030 and 2050 decarbonization targets. The findings imply the urgent need for policies tailored to diverse consumer segments and to address the underlying causes of high-carbon lifestyles especially of high-carbon segments.

Description: After two decades of privatization and outsourcing being the dominant trends across public services, an inclination towards founding new municipal power utilities can be observed. In this article, the authors examine the preservation strategies of the German energy regime following the transition approach developed by Geels. From the multi-level perspective, it can be stated that innovations take place in niches and have to overcome the obstacles and persistence of the conventional fossil-nuclear energy regime. Through an empirical analysis, it can be concluded that the established regime significantly delays the decentralization process required for a transformation of energy structures on local electricity grids. Furthermore, it is shown that municipal utilities (Stadtwerke) are important key actors for the German Energiewende (energy transition) as they function as local energy distributors and they meet a variety of requirements to promote fundamental structural change. The trend towards re-municipalization and the re-establishment of municipal utilities reveal the desire to further strengthen the scope of local politics.

Description: As the recent withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Agreement has shown, political volatility directly affects climate change mitigation policies, in particular in sectors, such as transport associated with long-term investments by individuals (vehicles) and by local and national governments (urban form and transport infrastructure and services). There is a large potential for cost-effective solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to improve the sustainability of the transport sector that is yet unexploited. Considering the cost-effectiveness and the potential for co-benefits, it is hard to understand why efficiency gains and CO2 emission reductions in the transport sector are still lagging behind this potential. Particularly interesting is the fact that there is substantial difference among countries with relatively similar economic performances in the development of their transport CO2 emissions over the past thirty years despite the fact that these countries had relatively similar access to efficient technologies and vehicles. This study aims to explore some well-established political science theories on the particular example of climate change mitigation in the transport sector in order to identify some of the factors that could help explain the variations in success of policies and strategies in this sector. The analysis suggests that institutional arrangements that contribute to consensus building in the political process provide a high level of political and policy stability which is vital to long-term changes in energy end-use sectors that rely on long-term investments. However, there is no direct correlation between institutional structures, e.g., corporatism and success in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the transport sector. Environmental objectives need to be built into the consensus-based policy structure before actual policy progress can be observed. This usually takes longer in consensus democracies than in politically more agile majoritarian policy environments, but the policy stability that builds on corporatist institutional structures is likely to experience changes over a longer-term, in this case to a shift towards low-carbon transport that endures.