Learning from a failed project – challenges of implementing ‘green’ technology in a real world setting

ABSTRACT

Sustainable development goals are defined at various institutional and organisational levels, and generate numerous ‘green’ technology projects. Most research concerns successful projects, and good examples are put forward for others to learn from. However, to pave the way for sustainability in practice, more knowledge is needed about the failed projects – what, or who, obstructs the realisation of ecologically motivated projects? This study explores, from a time-geographical perspective, a failed project concerning the introduction of individual metering and debiting of hot tap water in rented flats in Sweden. The study is based on interviews with key persons, observations and documents. The results underline the importance of acknowledging all project constraints and their interrelationship in an implementation process to explain project failure, being of an economic, political, social, cultural, technical, physical or legislative nature. Put into local contexts, similar ‘green technology’ will have different connotations and will have to deal with place-specific constraints. The project owner’s possibility to control and overcome local constraints will determine if the project will succeed or fail.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable development
• failed projects
• Sweden
• hot tap water
• metering
• time-geography

1. Introduction

Policies, goals and visions of sustainable development are set on different geographical scales, for different political settings and for particular organisations and should eventually filter down to impact on individual everyday lives. Our homes are hot spots of consumption, and how we lead our everyday lives and our prerequisites for decreased resource use in the home are increasingly targeted in policies. But what are the incentives for housing companies to make actual investments in sustainable development, especially when ‘business as usual’ does not apply? Sustainable development involves new goals, which test new technology and new arrangements, and add new stakeholders and new organisations. The policy implementation process – from goal setting and selection of actions and measures, to actual effect on everyday living – can be long and convoluted, and sometimes it fails altogether. Policy implementation cannot be taken for granted. It often involves difficult political aspects that become evident when trickling down to affect ‘real’ life (Hupe & Hill, 2016; Hupe, Hill, & Nangia, 2014). Another challenge is making an entire policy regime congruent in facilitating change towards more sustainable socio-technical systems. A common clash is between environmental goals and goals of cost-efficiency (Kern & Howlett, 2009). However, in literature, there is a disproportionately large focus on successful projects and good examples, even if learning outcomes from failed projects are shown to contribute important experiences and feed the success of other projects. What can be ineffective in one place might, with some adjustments, be successful in another (Chang, 2017). Another deficiency of literature is the lack of comprehensive approaches considering all active factors at play, and how they interact and ultimately impact on the project outcome. This article takes a holistic approach and aims to describe and analyse an ambitious case of green technology implementation that failed, with the purpose of visualising the importance of including physical, social, institutional, political, economic and cultural aspects when studying and learning from processes of change aiming at increased sustainability. A second aim is to put forward critical issues causing the green technology implementation to fail. Each case is unique, but one can expect to make analytical generalisations about impeding and enabling factors found in individual cases that share similar political, cultural and socio-economic prerequisites.

The case study concerns the introduction of individual metering and debiting (IMD) of hot tap water in rented flats, where debiting never materialised. A public housing company in one of the larger municipalities in Sweden introduced IMD of hot tap water as one of several measures to fulfil the internal ‘2525’ energy goal, aiming to decrease purchased energy by 25% by 2025. The intentions behind the IMD project are of interest, but the focus is on the activities and processes undertaken to reach goal fulfilment. The research questions are: How did the process play out? What were the important constraints in this process? What were the decisive factors causing the project to fail? What can be learnt from this case to facilitate the introduction of ‘green’ technology in general?

2. Background – the national context for the case study

In Sweden, 48% of all households reside in multi-residential buildings, including 41% of the Swedish population (SCB, 2017). Residents in flats usually pay a rent or fee that includes the cost of hot tap water, and the invisibility of energy costs is deemed to cause over-consumption (Berndtsson, 2005). The introduction of IMD of hot tap water is advocated as a remedy for this situation.

Although common on the European continent, IMD of hot tap water has not gained ground in Sweden. The issue of IMD has arisen at regular intervals since the 1950s, but concern about cost-effectiveness has constantly been put forward as a decisive factor behind decisions not to adopt or legislate IMD (Berndtsson, 2005; Siggelsten & Olander, 2013). The low energy and water prices in Sweden have contributed to the difficulty in achieving cost-efficiency, and with a residential energy system primarily running on water power, nuclear power and district heating, IMD has not been regarded as an efficient measure to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Furthermore, water is generally abundant in most parts of Sweden (Berndtsson, 2005; Swedish Energy Agency, 2016). Other obstacles have been legislation on rent-setting principles and a lack of general debiting standards for IMD (Berndtsson, 2005).

After Sweden entered the EU in 1995, it was assumed that legal demands on IMD were imminent. However, it took until 2014 before the EU Energy Efficiency Directive (2012/27/EU), demanding meters for space heating, space cooling and hot water in buildings, was implemented in Sweden with the Swedish Act on Energy Measurements in Buildings (SFS, 2014). The act stipulated that builders and owners of residential buildings should ensure that space heating, space cooling and hot tap water could be measured individually if cost-effective. For existing buildings and buildings that are renovated, there is also a technical feasibility proviso.

The governmental agency The National Board of Housing, Building and Planning (Boverket) was commissioned in 2014 to draw up general assessments of the cost-efficiency of installing meters in existing buildings, when building new buildings and when renovating existing buildings. The agency concluded that in new buildings and buildings that are renovated, it is never cost-effective to install meters for space cooling and space heating. Hot water meters can be profitable when the installation cost is low, the consumption prices involved (water and sanitation tariff and district heating cost) are higher than average, and the hot water saving is high (30%). However, the likeliness of such a situation occuring was deemed too low to motivate a general demand for meter installation (Boverket, 2014). In existing buildings, no meter of any kind was deemed profitable to install and was therefore not recommended (Boverket, 2015). The assessments have been criticised for adopting a narrow view of cost-effectiveness (based strictly on real estate economics), and for neglecting other values such as environmental benefits, fairness in cost allocation and changes in user practice (Boverket, 2017). In conclusion, this created a paradox situation where there is a legal demand in Sweden to install meters for hot water in residential buildings, but with the current interpretation of cost-effectiveness, the further development of IMD is not enforced.

Nevertheless, despite a difficult economic equation, IMD of hot water is continuously installed in Sweden. Property owners’ main reason for installing IMD is to save energy for environmental reasons, with fair cost allocation and economic profit as secondary motives (Siggelsten & Hansson, 2010). Also, with the contemporary development of improved building superstructures towards zero or near to zero space heating energy usage, hot water usage is likely to become relatively more important when looking at reducing energy usage in the housing sector.

3. Methodological approach

Research within geography addressing new energy technology and sustainability often focuses on controversies in relation to the location of renewable energy artefacts, such as wind turbines (see for instance Graham & Rudolph, 2014; Warren & Birnie, 2009). Less attention is paid to changes in energy systems that may not be as physically conspicuous, but that still entail new circumstances for everyday living and may be controversial in other respects.

Time-geography is a genre within geography developed with the ambition of understanding the relationship between nature and society and the importance of context for social events on various geographical scales (Hägerstrand, 1985). Processual and physical thinking is at the forefront, with time and space as the essential resources for all projects forming a time–space. The movements of every physical object in this time–space can be described by an individual life path, unbroken during its lifetime, and all objects irrespective of whether they are natural or fabricated are given equal weight merely by claiming physical space. The limited time–space makes all objects competitors, but they also rely on each other to make things happen. This is a starting point for describing and analysing a course of events in its local setting (Åqvist, 2002).

Even though time-geography acknowledges the equality of all physical entities, human beings have a special status since humans have ambitions and goals and are able to plan for the future ahead. The planning itself is important, since time–space is full of constraints that curb human activities. The conscious and goal-oriented activities or tasks people engage in relate to various projects. All projects arise with a specific purpose, and encompasses all small or large tasks involved in achieving a certain goal or intention (Kjellman, 2003; Pred, 1981). The intentions behind a project arise from earlier and contemporary situations of a local character as well as from culturally determined impressions and interpretations of reality. Hence, many projects are part of history and cultural copies of earlier events and situations (Hägerstrand, 1996).

The fulfilment of projects depends on fissures in situations and the presence of necessary resources in time–space. Resources can be both material and immaterial (e.g. norms, regulations and rules of conduct) (Schwanen, 2007). The available resources and constraints in a given time–space define restrictions on how activities and projects can be carried out. Time-geography identifies three types of interacting constraints:

Capacity constraints are primarily related to an individual as a biological being and his or her access to the tools necessary for carrying out different activities and projects. Our biological construct necessitates spending time sleeping and eating, time that cannot be used for other activities and strongly structures everyday life (Hägerstrand, 1970). Since other resources, such as money, means of transportation, health and knowledge also constrain an individual’s activity space, they are also identified as capacity constraints (Hägerstrand, 1970). Most projects need people and things to be joined in various constellations in time and space (Ellegård & Svedin, 2012). When necessary connections are hindered, we identify coupling constraints. Couplings are formed by e.g. calendars, timetables, opening hours, working hours and the expectations we place on one another (Hägerstrand, 1970). Authority constraints are related to different kinds of regulations of legal or social character associated with a specific time–space situation. They determine who is in control of the project time–space, which activities could be performed, how they should be executed and who will have access to them. These ‘domains’ exist on various levels and are unequally strong (Hägerstrand, 1970). Authority constraints are generally difficult to alter. The constraints often emanate from previous events, but the identification of constraints in a project context also indicates future paths (Ellegård & Svedin, 2012).

Projects arise on different geographical and organisational levels. They can either be individual or organisational projects. Besides being involved in one’s own individual projects, an individual is usually involved in the individual projects of others and several organisational projects, e.g., at home, at school or at work. Projects on different levels can affect each other in various ways (Kjellman, 2003). Individuals involved in organisational projects often have different mandates to influence the course of events. There is an intrinsic power aspect involved, and for project success it is important to repudiate competitive claims and ideas and to deal with constraints (Hägerstrand, 1996; Kjellman, 2003).

Although there is a focus on the physical world, immaterial aspects such as norms and rules are also part of the project analysis by being connected to a certain time–space and by individuals acknowledging them. All immaterial and material presence and relations produced over time in a certain place form the project landscape (Hägerstrand, 1996).

Whether or not project owner can carry the project through depends on the course of events; what space previous events allow from one time to another (Hägerstrand, 1996). The physical order is important in its physicality, but it also indicates the existing social order. Physical objects can reflect intentions and goals of actors that are not physically present (Schwanen, 2007).

Given a project’s dependency on a sufficient social and physical order for fulfilment and the competition for limited time–space, projects have different statuses and can not all be executed. Much can be learned about project prerequisites and interferences by studying projects that do not reach goal fulfilment – the failed projects. This is interesting not least when it comes to constructing supporting environments for various sustainability projects.

Change cannot always be governed, and it is not certain that all dependencies can be controlled (Hägerstrand, 1991). Successful projects rely on the project owner’s skilfulness in defining, negotiating and controlling beneficial environments. Gathering and controlling resources is an act of power and dominance, and is essential for project realisation (Lenntorp, 2004).

It is by looking at relationships over time in a real world project setting that original intentions can be understood: what was the outcome and why (Hägerstrand, 1996). According to Hägerstrand (Hägerstrand, 1996), the intentions behind a project are interesting but hard (or impossible) to study. A more doable research approach is to study the actual practice.

The IMD project is an organisational project and can be analysed from a project context (Ellegård, 2001). Six semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with key informants from the two parties involved, the housing company and the Union of Tenants. The IMD project leader and a rent negotiator represented the housing company. The Union of Tenants was represented by two administrative clerks/negotiators and two tenants from the board of tenants. The board of tenants makes all decisions in the Union of Tenants. The two tenants were singled out by both the housing company as well as the two clerks from the Union of Tenants as being the most relevant persons to interview on this matter. The interviews took between 35 and 90 minutes and were transcribed.

The project process was also studied via a variety of documents. This particular research project has been part of a larger collaborative project between the university and the housing company during 2011–2015. The housing company and university representatives met twice a year, exchanging information on activities, plans and results. The present research has also covered observations of housing company IMD meetings, dealing with both technical and customer-related issues. Notes from these meetings have been used to cover the IMD process and related issues. The empirical material is also based on various documentation provided by the housing company, such as information letters to residents, PowerPoint slides from meetings and meeting minutes. The Union of Tenants also provided results from an enquiry into residents perspectives on IMD.

4. Results – the story of a failed project

Figure 1 depicts the basic project process from 2010 to 2016 (the time scale is from bottom-up). The initial plans, driven by the company’s ‘2525’ energy goal and pending legal demands, involved installing hot tap water meters in 500–700 flats. However, at the end of 2012, the company management decided to commence on a much smaller scale with a pilot project involving a block of 4 buildings with 48 flats. The aim was to investigate the technical and ICT-related issues before expanding IMD to the rest of the available housing stock, around 12,500 flats. In Figure 1, the black line and the symbol marked ‘HC’ represent the housing company and its representatives.

Figure 1. Project setting.

Individual meters for hot tap water were installed in September 2013 in the pilot area. Actual debiting of hot water according to volumes used was planned to commence in 2015, providing time for technical evaluations, developing debiting and communication systems and rent negotiations. In parallel, from 2014 onwards, the housing company fitted all newly built and renovated buildings with hot tap water meters to prepare for the IMD system’s future growth (upper dashed square in Figure 1). Starting to charge tenants according to actual hot tap water usage needed new rental agreements, which had to be formulated in negotiations between the housing company and the Union of Tenants. The Union of Tenant (grey line and symbol marked UoT in Figure 1) was kept informed about the IMD project early on (dashed grey line), but the actual negotiations did not begin until the beginning of 2014. In the negotiations, the housing company was represented by various constellations, but the IMD project leader and the rent negotiator formed the nucleus. The Union of Tenants was represented by the ‘small’ board of tenants (conveying the board of tenants’ decisions) and administrative clerks/negotiators employed by the Union of Tenants. On occasions, the large board of tenants (comprising 26 tenants, 1 from each residential area) was convened. These negotiations eventually failed, and in April 2016 the project was officially put on hold and remains on hold to date (September 2017).

The simple answer to the question of why the project failed is the unsuccessful rent negotiations. However, supplementing the skeleton project process described above with information from interview material provides wider insights into the causes.

4.1. Diverging ideas of ‘normal usage’ and possible reductions of usage

Both the Union of Tenants and the housing company agreed that IMD was beneficial to the environment. The chief issue of disagreement, played out early in the process, was what should be considered as ‘normal’ usage of hot tap water, determining the size of tenants’ rent decrease when extracting hot water from the rent. Based on experience of hot tap water usage in areas under an IMD regime and recommendations from the public housing companies’ professional organisation (SABO), the housing company initially suggested 380 l of hot tap water per square meter of living area and year as normal usage. In the total housing stock, the general average usage was 550 l of hot tap water per square meter of living area and year, entailing an anticipated lowering of hot tap water usage by 31%. The housing company argued that a normal usage of 380 l of hot tap water per square meter of living area and year would guarantee project cost recovery, and would facilitate the introduction of IMD of hot tap water in all technically feasible flats throughout the housing stock. With a higher normal usage, it would not be cost-efficient to install IMD in areas already using less hot tap water than 400 l per square meter of living area and year, for example, newly produced flats and flats in the city centre with low population densities.

The Union of Tenants, on the other hand, suggested a higher normal usage of 425 l of hot tap water per square meter of living area and year, corresponding to a 23% mean hot tap water reduction. They referred to a similar IMD introduction in another municipality where 20% of the hot tap water was saved. According to the Union of Tenants, this was a more realistic expectation for savings considering that 30% is commonly cited as being at the upper end of actual savings from IMD. Furthermore, if the housing company’s calculation was dependent on such substantial savings for cost recovery, the Union of Tenants found it an economically risky project where the tenants would take all the risk. The difference that would potentially occur with the higher normal usage of hot tap water was suggested to be covered by the housing company surplus.

The final bid from the housing company was 400 l of hot tap water per square meter of living area and year (a 27% reduction). According to the IMD-project leader, this level did not yield a return on investments, but was motivated by environmental concerns and by providing residents with increased options. A normal usage norm of 425 l of hot tap water per square meter of living area and year would reduce the number of cost-effective installations by half (from about 12,500 to 5000–6000 flats), and would only embrace areas that combined high usage and simple installations – such as the pilot area and the socio-economically vulnerable suburbs. The IMD project leader said:

[…]Then it could be justified to call this a witch-hunt … We want to treat our customers equally and not chase those who have a hard time and live in crowded conditions … but real estate economics will have such an effect when we go for a higher normal usage […] (IMD project leader)

One tenant representative, however, believed it could be worth looking at only installing IMD where it could be justified:

[…] Some areas in the city have higher usage than others … How will you address that … that it will be a question of class … and it is somewhat problematic […] Data shows this and you do not have to put any values into it … If you can put it (IMD) in a part of the housing stock where it is cost-effective, I think you should do that […] but I think it is politically sensitive terrain. (Tenant representative A)

4.2. Knowledge and decision-making

The two negotiating parties were two fundamentally different organisations. The housing company was a professional organisation initiating socio-technical change and possessing expert knowledge. The Union of Tenants, on the other hand, was a grassroots organisation where all decisions were made by a board of tenants who were experts at being tenants, but laypersons when it came to the technical and economic issues which they had to decide on. Both parties stated that the housing company worked hard to bridge this information and knowledge gap, and that there was no mistrust of the figures and information presented. Still, both parties agreed that it was difficult for the Union of Tenants representatives to grasp the general and individual implications of introducing IMD of hot tap water in the housing stock:

[…] It is too complicated for those who are not technically informed to feel confident in the decision they are making … I think they rather postpone and shuffle this back to us and look for both belt and braces because they do not know what decision they are making […] (IMD project leader)

[…] It is a pedagogical issue on the part of the board of tenants to show that this many litres corresponds to this amount of money and over time it will cover this investment and so on … It has not been easy for everyone on the board of tenants to grasp the issue … It has taken a lot of meetings before everyone was fairly well versed on it […] (Tenant representative A)

The Union of Tenants became involved quite early on in the process (see Figure 1), which they found unconventional but inspirational. However, the early involvement also added to the confusion; it became a long process with a lot of figures presented back and forth.

The housing company informants said that the initial negotiator from the Union of Tenants (present until mid-2014) played an important role in translating and simplifying the information provided to the tenants. When this person went on parental leave, never to return to the negotiations, there was essentially a contract to be signed. A new negotiator was introduced, but gradually one of the more informed tenant representatives took a more active and stronger position, starting to question the cost-efficiency and economic calculations at a time when others on the board of tenants had difficulties understanding what was going on. The negotiations were prolonged:

[…] We should have compressed it and agreed a deadline for it to be settled within a reasonable period of time … Now it took years … No other negotiations are prolonged in this way […] At the same time, it is difficult because the Union of Tenants wants to be involved throughout the entire process […] (Housing company negotiator)

The Union of Tenant’s representatives, on the other hand, did not find the first negotiator’s leave of absence to be as important for the ongoing process. Instead, they emphasised the opposing views among the board of tenants as being decisive for their difficulty in making a final decision. Some members focused on the anticipated negative economic effects for the tenants, where some also advocated solidarity/collective payment, while others emphasised the environmental benefits and the possibility for individual tenants to save money. Uncertainty among the board of tenants about what the majority of tenants felt about IMD, led the Union of Tenants to send out a simple survey to all housing company tenants for whom they they had an e-mail address. However, the survey was interpreted as mirroring the two diverging opinions in the board of tenants equally strong and gave no further directions.

4.3. External conditions – legislation and energy prices

Both parties agreed that the low energy cost was an important factor in terms of negotiations backfiring. The expected increase in energy costs never materialised. Mild winters created a surplus of electrical energy and the cost of district heating was low. According to examples provided by the housing company to the board of tenants, a family of five living in a flat of 120 m² that has used twice the suggested ‘normal’ usage (400 l hot tap water per square meter of living area/year) will have to pay 128 SEK more (≈ €13.50) per month compared to a situation without IMD. A single person in a 65 m² flat would save 37 SEK/month (€ 3.90) by using half the suggested normal hot tap water usage. The low energy prices also resulted in tough saving demands in the housing company calculation, especially since the housing company choose a fairly expensive technical solution allowing further applications.

In addition, there was a unanimity among the parties that the lack of stronger legal demands made it possible to opt out. The initial negotiations were influenced by expected legal demands for metering. When the report from the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning on IMD was published at the end of 2014 (Boverket, 2014) and in early autumn 2015 (Boverket, 2015), suggesting no imperative law on metering in any type of housing, circumstances changed:

[…] It opened up the possibility that you did not have to agree … If you felt uncertain you did not have to … Before that you wondered how it should be to do this in the best possible way […] (Tenant representative B)

This needed to change if the project was not to fail altogether:

I believe that (the future of IMD) depends on external parties […] like governments and legislation and stuff like that. I do not think we can affect it […] (Housing company negotiator)

The IMD project leader summarised the lack of support from external aspects:

[…] Water and energy are pretty inexpensive … The calculation is in the balance … We had a scenario where we believed the price of water and energy would be higher, but right now we are in a situation where it is even lower … So the motives have not been reinforced but rather weakened, and since the legislation has become a lame duck and energy prices developed in a way we did not anticipate, […] the driving forces have been diluted during the project […] (IMD project leader)

One way forward would have been to negotiate with each individual tenant. This was, however, not an attractive option for the housing company. The size of the company requires that rent negotiations are carried out collectively, and a general agreement valid in all parts of the city was also deemed necessary out of fairness and for enhancing administration and communication with tenants. A more confrontational approach also might have jeopardised the annual negotiations between the housing company and the Union of Tenants about rents in general.

The continuous installation of meters outside the pilot project, before any agreement was in place, altered the power relationships to some extent:

[…] We have installed metering equipment […] which renders no returns at present … and the more we install the worse the negotiating conditions are vis-á-vis the Union of Tenants since they are aware of this […] (IMD project leader)

5. Analysis – how can the failed project be understood?

The project process was underpinned by varied intentions between the actors involved and the balance between environmental and cost savings came to the centre. Diverging ideas of about normal levels of hot tap water usage affected both the sustainability outcome, missing out on potential resource reductions, and the IMD project outcome. It revealed differing ideas about both the tenants’ and the housing company’s economic capacity to carry the cost following the IMD project. The arguments of ecological sustainability fell short in relation to economic capacity constraints. However, studying the project process also reveals other constraints at play. In Figure 2, the basic project process from Figure 1 is added to and adjusted according to the detailed process accounted for in the previous chapter.

Figure 2. Project process analysis.

Several constraints intruded on the supportive timely and spatial order set-up for the IMD project, gradually undermining project fulfilment. Some of the constraints were self-inflicted while others related to external circumstances that came to have a direct impact on the project process.

The meters themselves became important agents in the project process. The IMD pilot was restricted to 48 flats, but meters were also continuously installed in new buildings and in renovation schemes from 2014 onwards, before any agreement existed on what terms IMD should be introduced (see upper dashed square in Figure 2). Even though they were of no practical use before being connected to an ICT system, as physical objects they communicated the housing company’s intentions and increased the economic risk. It altered the power relationships in favour of the Union of Tenants. The more meters that were installed, the larger the financial and prestigious risk for the housing company and simultaneous lessening of control over the IMD process.

It may appear precipitous that the housing company kept installing meters without an agreement in place, but they believed (as did the Union of Tenants) that IMD was an inevitable development considering the anticipated rise in energy costs and what was known about the content of the Energy Efficiency Directive and conditions for its implementation in Swedish law. The pending legislation (right side in Figure 2) was a strong authority constraint supporting the IMD project. This authority constraint, however, was more or less completely obliterated when the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning came to the conclusion that IMD would never be cost-efficient, leaving IMD introduction to each housing company to decide on. This opened up a new path for the IMD project that had not been accessible before. The legislative procedure became an authority constraint for the housing company’s efforts to reduce hot tap water use.

The two involved parties, the Union of Tenants (Figure 2 grey lines) and the housing company (Figure 2 black line) needed to come together to realise the IMD pilot project, and several conventions were arranged to facilitate physical meetings. However, the negotiation process was hampered by capability constraints – the technology and its effects were too complex to get a common picture. The arguments from the two involved parties were based on different conditions and it was not possible to link them to each other in a productive way. This coupling constraint prolonged the negotiation process and extended the time–space for new constraints to enter the process (left cylinder in Figure 2). According to the housing company, the first Union of Tenants negotiator played an important role in bridging the knowledge gap between the parties. When leaving the project process (organisational project) for parental leave (individual project of child rearing) (left grey line leaving to the left in the magnified cylinder to the right in Figure 2), both a coupling constraint and capacity constraint were added. A new negotiator entered the process (in Figure 2, grey line entering from the right in magnified cylinder, mid-2014), with different skills and capabilities and less experience of the IMD project history. During the phase of shifting negotiators, a time–space void appeared which allowed agents to take on new roles and new constraints to enter. In this case, a knowledgeable and critical tenant (dashed grey line in magnified cylinder that becomes filled) gradually took a stronger position and added capacity constraints to the IMD project by complicating the decision-making basis.

Despite the limited size of the IMD pilot in relation to the housing company’s overall IMD potential, its results would prove to be critical for the larger project of making IMD standard in the housing stock (12,500 flats). The negotiations comprised the larger project and a successful pilot project would ‘colonialise the future’ (Schwanen, 2007 after Hägerstrand), facilitating an expanded IMD regime. If the IMD pilot had been regarded as an isolated enclave, a higher normal usage could have been accepted for this and other areas sharing the characteristics of high usage and easy installation of meters. This would, however, exclude large parts of the housing stock and was political sensitive terrain since it would have targeted the most socio-economic vulnerable areas.

Another option for the housing company would have been to negotiate the terms with each resident. However, this would have risked introducing coupling constraints between the housing company and the Union of Tenants, jeopardising other, more important, projects such as the annual rent negotiations. Projects compete for limited resources, and when conflict arises the less important projects will fail. In this case, the housing company was the project owner for both the IMD introduction and the overall housing company project, with the former being a less important project in comparison. So even if the housing company had the power to enforce the IMD pilot project, the couplings between the IMD project and other larger and more important projects made it sensitive to using this power. The pilot IMD project, with its character of being a ‘test bench’, was to be scaled up to be valid for the entire housing stock without modifications. The housing company found it too risky to embark on a full-scale IMD project immediately, but the negotiations with the Union of Tenants embraced the full project. Hence, the Union of Tenants did not have the same cushion, which may have contributed to its hesitation towards signing the agreement. A more fruitful way to go about would this be to let all the included parts be of a pilot character, learn from it, and create a feasible setting for IMD based on those findings. Now, not all implications of the IMD pilot came to the surface since debiting never materialised

6. Conclusions – critical aspects and clues to avoid failed ‘green’ technology projects

This article takes a holistic approach in studying and analysing failed green technology implementation. Compared to more disciplinary and narrow views on important aspects to consider, the time–space perspective includes and acknowledges the various constraints at play in an implementation and change process. It opens up the possibility to embrace critical issues of, e.g., a physical, social, institutional, political, technical, economic and cultural nature. The Swedish case of IMD implementation is an example of how policies and projects guided by internationally and nationally determined visions and tools for sustainable development may play out when applied in a local setting. The meters mediated the European Union’s and the housing company’s intentions towards more sustainable everyday living. However, put into a local context, the introduction of individual meters (and eventually debiting) had different connotations and had to deal with place-specific constraints. Sweden, with its long history of cheap energy and water prices and a tradition of all-inclusive rents for tenants, did not provide the necessary economic or technical incentives motivating and enforcing individual metering and payment for hot tap water. Legal requirements would have provided the IMD project with the necessary support and a beneficial setting, but in absence of such backing, environmental gains was the only supporting external factor left. It entailed an upscaling of solidarity, from the neighbours in the city to ‘humanity’ gaining from savings on common resources within the framework of sustainable development. The benefits from such a turn were less tangible and difficult for tenants to grasp, and economic concerns took precedence.

A basic prerequisite for any project to reach goal fulfilment is that the project owner is in control of the necessary resources, can repudiate competitive claims and can get around constraints (Hägerstrand, 1996). Hence, there is an intrinsic power aspect involved in the process towards goal achievement. In this particular case, it was assumed that energy prices and legislation would support the project, but during the process those prerequisites changed. Such conditions, external to the project per se but part of its immediate setting, cannot be controlled by the project owner, which is why it is important that they are stable from the beginning.

Overall, providing information to tenants about environmental benefits, technology and economic implications was a challenge. Involving individuals with ‘translator skills’ was important in this case, which was evident when such an identified person left the negotiations. In other approaches studying failed projects, individual projects inflicting on organisational projects are often considered negligible and are therefore overlooked. In a time–space perspective, however, all events in the process are first acknowledged and then evaluated in terms of importance for the project outcome, and this case nicely shows its relevance.

The case shows that it is important to consider local situations and conducts when implementing new green technology. Nevertheless, traditions and ‘normal’ procedures must be reappraised; a sustainability concept inherently entails doing things differently than before.

This is a single case study of a failed project where the outcome is strongly dependent on place-specific conditions – availability and cost of energy and water resources, degree of influence from interest groups, housing policies, legislation, traditions, etc. Nevertheless, there is a universality in how difficult it can be to do something that breaks with the ‘normal order of things’, which sustainability is all about, and how important it is to incorporate comprehensive changes into projects that are possible to carry out on a local level.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council Formas [grant number 2008-1335].