Sustainability Transitions

Cities account for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide with a large portion of emissions generated by the transportation sector.  São Paulo, Brazil’s largest municipality, is in the early stages of a socio-technical transition to sustainable urban mobility. Socio-technical transitions theorising provides significant insights for climate mitigation and sustainable urban planning. However, most of the socio-technical-focused empirical studies focus on the Global North with limited research on the Global South.  This research fills an important gap in the literature by providing an empirical study of the creation and implementation of urban mobility policies designed to transition São Paulo, an automobile-dominant city in the Global South, towards a more sustainable low-carbon mobility pathway. We identify how the first stage of a transition away from an automobile-centred system was enabled by two key moments: a change in local government in the 2012 elections; and public protests about transport policies in 2013. These events served as windows of opportunities that converged and catalysed innovations and the implementation of new policies.

Keywords: sustainable cities; climate change; sustainable urban mobility; São Paulo; socio-technical transitions.

This paper revises the multi-level perspective to analyse policy innovations within urban transitions. This investigation is concerned with demonstrating how live/work accelerates as a sustainability transition and which governance structures, approaches to planning, and actors influence the process. To analyse the trajectory of live/work, documentation, interviews, direct observation, and physical artefacts were used as data collection methods. Four case studies (San Francisco, Oakland, Vancouver, and Melbourne) provide different geographical, political, and cultural contexts. This research highlights the significance of landscape and regime actors in analysing transitions from a niche perspective. It finds that rigid and top down governance structures are less flexible and open to change, political approaches to planning are less responsive and adaptive, and strong political actors have the ability to either initiate or inhibit change. The application of sustainability transition theories, particularly the multi-level perspective, to the adoption pathways for live/work policies in four cities provides a framework within which to analyse the different pathways.

This paper seeks to critically assess how "radical" sustainability approaches that challenge "mainstream" development trajectories-and politics-are crafted and contested within local government. We explore the extent to which these approaches account for a consolidation, break down or transformation of role boundaries and political identities and their implications for the politics of niche-regime dynamics. In our in-depth study of Independents for Frome (Somerset, UK), an "independent" group who took control of the town council in 2011 and consolidated a non-partisan approach within its administrative functions, referred to as its "Flatpack Democracy" model, we take a closer look at adversarialism and the intersection of power dynamics within local government. The findings reveal the capture of local mainstream political institutions by niche "protagonists" through an orchestration and consolidation of transition governance, woven in strategically and opportunistically into new forms of localized political identities at the niche-regime interface, which helped to create a community-level regime of transition governance. We suggest that informal institutional capital, such as the role of personal ties can impact on legitimacy, accountability, or the validation of sustainability agendas. Our findings also advance debates on transition thresholds within "liminal transition spaces", interstitial spaces between a previous way of knowing and doing, and a new way. Here ground rules dictating socio-political norms are unclear, collaborative actions are potentially working at cross-purposes and/or multiple forms of (transformative) power are exercised simultaneously at distinct moments, or instantiations of transition. That is, there remains a much-needed theoretical debate around the fragile and imperfect processes of democratization within the everyday politics of transition management.

This study employed a comparative case study of Kyoto City in Japan and Quezon City in the Philippines to examine local-level governance of low carbon and sustainable energy initiatives using emerging governance frameworks in the field of sustainability transitions. It mapped out local transition narratives by examining the dominant climate narratives in each city and the processes of mobilizing resources. Using the Transition Management Framework and the Multilevel Climate Governance Framework, the paper examined how governance processes in three levels – strategic, operational and tactical – interact across horizontal and vertical dimensions to shape the local climate campaign. The study conducted documentary analysis of relevant policies and programs related to low carbon and sustainable energy. Furthermore, it employed key informant interviews with representatives from the government, civil society and private sectors, employing a triangulated approach. Results in Kyoto City show strong citizen engagement and highly institutionalized multilevel governance towards low-carbon energy with bottom-up resource consolidation. Meanwhile, a governance framework characterized by top-down strategies with emphasis on building climate resilience and collaborations with international organizations and networks characterize the transition landscape of Quezon City. Overall, it argues that effective transition governance is characterized by strong citizen engagement, effective internal and external institutional arrangements, and strong multi-stakeholder collaboration. Theoretical and practical implications as well as implications for future research are discussed.

The study shows, how Finland has adopted the idea of sustainable devel-opment within the political framework and is applying the principle guiding the transition within the society. Additionally, the study shows how the gov-ernance model used by Finland has performed in international reviews. The roots of global sustainability governance can be traced back to the UN Confer-ence on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972. The 1987 report by the World Commission on Environment and Development gave shape to the idea of sustainable development as an international political programme. Finland made its own interpretation and used the political guidelines of both the Stock-holm Conference and the Brundtland Commission for designing and institu-tionalizing national environmental and sustainable development policies.
Discursive institutionalism has served as a theoretical framework for ex-plaining the roots of sustainable development. Sustainable development policy follows discourses on nature conservation, environmental protection and envi-ronmental policy. These, in turn, will flourish and advance alongside the sus-tainable development discourse. Finland is a model country, to a certain extent, with specific good practices that would be suitable for adoption by others. The global politics of sustainable development imply, though, an approach that goes beyond traditional forms of governance, towards a culturally sensitive transgovernance enabling systemic changes. A one-size governance style does not fit everyone. Rather, numerous proven and innovative good practices are needed. Finland has been preparing herself well for the post-2015 develop-ment agenda by adopting a new approach outlined in the intergenerational policy document “The Finland We Want by 2050”.
Keywords: sustainable development, institutionalism, indicators, transgovern-ance, national council for sustainable development, ideas, discourse, meta-governance, concept maps, environmental policy

Cities play a crucial role in shaping coupled human-environment systems at local and global scales. With a view to amounting sustainability deficits, urban stakeholders thus require transformative capacity to perform radical change within and across the multiple socio-ecological and socio-technical systems embedded in cities. However, existing (transformative) ‘capacity’ concepts refer to distinct subjects and purposes and do not adequately address the particularities of urban contexts and/or practical operationalization. Therefore, this paper suggests an integrated conceptual framework for developing ‘urban transformative capacity’, drawing on contributions from a range of research areas. It identifies 10 key components and a range of factors that describe the forms of agency and interaction, development processes and relational dimensions involved in building up urban transformative capacity, emphasizing the vital role of place and scale in this. It thus establishes a baseline and direction for capacity growth. This allows recognizing the particular requirements and assets of diverse types of cities and urban contexts in the global North and South, and offers strategic orientation for urban policy making, planning practice and research.

En el escenario actual de emergencia de discursos y prácticas de transición civilizatoria en América Latina ante la expansión de la crisis socio-ecológica, el presente artículo analiza los hallazgos de un estudio de caso realizado en el territorio de Norte del Cauca, Colombia, sobre la experiencia del Centro Universitario de Bienestar Rural (CUBR) de FUNDAEC, basada en la combinación entre contenidos espirituales y materiales en una variedad de ámbitos de los procesos de vida rural, entre ellos los económicos. El estudio releva la semántica emergente de esta iniciativa, basada en una noción de transformación centrada en la interacción entre sistemas de conocimiento y la participación de las poblaciones en el aprendizaje sobre senderos de bienestar desde su propia realidad, identificando algunos aprendizajes relevantes a través de un estudio fenomenológico en una comunidad.

Intermediary actors have been proposed as key catalysts that speed up change towards more sustainable socio-technical systems. Research on this topic has gradually gained traction since 2009, but has been complicated by the inconsistency regarding what intermediaries are in the context of such transitions and which activities they focus on, or should focus on. We briefly elaborate on the conceptual foundations of the studies of intermediaries in transitions, and how intermediaries have been connected to different transition theories. This shows the divergence – and sometimes a lack – of conceptual foundations in this research. In terms of transitions theories, many studies connect to the multi-level perspective and strategic niche management, while intermediaries in technological innovation systems and transition management have been much less explored. We aim to bring more clarity to the topic of intermediaries in transitions by providing a definition of transition intermediaries and a typology of five intermediary types that is sensitive to the emergence, neutrality and goals of intermediary actors as well as their context and level of action. Some intermediaries are specifically set up to facilitate transitions, while others grow into the role during the process of socio-technical change. Based on the study, as an important consideration for future innovation governance, we argue that systemic and niche intermediaries are the most crucial forms of intermediary actors in transitions, but they need to be complemented by a full ecology of intermediaries, including regime-based transition intermediaries, process intermediaries and user intermediaries.

This thesis explores how ‘formalised’ policies, practices, and spheres of governance relate to ‘bottom-up’ activities in pursuit of new models of socio-political development in and around the planning process. In particular, whether rights bestowed to local authorities under the Localism Act (2011) offer a mechanism to lock-in relocalised (ultra-local, sustainable) or subversive agendas within mainstream development processes. The case study of the market town of Frome (Somerset, UK) has pushed an innovative sustainable placemaking agenda since a group of town councillors who reject party politics, the Independents for Frome (IfF), were elected in 2011. Using Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA), this study explores the conditions for the influence of relocalised actors and entities on Frome’s placemaking and politics, whether ‘niche’ protagonists possess and retain this identity when occupying formal spaces of power, and the role of the ‘regime’ in cultivating and contesting or development alternatives and broader shifts in environmental, social and political arrangements. The findings reveal autonomy and independence as crucial frames used to justify an orchestration of transition governance, with both emergent and strategic foundations. Pre-existing ties and reciprocity helped to express and advance relocalised place-based artefacts using the structures of the state to weave in institutionalised forms of alternative governance to support local placemaking initiatives. Multiple praxes of the niche and planning and party-political ‘regimes’ were invoked, rendering the terms more fluid than is typically understood within intersecting regimes of transition. The findings highlight a need for greater attention to the cultural qualities of placemaking and scale as a basis for social ties that support inclusive and emergent governance. Cycles of transition and the intergenerational phases between old and new were key drivers in transition processes for individuals and organisations. The notion of placemaking transitions is offered to explore how the politics of place influences sustainability transition arenas.

‘Sustainability transitions’ has emerged as one of the most important and influential literatures on understanding the pathways towards a more sustainable future. Yet, most approaches in this literature privilege technological and regime-wide innovations, while people’s agencies, grassroots innovations, and social factors more generally are often underrepresented. This article focuses on the role of ecospirituality as worldview, aiming to understand how spiritual and religious beliefs play an important role in practical, everyday sustainability transitions. In an extensive desk-based study, literature across disciplines is reviewed to explore connections between spirituality, pro-environmental behaviour, climate policy, and sustainability agencies. Showing the importance of ecospiritual practice, the purpose of this article is to make a case for the inclusion of ecospirituality, as worldview, in the study of sustainability transitions. We argue that ecospirituality is a significant dimension to understanding people’s contemporary agencies that shift away from endless economic growth and resource efficiency mantras towards more radical worldviews of degrowth and different ways of achieving happiness and fulfilment in life.

Keywords: ecospirituality; human agency; sustainability transitions; degrowth; belief

Sustainability transitions have formed a vast body of literature on theory and practice of transforming socio-technical systems to achieve sustainability over the past few decades. Lately, a new area has been emerging in the design for the sustainability field, where sustainability transitions theories are integrated with design theory, education and practice. This emerging area is referred to as design for sustainability transitions or transition design. In order to build an understanding of the emergence and growth of this area, this article presents an overview of origins, development and current status of design for sustainability transitions drawing on key contributions. We also provide a comparative analysis of these key contributions in regards to their theoretical underpinnings, definitions of sustainability, conceptual framings for the roles of design(ers) and premises of methods and applications.

Technology-based entrepreneurial mindset require regeneration in order to support the increasingly necessary energy transition. This challenge has been applied to electrical experts whose central role is complicated by the potential for stranded assets, intermittence paradigms, and new system planning patterns as well as electricity operational patterns. This paper uses quantitative methods to explain the importance of expert engineers' technopreneurial orientation to promote the sustainable use of electricity. The ability of expert engineers to collaborate by prioritizing dialogue that provides shared access and transparency in risk-taking is a critical aspect that strengthens the effect of the energy transition to sustainability. The experts' adoption of the three aspects of the modified trilemma index of energy, energy security, energy equity, and environmental sustainability reflects the increasing sense of achievement sustainability in the electricity sector.

Different governments and international organizations have shown interest in agroecology as a promising pathway for transition to sustainable agriculture. However, the kinds of innovation needed for agro-ecological transition are subject to intense debate. The scale of this debate is itself an indicator of the complicated relation between innovation and sustainability in the agro-food arena and beyond. This review paper analyses the potential of agro-ecology in agricultural sustainability transitions. It also explores whether agro-ecological transition is a sustainable innovation (cf. ecological, green, open, social, responsible). Furthermore, the paper investigates the potential contribution of agro-ecological transition to sustainability, using the 3-D (Direction, Distribution and Diversity) model of the STEPS centre. Agroecology is one of the few approaches that can harmoniously combine innovation and sustainability in agriculture while promoting genuine transition to agro-food sustainability since it embraces all dimensions of sustainability (environmental, economic, social/cultural/ethical). Nevertheless, it can be taken for granted neither that all traditional practices can be classified as ‘agro-ecological’ nor that all farmer-led innovations can be included in the agro-ecological repertoire. Moreover, the relationship between the three aspirations of agroecology (science, movement and practice) needs further elaboration in order to maximise potential for agriculture transition.

This is a working paper from the exploratory phase of Visions and Pathways 2040 project. The paper provides a review of system innovation and transition theories in the context of transitions to low-carbon futures in urban environment.

Co-authored with Paul Twomey

The ways in which companies address sustainability today shape the future for businesses, societies, and ecosystems at large. Yet, companies keep addressing the world’s most serious evolving challenges with varying degrees of concern, urgency, and strategic importance for as long as their role in relation to sustainability remains unclear. To develop a broader business commitment to sustainability and participate in tackling grand challenges such as climate change, human rights violations, the widening wealth gap, and disease outbreaks, companies need to rethink their current role of being in relation with the world that is facing mounting environmental, social, and economic pressures.

The purpose of this dissertation is, therefore, to explore the role of companies in relation to sustainability from multiple viewpoints. The four articles comprising the dissertation represent such viewpoints—strategy, management, co-creation, and holistic—that, together with this introductory part, provide a broad and timely outlook on companies’ role.

Theoretically, this dissertation combines the previously disconnected fields of marketing and sustainability transition to create a lens through which companies’ role is explored.
Methodologically, the articles use different methods but are bound together by a social constructionist research philosophy and a qualitative research strategy. Altogether, the primary data were generated from interviews with 13 managers and top executives and 25 millennial consumers in the Finnish business environment. The secondary data consist of annual reports, sustainability documents, and other public materials.

Basing on the insights gleaned from the articles, this dissertation proposes reframing as a method for companies to break out of their old roles and enact new responses to sustainability. Reframing can expand horizons and capacity for action by bringing the two frames of business and sustainability together. Reframing—that is, making new interpretations of a current situation and creating novel responses—is suggested to be particularly useful in three organizational areas, namely business strategies, management activities, and co-creation practices.

By conceptualizing a new construct, business sustainability transition, the dissertation makes its main theoretical contribution to the sustainability transition literature. The new construct captures the fundamental, system-wide sustainability improvements that companies can initiate in their business environment through purposeful marketplace interactions.

The key managerial takeaways are provided in the form of the Reframing Cube. As a metaphorical tool, the Cube can help managers think and address sustainability in new ways that can readily be translated into actions. While letting go of the old ways of being in relation with the world is not easy, it is suggested that by reframing their role in sustainability, companies can reap strategic advantages while facilitating much-needed business sustainability transitions. Therefore, companies are key actors in shaping our common future for economically healthier, environmentally friendlier, and socially more balanced modes of production and consumption.

This new open access book develops a framework for advancing agroecology in transformations towards more just and sustainable food systems focusing on power, politics and governance. It explores the potential of agroecology as a sustainable and socially just alternative to today’s dominant food regime.

TECHNOSCIENCE & SOCIETY BOOK SERIES

Series Editor: Kean Birch

Objectives

Our futures are highly uncertain in large part because of the changing relationship between technoscience and society: artificial intelligence holds enormous technoscientific promise, yet raises significant social and ethical questions with its development; personal data is supposed to be the ‘oil’ of the future, yet it’s exploitation threatens our privacy and identity; genomics, proteomics, and other omic sciences could contribute massively to improving healthcare, but their benefit depends on how they are deployed; and low-carbon technologies like electric cars are essential to solving climate change, although they also threaten to embed us further into problematic socio-technical systems. All these and much more underpin this new book series with its aims to do the following:

• Disseminate scholarly research on the relationship between technoscience and society;
• Focus on contemporary challenges arising from the changing relationship between technoscience and society;
• Attract new and emerging scholars using interdisciplinary approaches at the cutting edge of social scientific and humanistic studies of science, technology, and innovation;
• Reach new audiences for scholarly research on technoscience and society by producing accessible, though still rigorous, scholarly books.

The concepts of food security and food sustainability are two main paradigms in the food system discourse—however, they are often addressed separately in the scientific literature. We argue that this disconnect hinders a coherent discussion of sustainability transitions, which will be necessary to solve problems (environmental, social, economic, and health) generated by conventional food systems. Our review highlights linkages between sustainability transitions and food and nutrition security using the perspective of sustainable food systems. We explore the diversity of food security narratives and food sustainability paradigms in the agro-food arena, analyse relations between food security and food systems sustainability, and suggest options to foster a transition toward sustainable food systems. It is widely acknowledged that food systems sustainability must entail long-term food and nutrition security in its availability, access, utilization, and stability dimensions. For food systems to deliver food and nutrition security for present and future generations, all their components need to be sustainable, resilient, and efficient. These linkages between food sustainability and food and nutrition security intersect at global, national, local, and household levels. Different strategies can be pursued to foster sustainability transitions in food systems: efficiency increase (e.g., sustainable intensification), demand restraint (e.g., sustainable diets), and food systems transformation (e.g., alternative food systems). Creating sustainable food systems requires moving from an agriculture-centered to a food system policy and research framework. This will be fundamental to foster the complex and holistic transformation necessary to achieve sustainable food systems, which is, in turn, a prerequisite to achieving sustainable food and nutrition security.

Design for sustainability transitions is an emerging area of research and practice which integrates and expands theories of sustainability science, design and transition management. Recently sustainability transitions have been framed as design challenges with three main dimensions: creative, technical and political (Gaziulusoy & Ryan, 2017). With references to the multi-level perspective of system innovations, design for sustainability transitions investigates the niche socio-cultural practices and technologies to develop and analyse design scenarios for alternative futures using participatory approaches. Degrowth as a civic movement that challenges the continuous economic growth as a policy making goal, converges design for sustainability transitions in its holistic understanding of a need for systemic change. Yet, recent discussions in degrowth have called for a deeper understanding of actors that would carry out such transitions. This includes taking into consideration questions of power, gender, class, ethnicity and inter-species interactions, which are at times overlooked in analyses. It is our position that there is a need for expansion, diversification and deepening of theoretical groundings of design for sustainability transitions as well. In this article we provide a short history of this research and practice area, frame a theoretical perspective on degrowth integrating the implications of current relevant questions, integrate this theoretical perspective with design for sustainability transitions theories, and discuss implications for design and policy practice as well as degrowth research.

The acceleration of ecological crises has driven a growing body of thinking on sustainability transitions. Agroecology is being promoted as an approach that can address multiple crises in the food system while addressing climate change and contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals. Beyond the more technical definition as, "the ecology of food systems", agroecology has a fundamentally political dimension. It is based on an aspiration towards autonomy or the agency of networks of producers and citizens to self-organize for sustainability and social justice. In this article, we use the multi-level perspective (MLP) to examine agroecology transformations. Although the MLP has been helpful in conceptualizing historic transitions, there is a need to better understand: (a) the role of and potential to self-organize in the context of power in the dominant regime, and (b) how to shift to bottom-up forms of governance-a weak point in the literature. Our review analyzes the enabling and disabling conditions that shape agroecology transformations and the ability of communities to self-organize. We develop the notion of 'domains of transformation' as overlapping and interconnected interfaces between agroecology and the incumbent dominant regime. We present six critical domains that are important in agroecological transformations: access to natural ecosystems; knowledge and culture; systems of exchange; networks; discourse; and gender and equity. The article focuses on the dynamics of power and governance, arguing that a shift from top down technocratic approaches to bottom up forms of governance based on community-self organization across these domains has the most potential for enabling transformation for sustainability and social justice.

Home Energy Management (HEM) offers the potential to help manage peak electricity demand and network constraints – crucial for efficient infrastructure – yet to date is underdeveloped in New Zealand. This presentation provides an overview of current and future HEM capabilities, and some of the factors that might affect uptake of such systems in New Zealand. Four key characteristics of HEM systems are identified and used to guide data collection about HEM technologies currently on the market, which are shown to break into 8 different groupings based on their energy management capabilities. These systems offer demand management through feedback and behaviour prompts, remote control, demand response, and scheduling. Additionally, emerging technologies point to a new wave of HEM systems that better leverage smart grid infrastructure. However, uptake and use of such technologies is not guaranteed, and we discuss factors that may influence the success of home energy management.

Cities depend on a constant food supply from the outside. Current challenges (e.g. climate change, soil depletion, biodiversity loss) and their interrelatedness with modern, industrialised food production may compromise future food security for millions of urban dwellers. Evidence shows that grassroots initiatives can foster transition towards resilient and sustainable urban food systems. This research contributes to the literature on grassroots initiatives and their role in sustainability transitions by analysing the urban gardening project campus garden GrüneBeete e.V. in Muenster. Semi-structured interviews with key informants from the initiative served as a basis for the analysis that was conducted according to an integrated sustainability transition framework. The analysis was performed along the three elements of the Multi-Level Perspective, i.e. niche, regime and landscape. Potential leverage points for transition, sustainability dimensions the initiative touches and its impacts were also studied. Special attention was devoted to social practices in educational and communal spheres. Urban gardening can be considered as a radical niche that aims to create an alternative urban food system. However, the analysed initiative has developed anchoring mechanisms with the regime institutions. Therefore, campus garden GrüneBeete e.V. is rather a symbiotic niche that, nevertheless, has the potential to induce a cumulative, incremental transformation in the regime. The main levers of change used by the initiative are raising awareness and spreading knowledge. In doing so, the campus garden impacts different dimensions of sustainable food systems (environmental, human, social, cultural, political, economic/financial). While the initiative is still small, it has a high upscaling potential given the favourable institutional and political landscape in Muenster and Germany at large. Urban gardening can be identified as a growing, but rather regime-compatible niche, one main strength being its potential impact on society’s beliefs and value systems, and fuelling sustainability transitions through influencing social practices.

This is a working paper from the exploratory phase of Visions and Pathways 2040 project. The paper presents a scan of futures inquiry trends, an outline of recent advances in relevant theory, and critically reviews similar ‘transition’-focused and related projects in Europe and the United States.

Co-authored with Stephen McGrail

Sub-Saharan African (SSA) cities are growing at the fastest rates in the world, and are characterised by an emerging (but precarious) middle class, and a substantial youth bulge. These factors have elevated the Importance of SSA cities and the emerging African middle class in the global discourse on emerging markets. Yet the viability of sustainable growth in SSA, and the stability of the emerging middle class, is contingent on current resource pressures and projected future resource efficiency requirements. This review paper hence accounts for; (1) the urban growth trends and pressures in SSA cities, as well as (2) the state of resource efficiency in SSA cities in terms of demand pressures, efficiency of resource use and the state of infrastructures and governance. Due to the paucity of data on the subject, a mixture of quantitative and qualitative analyses are provided for a range of key resource sectors (i.e. water, energy, solid waste, food (and soil), construction materials and land), as well as a set of recommendations for how resource efficiency improvements can be made in each key resource sector. It proposes that a decoupling based framework for improving resource efficiency in SSA cities, which is positioned within a holistic inclusive development framework, holds the key to ensuring the sustainable growth of SSA cities and its emerging middle class.

The multi-level perspective (MLP) is a prominent transition framework. The MLP posits that transitions come about through interaction processes within and among three analytical levels: niches, socio-technical regimes and a socio-technical landscape. This systematic review provides an overview on the use of the MLP in research on agro-food sustainability transitions. In particular, it analyses the understanding, conceptualisation and operationalisation of niches, regimes and landscapes. Niches considered in the selected papers include agro-ecology, organic agriculture, permaculture, conservation agriculture, integrated farming, and alternative food networks. Regime refers to industrial, conventional agriculture. The researched regime is often not clearly described and its operationalisation is a matter of deliberation. Landscape level is generally overlooked; when it is considered it refers to international trends and developments. Many scholars highlight the inadequacy of transition pathways in the MLP for the agro-food sector. Moreover, transition impacts are rarely addressed and the research field generally overlooks the analysis of the sustainability of niches and, consequently, of transitions. Research on transitions in the agro-food sector borrows from the MLP its generalizability and poor empirical operationalisation of niche, regime and landscape concepts. Therefore, integrative conceptualisation and operationalisation of the MLP elements is required to accommodate the complexity of sustainability transition processes and the peculiarities of the agro-food system.

This review paper explores the complexity of relation between innovation and sustainability and relates it to the agro-food arena. Many scholars argue that meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires major transformation in modes of innovation. As for the agro-food system, relationship between innovation and sustainability is far from straightforward. Innovation (especially technical one) provides a fertile ground for alternative agro-food movements to criticize the over-industrialization of the food system. However, it seems that it is not about questioning innovation tout court, but about what type of innovation (see, sustainable innovation) should be promoted to foster transition towards sustainable food systems.

This dissertation investigates emerging Alternative Agro Food Systems (AAFSs) in Turkey and does so by focusing on three niche initiatives in İzmir. Building on Regime Theory and the Multi-Level Perspective, it views these initiatives as strategic niches and explores their development processes by documenting their socio-technical practices.
Thus, this thesis fulfills the understanding of newly emerging alternatives and their transformation in Turkey with regard to their development processes in İzmir. Through exploratory qualitative multiple case study, this dissertation provided a meso-level investigation, documentation of the agro food system and micro-level investigation of Alternative Agro Food Initiatives in Turkey. A micro-level exploration
is undertaken by three niche initiatives in İzmir; (a) producer initiated Alternative Agro Food Niche- Gödence Cooperative, (b) consumer initiated Alternative Agro Food Niche- BİTOT and (c) producer-consumer collaborated Alternative Agro Food Niche-Foça Earth Market. Case studies, which are explored in İzmir, have provided a city-level investigation through examination of role of İzmir in the emergence and development of alternative agro food niches.
Case studies reveal characteristics and development processes of alternative food initiatives. Gödence revealed a niche that shows a degree of compatibility with the incumbent regime. This compatibility blunted the innovative capacity of the niche due to several structural reasons and path-dependencies. Stabilizing path-dependencies created
tendencies which restrain the diffusion of socio-technical practices. On the other hand, BİTOT and Foça Earth Market formed new niches. The creativity, talent to widen voluntarism and existing networks of Buğday Association provides BİTOT a web of volunteers to create, design and apply socio-technical practices. Foça Earth Market’s unique innovation capacity is lying under its artifice to use incumbent regime institutions
to create alternative socio-technical practices. The flexibility in the Foça Niche to motivate actors including those from mainstream regime has contributed to the innovative capacity of the initiative.