The Role of Non-State Actors in the Green Transition

Building a Sustainable Future

Jens Hoff, Quentin Gausset, Simon Lex

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000586749
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Environment & Energy Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book argues that there is no way to make progress in building a sustainable future without extensive participation of non-state actors.

The volume explores the contribution of non-state actors to a sustainable transition, starting with citizens and communities of different kinds and ending with cities and city-networks. The authors analyse social, cultural, political and economic drivers and barriers for this transition, from individual behaviour to structural restraints, and investigate interplay between the two. Through a series of wide-ranging case studies from the UK, Australia, Germany, Italy and Denmark, and a number of comparative case studies, the volume provides an empirically and theoretically robust argument that highlights the need to develop, widen and scale up collective action and community-based engagement if the transition to sustainability is to be successful.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, sustainability and environmental policy.

1 Introduction

Jens Hoff, Quentin Gausset and Simon Lex

Building a sustainable future is one of the greatest and most urgent challenges of contemporary societies. However, how this goal can be realised is still very unclear. We know that past and present approaches to reduce global warming have only had limited success, and that policy makers, public and private organisations, as well as researchers are much in doubt about which paths must be taken to build sustainable societies. This book argues that there is no way to make progress politically, theoretically or on the ground without an extensive participation of non-state actors such as cities, private companies, unions, eco-societies, food cooperatives, urban gardening projects, permaculture initiatives, stop-wasting-food campaigns, and so on. These actors are trying to create concrete pathways to more sustainable futures, and their work must be studied and analysed in order to learn from their successes and failures.

Stressing the role of non-state actors in the transition to low-carbon and more sustainable societies is nothing new. Indeed, at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 it was suggested that local governments, civil society groups and private organisations would need to be responsible for the lion’s share of greenhouse gas mitigation, and the shift towards more sustainable societies; an idea ratified by the passing of the Agenda 21 treaty (Connolly et al. 2012). While Local Agenda 21 activities have had a very different fate in different countries – in some being forgotten, in others being institutionalised and integrated in legal frameworks – the focus on non-state actors came to the fore again after the failure of governments to reach a binding agreement on greenhouse gas emissions at the COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen in 2009 (Hoff and Gausset 2016). Following this impasse by the world’s political leaders, cities, local governments, civil society and market actors became leaders in the drive to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create more sustainable societies. Despite the success of actually reaching a binding agreement on maximum global temperature rise in Paris 2015, and the subsequent success of the UN in passing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2016, non-state actors are the indispensable companions for any government wanting to realise the SDGs, and non-state actors still seem to lead the way.

With this book we try to cover this vast research field as best we can. We therefore present a series of case-studies from the UK, Europe (North and South) and Australia as well as some studies of cities and municipal networks around the world. In terms of the actor focus, this book is very diverse as it focuses both on the individual and the determinants of his/hers (un)sustainable behaviour, on communities of various kinds, analogue as well as virtual, and the personal as well as wider social and political impact. Finally, it also focuses on cities trying to become sustainable or resilient and the importance of techno-social infrastructures. The actor focus structures the book, starting with a focus on ‘Individual and collective sustainable norms and behaviour’ (Part I), then moving on to ‘Grassroots, green communities and social impact’ (Part II), and finally dealing with ‘Creating sustainable cities and infrastructures’ (Part III). Some might argue that this diversity in terms of geography as well as actor focus limits the possibilities of generalizing from the cases and upscaling the ‘best case’ examples. However, we find such an approach to a discussion of the wider societal importance of the cases included here rather misleading. Thus, many of our cases seem to refute the idea of scales, as they represent (larger or smaller; local–global) networks in which ideas and actors circulate physically and virtually. So in the language of scales, upscaling, downscaling and rhizomatic growth seem to be taking place sequentially or simultaneously. Such reality is much closer to the theoretical approach suggested by, in particular, actor-network theory (see Latour 2005; Jasanoff 2010; Blok 2010), than to, for example, theories on multi-level governance (see for example Bulkeley and Newell 2010). The reader will therefore also find that the question of upscaling is discussed under other headings in this book, such as, for example, ‘traces’ (Chapter 5), ‘diffusion’ (Chapter 6) or ‘reciprocal exchange’ (Chapter 8).

We have decided to write this book on the role on non-state actors in creating more sustainable societies because there are few books that deal at length with this issue in all its diversity, and because we believe that community-based engagement is key to a sustainable future. Furthermore, much of the existing literature treats citizens in a ‘Homo economicus’ perspective, creating a focus on national climate policies and sustainability initiatives, and on incentives to affect individual behaviour through taxes or subsidies or, more sophisticatedly, through nudging (Sunstein 2014). With this volume, we question this approach and explore the potentials of community-based approaches; we explore and discuss how different kinds of communities create and reproduce new norms and values changing individual behaviour. Our approach therefore questions existing paradigms for creating public policies, and points towards citizen-, community- or municipally driven projects and alliances between these as arenas for learning, and for engaging with policy makers. This gives citizen science and citizen participation a more central role in public sustainability policies than is most often the case, but which is necessary if one wants to see real change on the ground.

Theoretically, we move the current focus on individual choices and calculations to collective choices and actions. In investigating this ‘paradigm shift’ we draw on relevant theories within anthropology, sociology, psychology, political science, and urban planning. For the theoretically inclined reader, it will be of interest to see how these theories are applied and discussed, and maybe especially how the cases presented challenge some of these theories, and create a need for further theoretical work. Instead of listing all the theories used in this volume, we think it more useful to sketch some of the conceptual discussions, which run across the chapters, and which in some cases have challenged existing theories and lead to the development of new conceptual tools.

There are five important issues, which are discussed across many of the chapters. The conceptual development around these issues represents one of the most important results of this book. These issues are: (1) sustainability as a concept and a practice; (2) do-it-yourself culture/‘practivism’; (3) the character of eco-communities; (4) effects, impacts or ‘upscaling’; (5) learning from participation.

Sustainability

The most well-known definition of sustainability is probably the one found in the Brundtland Commission’s report Our Common Future from 1987 (WCED 1987). In this report, sustainable development is defined as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. The reason for the prominence of the definition to this day is no doubt the fact that the concept of sustainable development was adopted by the international community, and it laid a basis for the UN Rio Earth Summit in 1992, where states agreed on the guiding principles and a policy framework for sustainable development, laid down in such documents as the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, Agenda 21 as well as such conventions as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD) and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). All of these texts were influenced by the Brundtland report, both in terms of how the problems were understood, as well as how they should be tackled (see Stevenson 2018, 123).

Since Rio there has been an ongoing discussion as to what extent the Brundtland Commission’s definition of sustainability represent a so-called ‘weak’ or ‘strong’ version of sustainability. Weak sustainability is based on the idea that protection of the environment and our natural resources is possible within our current economic and political structures, and that economic growth and sustainability is compatible. Thus, by enhancing efficiencies in production and consumption, through innovation and new technologies and the right incentive structure for companies and individuals, it is possible to create win-win solutions that allow economic growth to continue, and create new market opportunities (Bulkeley et al. 2013, 964). Strong sustainability, on the other hand, argues that it is not possible to address the drivers of ecological damage and social inequality without fundamental economic and social reforms (Stevenson 2018, 126). While there is little doubt that most of the world’s governments, private companies, and even NGOs have adhered to an interpretation of the Brundtland Commission, along the lines of weak sustainability, or what Hajer has called ‘ecological modernization’ (Hajer 1995), and what most decision-makers today would call ‘green growth’, it is an open question as to whether such interpretation is in fact embodied in the Brundtland definition. Langhelle (2010) for example insists on a more radical interpretation of the Brundtland definition, and points to the fact that the report sees economic growth only as environmentally and socially sustainable if there is a change in the concept of growth to make it more equitable in its impact; i.e. to improve the (re-)distribution of income. He also points to the hierarchy of priorities within the conception of sustainable development in Our Common Future, where the first priority is the satisfaction of human needs, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor to which overriding priority should be given, then climate change (and thus the energy issue), loss of biological diversity, pollution (PCB, acid rain, etc.) and food security (Langhelle 2010, 411).

While doubts can be raised about the correct way to interpret the Brundtland Commission’s definition of sustainability, there is less doubt about the fact that little progress was made at the nation level on actually creating more sustainability in the first decades after the Rio Summit in 1992. Thus, when 191 governments meet at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 to assess progress and discuss new ways of advancing sustainable development, it was quite clear that states had done little over the past decade to implement promised actions. Furthermore, ‘unable to report on any significant accomplishments, governments turned their attention to creating “partnerships”, which in practice delegated much of the responsibility for sustainable development to the private sector and civil society’ (Stevenson 2018, 128). This story was, by and large, repeated at the Rio+20 Summit Meeting in Rio 2012, where the world’s nations met again to take stock of the progress made concerning sustainable development at the global level. A report was made prior to the meeting by the Stakeholder Forum (together with the UN) to evaluate how the international community had performed with regard to the goals set at Rio in 1992. In general, the findings were disappointing. Thus, out of 40 topics no progress or even regress was made on most topics; most notably consumption, atmospheric protection and land management. However, some areas had good progress, such as toxic chemicals management, scientific research and inclusion of local authorities in sustainable development governance (Stevenson 2018, 133). The most promising outcome of the summit meeting was that the international community in the outcome document ‘The Future We Want’ reaffirmed its commitment to sustainable development and began a process towards defining the so-called Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were adopted by the UN in 2015. The 17 goals and 169 targets to be reached by 2030 might signal a new turn in the global attention towards sustainability even though they have been criticised for being ‘unactionable’ and ‘unattainable’.

While many governments, private companies, NGOs and others have embraced the SDGs, at least rhetorically, the SDGs have also – and maybe more interestingly – led to new conceptualisations of sustainability. One such dominant interpretation takes it point of departure in the concept of the Anthropocene; meaning a new geological epoch, where humans are the driving force behind planetary changes – such as depletion of natural resources, pollution of the global commons and global warming. Researchers such as Johan Rockström and colleagues (2009) have identified and quantified a number of planetary boundaries that must not be transgressed if we want to avoid unacceptable environmental change, and they have pointed out that these boundaries have already been transgressed concerning such critical factors as biodiversity, the nitrogen cycle and climate change. They therefore propose a framework of ‘planetary boundaries’ aimed at defining ‘the safe operating space for humanity’. While these planetary boundaries can be said to define an ‘ecological ceiling for economic growth’ if it is to be sustainable, an economist such as Kate Raworth (2017) has coupled the planetary boundaries with the SDGs. With these goals, the 193 member-states of the UN have committed themselves to eradicate poverty, end hunger, ensure education and decent jobs and adequate health services for all (just to mention some of the 17 goals). These goals can be said to constitute a social bottom for sustainability. So, according to Raworth, economic growth can only be seen as sustainable if it takes us somewhere between this ecological ceiling and the social bottom, to what she calls ‘the safe and just operating space for humanity’ (or into what she calls ‘the doughnut’).

Some might argue that this newer way of understanding sustainability is just a more precise specification of the Brundtland definition, while others might argue that it is definitively more radical, as Raworth directly encourages us to be ‘agnostic about growth’ (Raworth 2017, 243ff.) meaning that ecological boundaries and social and environmental justice must be prioritised before and over economic growth. However, what unifies the two approaches is that they both operate at a macro-level, and are therefore relatively unclear about exactly what paths we as societies, communities or individuals need to follow in order to become fully sustainable. This leaves ample room for numerous understandings of sustainability, and for numerous approaches to sustainability in practice. What we see across the cases in this book confirms this point. Thus, even though most of the actors in our cases – certainly cities and bigger and smaller communities –know and claim to work according to the SDGs if asked, the SDGs are relatively remote and hazy goals for most. Instead our actors define the concept performatively: through their practices and communication. For them, sustainability is more a process than an end goal, and sustainability remains an open idea, which is conceptualised as a ‘potentiality’ (Lex and Mikkelsen, Chapter 8, this volume) or an ‘imaginary’ (Pollard, Chapter 12, this volume). This also explains how, using the discursive flexibility of the concept, cities can be (discursively) transformed from ‘sustainability problems’ to ‘sustainabilty solutions’ (Angelo and Wachsmuth, Chapter 11, this volume).

Do-it-yourself and practivism

One recurrent theme in the chapters of this book is the desire to do something without waiting for national governments or the international community to act. This desire can be found in individuals (see Henn and Kaiser, Chapter 2, this volume), but can also take the form of collective action, which can take place at different scales, ranging from cities, to unions, to groups of citizens who meet in real life or who interact through social medias. What is common to the majority of cases described in this volume is that collective action is not geared towards influencing policy makers upward, but is rather concerned with taki...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Note on contributors
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• PART I Individual and collective sustainable norms and behaviour
• PART II Grassroots, green communities and social impact
• PART III Creating sustainable cities and infrastructures
• Index