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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
- Sprache: Englisch
This book aims to present a systemic perspective to energetic transition to a discarbonated society implying an increase of energetic efficiency of current production process, new way of energy production - integration of renewable energies, re-use of wastes. Main societal functions are analyzed in order to highlight the ongoing process of technological and non-technological innovations: transport and mobility, food, building. The purpose of this book is to analyze from a global perspective the energetic innovative system on building and to understand the limits of its development and potential new actions.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title
Copyright
Preface
Introduction
1 A Necessary Transition?
1.1. Socio-technical systems facing their limits
1.2. An analytical framework under construction: the Transition Studies
1.3. Eco-innovations: facilitators of the transition?
2 Energy Transitions
2.1. A socially structuring energy model
2.2. Fundamentals and characterization of the current energy system
2.3. The limits of the current energy system
2.4. Innovation in the energy transition
2.5. Barriers of the energy transition
3 Agro-ecological Transitions
3.1. The notion of agro-ecology
3.2. The implementation of the agro-ecological transition
3.3. Obstacles and levers for the agro-ecological transition
3.4. The levers for agro-ecological transition: the role of public policies
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Illustrations
1 A Necessary Transition?
Figure 1.1. Geels’ multi-level perspective (taken from Geels [GEE 06a, p. 173])
3 Agro-ecological Transitions
Figure 3.1. Changes of sales by organic businesses in different distribution channels from 1999 to 2014 (source: Agence BIO/ANDI)
Landmarks
Cover
Table of Contents
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Smart Innovation Set
coordinated byDimitri Uzunidis
Volume 7
Innovations and Techno-ecological Transition
Fabienne Picard
Corinne Tanguy
First published 2016 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd 27-37 St George’s Road London SW19 4EU UK
www.iste.co.uk
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street Hoboken, NJ 07030 USA
www.wiley.com
© ISTE Ltd 2016
The rights of Fabienne Picard and Corinne Tanguy to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016948015
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-84821-876-5
Preface
In August 2015, the French Parliament adopted the law on the energy transition for green growth after a year of citizen debates. A few months later, Paris hosted the 21st UN Climate Change Conference (COP 21). These two key events provided an opportunity for gaining an individual and collective awareness about the impact of our activities on our environment and of their consequences. They remind us of the limited natural resources that are used extensively in our daily lives. They highlight the shortcomings of post-industrial societies, stressing that solutions exist or are emerging within various communities to build a low carbon society.
As quoted by Albert Einstein, “The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them”. Exiting the current paradigm is the goal of the underlying sustainable transitions discussed here. How can we encourage this structural transformation and the emergence of socio-technical systems that are environmentally friendly? How can we create a dialogue between technological innovation and the environment in order to reconcile man and nature, the economy and the environment?
These questions could not be missing from the collection of works published by ISTE. We propose a systemic vision built around the process of innovation that goes beyond disciplinary boundaries by focusing on two major areas, energy and the agriculture-food industry. In writing this book, we are aware of our privileged position, that of researchers living in developed countries, where access to water and electricity is instantaneous for a relatively low cost. It is in this particular posture that we write without trying to give a universal character to our remarks.
This book is the result of work done within the Research on Innovation Network (http://2ri.eu) whose objective is three-fold: to observe and analyse the process of innovation, theorize innovation systems and value research in economics and management of innovation. We thank Dimitri Uzunidis, its President, for giving us the opportunity to write this book and all of our colleagues whose ideas have stimulated our thinking.
Fabienne PICARDCorinne TANGUYAugust 2016
Introduction
In its initial meaning, the term transition defines the physical change of state of a substance moving, for example, from a liquid to a gaseous state. It was then applied to the analysis of other types of systems: social systems (transition from an agrarian society to a market society), political systems (transition of communist countries to a market economy) and more recently to technological systems. The transitions discussed in this book relate to the field of sustainable development and its three pillars, which are economic, social and environmental. They are considered sustainable transitions or sustainability transition.
The year 2015 was marked in France by the promulgation of the law on energy transition (18 August 2015) and COP21 in Paris. For the first of these, its objective is to modify the impact of human activities on the environment (the stated objectives of the law on the energy transition are to make buildings and economic housing efficient in terms of energy consumption, giving priority to the development of clean transport, achieving zero waste and making today’s wastes tomorrow’s materials, continuing the growth of renewable energy, fighting against energy precariousness), and for the second, its objective is to limit climate change to a rise in global temperature of 2°C by the end of the century compared to the pre-industrial period.1 These events question the implementation of structural changes (transition) that will make socio-technical systems respectful of the emerging and environment, and thus create a dialogue of innovations, technology, and environment, and reconcile man and nature, the economy, society and the environment. This is, in other words, to achieve a balance of the three constituent pillars of sustainable development to ensure sustainability of the implemented solutions.
Resource management practices, individual behaviours, organizations and other forms of groups, which structure the contemporary patterns of consumption and production, are tested here. The issue is the transformation of our societies to make them resilient, inclusive and sustainable. The challenge is matched only by the complexity of the subject and the abundance of literature that seeks to understand, analyse and to propose solutions.
When discussing the concept of sustainable development, a definition often put forward is “A [mode of] development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” according to Mrs. Brundtland, Prime Minister of Norway and President of the World Commission on the Environment and Development, given in 1987 in the report Our Common Future (Brundtland report). What can be considered as “sustainable” is certainly subject to discussion, and the awareness of the need to establish immediately global solidarity, beyond intergenerational solidarity, appears increasingly strong. This process was initiated following a series of alerts. Economic alerts, such as the one initiated in 1971 by The Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome2, taken in 1972 to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm where it was then a question of eco-development. Ecological alerts about environmental and climatic imbalances (acid rain, hole in the ozone layer, melting glaciers, deforestation, etc.), the multiplication of industrial disasters, Seveso (1976), Amoco Cadiz (1978) and Chernobyl (1986), Exxon Valdez (1989), and more recently Fukushima (2011). Social alerts related to health risks.
Gradually, instead of the opposition between economy, ecology and growth, a reflection on the relationship between these concepts and terms of sustainable integration of these three dimensions (economic, social and environmental) has taken place. It is clear that “our growth patterns are not sustainable given the resources and limits of the planet; we must go through a transition to rebuild our models and achieve sustainable development”3. The dualistic vision opposing economy, growth and ecology, environment, which still appears in the different transition scenarios [DAV 14], leaves room for the expression of other views of society. Systemic approaches to transition emphasize the fact that the structural changes that appear unavoidable today cannot be solely borne by the development of new technologies or the introduction of technologically innovative solutions, nor by the way of the market. Social models that are being redefined will be the result of multidimensional developments where economic, technological, sociological and environmental constraints intersect in a multi-stakeholders? co-construction process.
Beyond the simple greening of the current model of society, the ecological transition is based on two inseparable components: “social and societal innovation […]: the ecological transition implies the emergence of a new governance, new ways of acting, producing, new and more sober consumption practices that are built and shared by all the stakeholders to gradually build new collective references; technological innovation and research and development in the fields of organization and industrial processes: it is necessary to work on all the modalities to save natural resources and reduce environmental impacts. This is particularly the case for sectors with a low rate of infrastructure and equipment (production of energy, construction, transport, etc.) renewal, for which the choices of the next few years will be crucial to influence the long term trajectory”4. However, does innovation allow the achievement of environmental objectives cheaper and faster? Can eco-innovations form the basis of a new model of society?
The underlying assumptions for our purpose are the following:
– The ecological transition can be increased by new technologies, but it cannot be reduced to this one technological dimension
– Technologies are primarily social constructs and innovation is by its nature a systemic process
– Energy, mobility based and agro-ecological transitions constitute an inseparable converging whole, carrying the same citizen social remobilization.
To address the issue of the relationship between innovations and transitions, this book is divided into three chapters. The first chapter aims to set the scene, both theoretical and factual, of the issue of sustainable transition and its necessity. In doing so, it shows that the structural change of a company can be analysed through technological, societal and institutional innovations. This applies to all the major social functions, that is to say socially structuring economic activities, which fall within “innovation systems”. Two of the major functions receive special attention, and these from the following two chapters: first of all the energy, then agriculture and food processing sectors. Not only are these societal functions vital to maintaining the human condition, but they are supported by combinations of territorial scale where tensions between the local and the global are expressed. In doing so, they invite us to question the “classical” models of innovation in the context of socio-technical transitions. We will seize the chance in each of these chapters to review the conditions of implementation of these innovations, but also the blocking and locking factors that hinder the success of the transition. The conclusion will question the territoriality of the studied processes and review the nature of the required changes.
1
The synthesis of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fifth Report published in November 2014 states that if emissions continue at the current pace, rising temperatures will instead be 4. 8°C.
2
The report on the limits to growth (The Limits To Growth), also known as the Meadows report, is a requested report to a team of Massachusetts Institute of Technology by the Club of Rome in the early 1970.
3
http://www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/Qu-est-ce-que-la-transition.html
.
4
http://www.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/Qu-est-ce-que-la-transition.html
.
1A Necessary Transition?
The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate the empirical and theoretical components that influence the reflection on sustainable transitions today, that is to say the structural transformations of socio-technical systems. In a prosaic way, the concept of transition, moving towards sustainable development, can be defined as the structural transformation of society, or its constituting subsystems, towards modes of production, distribution and consumption that are more respectful to the environment and less energy-consuming, notably of fossil fuels and natural resources [OEC 11]. More than a state to be achieved, the transition can be seen as a process of moving to a different society, a process consisting of various routes.
This structural transformation of societies can be “spontaneous”. It can also be guided, directed by “survival” imperatives and a collective awareness of the need to preserve the environment and natural resources. It then becomes a subject of debate and potential expression of a citizen draft [SCA 15]. Sustainable transition becomes a political and social project; it takes the quality of an ecological or socio-ecological transition. Hidden behind these different terms is a particular vision of the processes of construction and transformation of societies, a different interpretation of the relationship between the environment, technology, human and society (in its economic, political, socio-cultural).
If sustainable transition is discussed in this work through the light of transformations in socio-technical systems, it also implies that these major structural changes are made in a multi-dimensional dynamic setting, involving technology, society and the environment. The question of how these transformations occur then arises, the respective place occupied by the different dimensions of these systems, the nature and forms of their interaction, the addressed locks and encountered barriers.
Not only do systems have to change in order to meet the different challenges that they face, but the implementation of a transition1 to a to a low carbon society is associated with an evolving relationship with the environment and nature. In a society that is totally mediated by (technological) objects [KAP 09], the transition urges us to question the place and the evolution of these objects and the arrangements that are implemented in order to address major societal functions. By redefining the human’s relationship with technological systems that are environmentally focused and not exclusively anthropocentric, we rethink the definition of the three pillars of sustainable development and their combination.
To answer this question, we quickly review the limits of socio-technical systems and transition issues (section 1.1). We will then see how these new concerns invite researchers, especially in economics and sociology, to propose a new framework of transition analysis and innovation processes (section 1.2) in which eco-innovations and environmental innovations take place (section 1.3).
1.1. Socio-technical systems facing their limits
In socially structuring areas such as energy, transport, and food, the socio-technical systems in place have reached their limits and the macro-environment’s increasing pressure makes adjustments at the margin increasingly inadequate. Thus, the energy supply system is faced with a depletion of natural resources, especially fossil fuels, air pollution (local and global) and emissions of greenhouse gases, but also a nuclear risk, revived by the Fukushima accident in Japan in 2011, the difficulties of securing energy and raw material supply in a context of geopolitical instability, energy insecurity of a growing part of the population [INT 11]. Transport must also cope, especially in major cities, with road traffic congestion, increased local air pollution, depletion of fossil fuels, especially hydrocarbons oil, which impacts the fuel price, increased CO2 and greenhouse gas emissions (Box 1.1), and a growth in the number of accidents [GEE 12]. As for agriculture and the food industry, they must also face many difficulties: loss of biodiversity and repetitive food crises.
The reflections on the need to operate transformations in the modes of production and consumption are related to the awareness of the existence of a system that reached its limits. These limits and dysfunctions of the current socio-technical systems appear during intense recurrent crises of varying intensity. They affect the capacity of these systems to meet the large societal functions assigned to them; providing humans with food, housing and transportation. Authors like Grin et al. [GRI 10, p. 1] go even further by considering that “… without such a shift to a more sustainable economy, we might also not be able to solve the financial and economic crisis in the long run”. But more than an absolute limit, what we face is the incompatibility between the mode of development initiated in the wake of the First Industrial Revolution and current socio-technical systems used that appear to be less and less able to provide solutions to the demographic shock of the late 20th Century.
1.1.1. Meeting global demographic pressures
Global population pressure probably constitutes one of the first break points. If the population growth rate was relatively contained from the Neolithic period to the First Industrial Revolution, the latter, in only 200 years, increased the world’s population from just one billion to more than seven billion people today according to the latest forecast of United Nations [UN 15] and INED [INE 13].
Over the last centuries, and especially in the 20th Century, humans have developed all kinds of socio-technical systems, contributing to the improvement of their living standards and life expectancy, but have ignored environmental limits and available and accessible natural resources2. The use of natural resources for productive purposes and satisfaction of human needs makes the human living conditions dependent on their ability to exploit these resources. As Rotillon [ROT 10] recalls in his introductory remarks, the economic study of the problems related to the exploitation of natural resources by humans leads to a dual concern of resource depletion and of environmental degradation.
It is observed that a large part of these challenges is environmental in nature, even if they encompass strong economic and sociological issues. Indeed, most of the technological solutions used today in key areas of energy and agriculture/food processing are an important source of negative externalities on the environment. The economists define externalities or external effects as a production or consumption activity of an agent that affects the well-being of another without either of these receiving a compensation for this effect. Pollution in all its forms is a typical example of a negative externality: when a factory is emitting waste into the environment, it provokes, without compensation, a nuisance to local residents. Traffic congestion is an example of a reciprocal negative externality: each motorist affects and is affected negatively by the other [HEN 16].
1.1.2. Limiting the depletion of natural resources
The growing use of natural resources inevitably leads to depletion when we refer to non-renewable resources. A corollary to this orchestrated scarcity is that resource accessibility is reduced and costs increase. The impact of the physical exhaustion of natural resources on economic growth is immediate (steady state, zero growth, degrowth).
It is interesting to note that the classical economists, in the 19th Century, analysed the consequences of the depletion of natural resources on the economic development. Thus, Ricardo [RIC 17] envisaged a steady economic state under the constraint of the decrease in the fertility of available arable land. Malthus [MAL 20] considered, meanwhile, that population growth was inconsistent with available resources. As he pointed out to Jevons, in ‘the coal question’ (1865), the end of the Industrial Revolution is nearing in England because of the exhaustion of coal deposits. In 1912 the Italian chemist Giacomo Ciamician recalled that modern civilisation was the result of fossil coal that man has greedily exploited but that these deposits were not inexhaustible [VEN 05]. As Albrecht notes [ALB 09], the appearance of fossil fuels was initially accompanied by an awareness of the shortage and the finite nature of this resource, which did not stop man from building a civilisation based on these resources. This issue was obscured from 1930 only to “reappear in 1970 at the publication of works of the Club of Rome (Meadows Report [MEA 72]). A few years later, the oil shock following the Kippur War (1973) raised the issue of energy independence and the securing of supply, resulting in the adoption of the Messmer Plan for the deployment of nuclear power plants in France (1974– 1986). Beyond the availability of natural resources, their destocking generates environmental damage that intensifies the increase of exploitation of these resources, in connection with the growing demand generated by the increasing demographic pressure previously mentioned.
1.1.3. Restrain environmental degradation
Environmental degradation caused by anthropocentric patterns of production and consumption covers a broad spectrum. The latter extends from the alterations of local ecosystems (local pollution of extraction sites of natural resources, pollution of groundwater, deforestation) to the risks incurred locally by the people as in the case of shale gas extraction [WOE 15], to more global effects. One of the most emblematic manifestations of anthropogenic effects is undoubtedly global warming. Greenhouse gases (GHGs; Box 1.1) are the link between human activities and global warming. These gases are certainly present in nature, but a growing proportion of greenhouse gases results from human activities. Their accumulation since the beginning of the industrial era (the life of a CO2 molecule is a century) is a major accelerator of global warming as it intensifies the greenhouse effect. The increase in the greenhouse effect is due to the increasing concentration of GHGs in the atmosphere, resulting in an imbalance of heat exchange between the Earth and space, thus contributing to global warming. It is estimated, since measurements of the global average surface temperature of the Earth were established, that this temperature has increased by about 0.85°C between 1880 and 2012 [IPC 13]. The ocean temperature has also increased and land glaciers have melted.
In this matter, alarm was expressed by the IPCC. Created in 1988 with the initiative of the United Nations, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was tasked to assess – in an unbiased, methodical and objective way – the scientific, technical and socio-economic available information in connection with the issue of climate change3. It proposed a methodology for evaluating emissions of GHGs by country. Its various reports have contributed to the awareness of the anthropogenic nature of climate change and the need to act given the consequences (economic, political and social) of non-action. The irreversibility of the processes and the slow trend of reversal mechanisms suggest significant ecosystem reconfigurations on Earth. Rapidly introducing structural changes became compulsory and that is the aim of transitions hoping to achieve more durability. In June 1992, the Framework Convention on Climate Change in Rio pointed out the need to stabilize the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere “at a level that would prevent dangerous interference with the climate system and in a sufficiently rapid manner to allow the adaptation of savings, preservation of food production and the establishment of sustainable economic development”. As far as we know, the international negotiation processes fully illustrate the difficulty of implementing global governance, and the tragedy of the commons developed by Oström (Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009).
Box 1.1.The greenhouse effect and the role of greenhouse gases
The greenhouse phenomenon is a natural one. It involves the heat exchange between Earth and space. In this process, the Earth receives and absorbs energy, primarily due to solar radiation. Part of this radiation is reflected by clouds, Earth’s surface and, oceans out into space, and some radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere. Some gases in the atmosphere absorb this thermal radiation and re-emit the heat to the Earth’s surface: this is called the greenhouse effect.
The absence of this greenhouse effect would result in an average temperature of −18°C on Earth. The increase in the greenhouse effect leads to a rise in the average temperature of the Earth’s surface. A number of gases (carbon dioxide, methane, ozone and artificial gases, fluorinated gases such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs)) accumulate in the atmospheric layers and increase the greenhouse effect. These gases, known as greenhouse gases, trap thermal infrared radiation emitted from the surface of the Earth and change its “radiation balance”, that is to say, the balance between the energy absorbed by the Earth and emitted out to space.
Apart from carbon dioxide (CO2), which accounts for 70% of GHG emissions originating from anthropogenic sources, mainly from the combustion of fossil fuels and biomass, the IPCC identifies about 40 greenhouse gases. Among the most important is nitrous oxide (N2O), which constitutes 16% of emissions resulting from agricultural activities and biomass combustion. Methane (CH4) represents 13% of the emissions. It originates from agriculture, landfills, production activities and energy distribution. Fluorinated gases (HFCs, PFCs, SF6) are, in turn, used in refrigeration systems, aerosols and the last two in the semiconductor industry. Although they account for only 2% of emissions, these gases have a higher per-molecule impact than CO2. Different GHGs are differentiated by their degree of nuisance and their lifetime. Methane has a global warming potential 25 times greater than CO2. This impact is measured by a Global Warming Potential Index (GWP) in 100 years: a GWP of 1 for CO2
