Institutionalising environmental sustainability transitions in New Zealand and Australia: Introduction to the special issue

ABSTRACT

Politics is critical to understanding the pathways to a sustainable future. In recent years, a scholarly field has emerged, seeking to understand whether transitions towards more sustainable societies and economies occur and, if so, how they unfold. However, this field has not always fully incorporated the role of politics in shaping discourses, institutions and economic visions, or considered regions outside of Europe and North America. In this introduction to the special issue, we briefly review the field of sustainability transitions, highlighting the need to better capture the role played by political factors, institutions and (debates on) economic innovations in these transitions. We explain that sustainability is a contested concept, with two dominant conceptualisations: weak and strong sustainability. The framework of sustainability transitions allows us to position the contributions of the articles included in this special issue, which examine governance and institutions, media discourses, the role of industry and alternative economic models. The special issue focuses on two jurisdictions infrequently discussed in the literature on sustainability transitions: New Zealand and Australia. The special issue thus contributes new theoretical and empirical perspectives on the role of politics, political institutions and economic visions in sustainability transitions in the South Pacific.

KEYWORDS:

• Transitions
• sustainability
• New Zealand
• Australia
• discourses
• bioeconomy
• climate change
• Institutional innovations

1. Introduction

Humanity is facing a series of environmental challenges that require ever more urgent action. Problems such as climate change and loss of biodiversity threaten substantial and far-reaching disruption to society and the biosphere in the coming decades. These problems cannot be addressed through incremental action by individual, uncoordinated actors (Köhler et al. 2019; van den Bergh, Truffer, and Kallis 2011). Instead, concurrent technical, economic, institutional, socio-cultural and political changes are required, some of which represent radical departures from current institutions, regulations and practices. Such transitions are highly complex, as they connect to many aspects of society, including the economy, technology, politics, policy and institutions (Köhler et al. 2019). The complexity and extent of social and technological change required presents substantial barriers to society reaching ‘sustainability’ (at least in its stronger conceptions).

In recent years, a new field has emerged which seeks to understand how such radical shifts – referred to as ‘sustainability transitions’ – can occur (Grin, Rotmans, and Schot 2010; Köhler et al. 2019). Knowledge from a wide range of fields has been applied to the study of sustainability transitions, including economics, sociology, history and systems theory (van den Bergh, Truffer, and Kallis 2011). The initial theoretical frameworks employed in the sustainability transitions field were adopted from innovation studies (Köhler et al. 2019; Markard, Raven, and Truffer 2012), meaning that it has taken on a characteristic that is rooted in a particular economic and technological perspective of society. Specifically, the concept of socio-technical systems and transitions – where the social and technical aspects of a system are viewed as closely related and are examined holistically – has been central to the sustainability transitions literature (Grin, Rotmans, and Schot 2010; Köhler et al. 2019).

The sustainability transitions literature has undoubtedly produced a number of important insights into the steps that society must take to avoid the consequences of a range of environmental issues. For instance, much more is now known about how sustainable innovations emerge and are adopted by socio-technical regimes (Köhler et al. 2019). However, the political aspects of sustainability transitions have not always been given sufficient attention in previous studies (Avelino et al. 2016; Köhler et al. 2019). Authors have thus sought increased input from the social sciences, including political science (Avelino et al. 2016; Kern and Rogge 2018; Meadowcroft 2011). Moreover, the sustainability transitions literature has been often critiqued for being heavily focussed on Europe and – to a lesser extent – North America (e.g. Hess 2014).

This special issue seeks to expand the jurisdictional perspective of the sustainability transitions literature, by means of articles focusing on New Zealand and Australia. The contributions in this issue thus aim to add to the debate over the political dimensions of sustainability transitions, engaging with issues such as the ways in which the media is involved in constructing the notion of ‘climate change’ and some of the roles political institutions (such as select committees and climate commissions) may play in guiding sustainability transitions. Furthermore, we focus on a region that has generally not received substantial attention in the sustainability transitions literature, thus broadening knowledge of how sustainability transitions can be managed in different contexts.

In the remainder of this introductory article, we first present an overview of the concept of sustainability (Section 2), before describing the framework that connects the papers of this special issue (Section 3). In Section 4, we offer some concluding remarks. In addition to describing the concept of sustainability, Section 2 presents the two main approaches for which institutionalisation attempts have been made across jurisdictions, at various governmental levels and across various policy domains: strong and weak interpretations of sustainability. When exploring transitioning processes and outcomes conceptually and empirically, it is important for the reader to have a prior understanding of the transition destinations actors seek and debate through various discursive strategies. Determining the transition destinations is an intensely political process; it is laden with political ideologies of the past – particularly neoliberalism and social democracy – and evolving ideologies such as deep ecology and ecofeminism (Baker 2006; Jenkins, Sovacool, and McCauley 2018).

In section 3, we discuss sustainability transitions with a particular emphasis on the major themes of politics and power, governance and policy, the economy and the place of businesses and industries in sustainability transitions. These themes provide the framework for the articles in this special issue. Governance and policy issues are addressed in the contributions from Hall and Dreyer & Ellis in the New Zealand context. Dinica’s article explores explores applications of the circular economy concept and different visions of the bioeconomy in New Zealand. The piece by Kurian, Munshi, Cretney, Morrison and Kathlene examines at the politics of climate adaptation in the business sphere with a specific focus on New Zealand’s tourism sector. Finally, while all our contributions speak to issues relating to the politics and power of sustainability transitions, Hytten’s article examining Australian media discourse on climate change is particularly relevant to this theme.

2. Conceptualisations of sustainability

The concept of ‘sustainable development’ was first introduced in the global policy language through the 1980 ‘World Conservation Strategy – Living Resources Utilisation for Sustainable Development’, co-authored by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, United Nations Environment Programme and World Wildlife Fund. The strategy stated that ‘For development to be sustainable it must take account of social and ecological factors, as well as economic ones; of the living and non-living resource base; and of the long term as well as the short-term advantages and disadvantages of alternative actions’ (IUCN et al., 1980).

The report pointed to the fragmentation between biodiversity and environmental policies and management practices, unnaturally segregating the protection of biotic ‘elements’ (fauna, flora) from abiotic elements (fresh waters, soils, air and the atmosphere). It stressed that environmental sustainability can only be achieved through a proper integration of biodiversity and environmental institutions, non-governmental stakeholders and efforts by businesses for a more holistic engagement with nature. The strategy also highlighted the need for coordination, or ideally integration of biodiversity and environmental considerations into ‘development policies’, concerned with the socio-economic progress of developing countries. This could be achieved through the integration of sustainable biodiversity use and environmental protection into socio-economic policies, particularly energy production, transportation, food production, industrial production and so on.

Hence, the first proposed vision for sustainability incorporated only the sustainable consumption or use of natural resources, to achieve the development needs of societies. The transition process itself was framed rather narrowly, involving the integration of policies, institutions and decision-making structures across relevant domains of action. While half a century later this modest vision of transition has arguably not yet been achieved in many jurisdictions, including those discussed in this volume, both conceptualisations of sustainability and the transitions involved have evolved over time.

The 1987 Brundtland report to United Nations extended this conceptualisation of sustainability with ideas of basic human needs and development limitations: technological-efficiency, social-organisational and environmental. The latter refers to pollution and resource extraction limits (WCED 1987). While operationalising ‘basic needs’ is challenging, ‘over-consumption’ is a less disputed phenomenon, particularly in developed countries. Since the 1980s, public policies implementing neoliberal political ideologies led to dramatic reductions in production costs, by deregulating labour, capital and resource extraction markets. Concerns with sharp increases in population and consumption led to calls for de-growth (Ekins 1993; Kothari, Demaria, and Acosta 2014), to slow-down pressures on natural resources and introduce the principles of intra- and intergenerational equity in their distribution.

The emergence of the sustainability concept reawakened interest in earlier ideas that argued for similar transitions, but using different concepts, such as that of a bioeconomy. In 1975, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1986) called for reigning-in consumption and a shift to bioeconomy, defined by critical deployments of technological innovations, to select only those consistent with the biosphere’s ecological limits. Georgescu-Roegen (1986) introduced the term ‘new Wood Age’, distinguishing between technologies that are ‘viable’ and ‘feasible’. For example, currently, numerous biotechnologies are available creating and utilising genetically modified organisms (GMOs). These technologies are currently ‘viable’; but many, across societal groups, consider them unfeasible, in the sense of undesirable, because they generate many high risks that are inadequately understood and may have negative serious or irreversible changes on nature and public health (see Dinica in this volume).

Georgescu-Roegen’s vision is consistent with the strong interpretation of the precautionary principle of decision-making, calling for critical assessments of the need for new technologies using biological resources, in the light of their possible harms to ecological processes, species and human health (Raffensperger, Schettler, and Myers 2000). These are important considerations of economic policies ‘at the supply side’ of economics. At the demand-side, Georgescu-Roegen’s bio-economy vision is to proactively induce radical behavioural changes, to reduce demand for products and services down to ‘sufficiency’ levels (Vivien et al. 2019). This resonates with the Brundtland sustainability concept of ‘basic needs’ and expectations for new economic models to manage demand because growth is not ‘possible and desirable in all circumstances’ (WCED 1987). Georgescu-Roegen (1986) also called for ‘reducing population growth to sustainable levels’ and for business to accept environmental responsibilities.

The Brundtland report also had weaknesses. Some wordings facilitated conceptualisations of nature as ‘natural capital’ (WCED 1987), which enabled the hijack and reconceptualisation of the sustainability concept by actors grounded in neoliberal doctrines (Vivien et al. 2019). Various interpretations of sustainability emerged, later captured by terms like ‘weak sustainability’ and its ‘green growth’ vision for alternative economies. Another critique of the Brundtland report is that it adopts a view of technology that is too optimistic. Concerned ecologists have put-forward the IPAT formula to call attention to key precursors of environmental impacts (I): technology performances (T), population size (P) and affluence (A) per capita (Ehrlich and Holdren 1971). ‘Green growth’ economic visions focus almost entirely on the technology variable, calling for pollution control and more efficient uses of natural resources (see Dinica’s article in this volume). Demand-side economic policies are seen as unwarranted.

The weak interpretation of sustainability does not challenge the current capitalist neoliberal economic model; it claims that continued economic growth is feasible, through pollution reduction and some resource efficiency improvements – hence, generating ‘green growth’ through the accumulation of ‘win-win’ technological innovations. However the social development agenda of weak sustainability is severely underdeveloped (Baker 2006). It has also been argued that, when translating these concepts into public policy, the proposed policies fail to tackle the growing social inequalities and the environmental inequities generated by neoliberal economic regulations (Rogers, Jalal, and Boyd 2010). From a resource perspective, the most distinguishable normative view of weak sustainability is that natural and human-made capital should be viewed as interchangeable. Loss of nature and landscape is acceptable as long as lost ecosystem services (e.g. outdoors recreation) are replaced by services generated through technology and human artefacts. This is known as the substitutability of capital principle of weak sustainability (Baker 2006).

Hence, weak sustainability can be viewed at the opposite extreme of the spectrum from Georgescu-Roegen’s vision of a future bio-economy; his vision is consistent with ‘strong sustainability’, which has evolved over decades around the Brundtland report, by expanding and operationalising it. Like Georgescu-Roegen, strong interpretations of sustainability require demand-side policies as well, to manage economies for self-sufficiency.

Strong sustainability also expects significant social innovations, to achieve gender equality, social justice and coherence, dignified working conditions and closing intragenerational income gaps within and across nations (Rogers, Jalal, and Boyd 2010). Increasing employment through labour-intensive green technologies is viewed as appropriate, as employment-for-all is key to achieving the goal of satisfying basic needs for all (WCED 1987). The social component of strong sustainability was strengthened through the adoption by national governments of the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development and other documents at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. Businesses are increasingly challenged to also demonstrate responsibility and commitment to sustainability, by including views from employees, consumers and citizens in key decisions. Green planning, design and accounting need to reshuffle how businesses and economies operate (Baker 2006), through radically-innovative organisational and trade relations, rather than peripheral Corporate Social Responsibility ‘offices’ (Dinica, Lund-Durlacher, and Reiser 2019). Baker (2006) clarifies that ‘strong sustainability assumes some substitutability but imposes strict limits on how much human capital can compensate for running down natural capital’.

In this volume, Dinica discusses several economic visions currently debated globally – Green Growth, Circular Economy and Bio-economy – evaluating how the strategies, sectoral policies and policy instruments adopted by New Zealand governments since 2009 align with these models. Academic opinions still diverge on whether Green Growth even deserves to be framed as a transition to weak sustainability, or it merely offers marginal improvements to a fundamentally flawed and unsustainable capitalist neoliberal economic model (Giampietro 2019; Hajer 1995; OECD 2011). Likewise, many argue that the way some countries implement the Bio-economy vision is barely consistent with weak sustainability (Birch 2006; Bugge, Hansen, and Klitkou 2016; Goven and Pavone 2015; Pfau et al. 2014). Similar statements have been made about the circular economy model, as not being sufficiently ‘alternative’ for transitions to strong sustainability (Geissdoerfer et al. 2017; Hobson and Lynch 2016; Marsden 2016).

However, there are some difficulties with such statements. The Circular Economy model/vision and, to some extent also, the Bio-economy can be implemented by governments: a) in ways that only align with weak sustainability; or, b) by taking more ambitious approaches, so that these visions become consistent with (contributing to) strong sustainability (e.g. for a Bio-economy based on naturally-occurring resources, see the study by Pfau et al. 2014). Both are continuously evolving concepts and even their academic conceptualisations differ, some being better aligned with weak sustainability, while others are more inclusive and far-reaching, striving for strong sustainability (e.g. see calls for sufficiency-driven consumption, for Bio-economy transitions, in EC, 2018; Smolker 2008). Hence, generalisations that any of these two visions have an intrinsic weak/strong sustainability ‘performance’ are hardly credible. Sustainability outcomes depend on the particular conceptualisation a government adopts and the quality of implementation; e.g. even a strong sustainability approach to Circular Economy, may be executed narrowly and inadequately, producing only changes consistent with weak sustainability. Therefore, it is important that sustainability assessments of Circular Economy and Bio-economy be grounded in thorough evaluations of both the design of governmental strategy/policies (including the institutional arrangements put in place for policy-making) and their de-facto implementation (e.g. the technological, social, economic, environmental measures and regulations, transforming policy targets into policy outputs and outcomes).

The situation is different for Green Growth concept, for which the debate is whether it is unsustainable – and barely another manifestation of the capitalist economy; or it is an alternative model but only consistent with weak sustainability (Hajer 1995). Moreover, the debate is still open as to whether weak sustainability itself is something different than the current neoliberal capitalist model. These discussions are outside the scope of the current special issue and should be considered as a research agenda for sustainability scholars. Nevertheless, we find it useful to map the dilemmas regarding the relationships between sustainability conceptualisations, on the one hand, and economic models/visions on the other, including those presented in the literature as ‘alternative’ to the capitalist model.

These discussions also help to frame the progress – or lack thereof – in adopting effective targets, laws, public policies, institutional innovations and effective participatory institutional practices for climate change mitigation, and the balance of attention between mitigation and adaptation in New Zealand and Australia. Governments that barely support the Green Growth or weak sustainability agendas are likely to resist adopting the greenhouse gas emission targets recommended by scientists. This is because the economic/societal costs – based on short-termist narrow cost benefit analyses – are unlikely to result in the ‘win-wins’ predicted by the ecological modernisation theorists (who enthusiastically embraced the green growth agenda in the 1980s; Hajer 1995). Likewise, governments driven by neoliberal, Green Growth or weak sustainability agendas are unlikely to support genuine public engagement in decision-making (such as through Parliamentary Select Committees, or decisions on climate change adaptation), as public participation is not viewed as a necessary institutional reform (see Baker 2006). Therefore, empirical research may explore whether sustainability transitions do occur; whether the direction of change is towards weak or strong sustainability; or, whether, on the contrary, the ‘transformations’ promised by political parties and governmental strategies are merely ‘old wine in new bottles’, and readjustments of the current neoliberal model.

A final useful observation regards the concept of ecological limits, embedded in the strong interpretation of sustainability. This has been captured by the ‘planetary boundaries’ framework (Steffen et al. 2015), suggesting that humankind needs to observe nine times of ecological-change limits: fresh water use for human purposes; pollution from novel substances, such as Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s) and nanoparticles; land-use change; biodiversity (measured through functional diversity and species diversity); ocean acidification; stratospheric ozone depletion, pollution from the disturbance of biogeochemical flows, and atmospheric aerosols loading, (air pollution).

Climate change and biodiversity loss are considered core boundaries because radical changes in any of these boundaries have the potential to destabilise the planet’s ecological integrity and shift it to ranges outside those in which modern societies developed. Four articles in this volume explore aspects of sustainability transitions necessary to stabilise the global climate (Dreyer and Ellis; Hall; Hytten; Kurian et al.); the concept of bioeconomy, discussed in Dinica’s article has implications for opportunities to transition away from our reliance on non-renewable resources and polluting industries, currently pressuring many planetary boundaries.

3. Achieving the goals of sustainability

While the above section explores approaches to sustainability, the processes for reaching that destination have not always been well defined. These processes have been the focus of the sustainability transitions literature. This literature begins from the premise that addressing environmental problems requires radical change and a holistic view of society and technology – ideas that are not new, having been adopted by most proponents of sustainability goals since at least the 1970s. However, the sustainability transitions field primarily focusses on the ‘meso’-level of society; that is, technological and social systems and institutions rather than the ‘macro’-level of fundamental aspects of society (such as capitalism or representative democracy), or the ‘micro’-level of individual behaviour and choices (Köhler et al. 2019).

Moreover, the sustainability transitions literature provides an organising framework for academic research on social and technological solutions to environmental problems. Given that environmental problems have implications for many different dimensions of society, a transdisciplinary approach is essential (Köhler et al. 2019). The concept of sustainability transitions thus serves as a ‘rally point’ for researchers in different disciplines (Meadowcroft 2011).

To assist in navigating the vast literature on sustainability transitions, Köhler et al. (2019) usefully define nine themes that encompass the various strands of the literature:

1. Understanding transitions

2. Power and politics in transitions

3. Governing transitions

4. Civil society, culture and social movements in transitions

5. Businesses and industries in sustainability transitions

6. Transitions in practice and everyday life

7. Geography of transitions: spaces, scales, places

8. Ethical aspects of transitions: distribution, justice, poverty

9. Reflections on methodologies for transitions research

While all of these themes have at least some relevance to this special issue, we focus here on four themes which relate most directly to the articles included in this volume. The first three of these align with the themes above: politics, governance and businesses/industries. The fourth – economics – is not a theme explored explicitly by Köhler et al. (2019), but is central to much of the sustainability transitions literature.¹

3.1. Politics and power

Societal changes of the scale of those required for strong sustainability transitions my challenge traditional power structures, resulting in fierce political debates. Perhaps most obviously, corporations and other actors with a material vested interest in the status quo will be threatened by transformations that could limit or remove their existing position. Such actors may therefore attempt to derail transitions towards strong (or even weak) sustainability approaches that better suit their preferred technology and expertise (Brulle 2014; Hess 2014). Questions around agency are also critical; who gets to participate and make decisions around how transitions should unfold, and who manages any redistribution of wealth and power? (Avelino et al. 2016; Temper et al. 2018) These questions play out both within and between countries and must consider existing inequalities to be answered. Despite this centrality of politics and power for sustainability transitions, the literature has not always given this theme sufficient attention and it has not always been fully incorporated into frameworks used to study transitions (Avelino et al. 2016; Kern 2015).

Politics becomes particularly influential in transitions where there are competing ideas not only about the goals but also about what should be done and what technologies would be compatible with the preferred economic and sustainability futures. In this volume, Dinica explains that, in New Zealand, Crown Research Institutes, universities and some businesses in the meat, dairy, aquaculture and forestry industries have been lobbying political parties to deregulate the open-air demonstration and commercialisation of high-risk genetic-engineering biotechnologies (McGuinness and Mokena-Lodge 2013). Currently only conservative parties support deregulation to create markets for the technologies and patents in which science and commercial organisations have invested in for decades. Centre-left parties have so far argued that genetic engineering, may generate a new economic model, but that it would not be consistent with what they view as a sustainable, fair and just society.

Contention over environmental issues be driven by a number of different motivations. As mentioned, corporations or organisations may have material vested interests in existing socio-technical structures, and therefore may attempt to resist large-scale changes to the status quo (Green and Gambhir 2020; Hess 2014). This kind of resistance has been particularly well documented with respect to climate change, where networks of organisations have cast doubt on the science of climate change and many of the policies that have been proposed to address it (e.g. Brulle 2014). Actors may also have a vested interest in transitions away from the status quo (such as holding a financial interest in renewable energy) and are therefore motivated by this interest to promote changes leading to sustainability (Boute and Zhikharev 2019).

Ideological precursors, or differing ideas about what a transition should achieve, may also result in contention. For instance, the strong sustainability vision holds that transitions should address inequality and transform society into one that is more just; others contend that these issues should not be overly entangled with addressing environmental issues (Gough 2017), a position characteristic of weak sustainability visions. In New Zealand, the post-2017 governments led by the Labour party, have adopted new economic strategies for ‘just transitions’ to a low-emissions, productive and sustainable economy (Office for the Minister of Climate Change 2019). Such ideological contention also occurs among members of the public. For example, people holding conservative attitudes (such as supporting free-market economics or exclusion of minorities) tend to be less likely to support sustainability transitions than those who do not hold such attitudes (Crawley 2021).

Contention over how to address environmental issues is often played out in the media through different discourses (Carvalho, van Wessel, and Maeseele 2017). Feldman et al. (2012), for example, describe the different representations of climate change on United States cable news channels, finding that Fox news takes a much more dismissive tone than, for example CNN or MSNBC. Many people appear to be influenced by these cable news stories (Feldman et al. 2012).

In this issue, Hytten uses critical discourse analysis to identify and trace climate change discourses in the media in Australia between 2007 and 2019, with a particular focus on the five federal elections which took place during this period. She examines how discourses communicated through key newspapers impacted both the electoral platforms of leading parties during elections and the climate policies of the federal governments following the respective elections.

Hytten identifies and explores five types of discourses, which can be reduced, in essence, to two key discourses: climate change activism, favouring ambitions targets and a comprehensive range of transformative policy options; and climate change denialism, favouring no action or incremental action along the current economic and energy pathways, focused on the continued mining and use of fossil. Analyses of discourse implications show that, while the proponents of the discourse of climate change activism have been successful in communicating their arguments and policy preferences to the wider public, mobilising citizens to demand more effective public policies, they have been less successful in generating a transition towards the desired policy changes. At the same time, the anti-action discourse of climate change denialism has remained an influential and disruptive force within Australian politics. These discourses have been more successful in persuading federal politicians and officials to halt, and even reverse, the ambitious policy reforms initiated decades ago, between 1987 and 1992. The success of denialism discourses can be seen not only in reduced funding for science, technologies and numerous policy measures that could have combated climate change, but also in the emissions of GHG, which have increased substantially during the timeframe analysed.² Hytten’s findings suggest that better understanding and directly countering the influence of the anti-action discourse of climate change denialism will be crucial to achieve a meaningful transition in Australian climate change politics.

3.2. Governance and policy

While questions of power and politics, as described in the previous section, are central to understanding how sustainability transitions may unfold, there are also important issues relating to how sustainability transitions can be governed, and the types of policies that are required. Governance is conceived broadly here, incorporating all state institutions, responsibilities and interactions of public sector actors, politically elected decision-makers, community groups, NGOs and commercial actors.

Governance and policy changes alone may not be sufficient to allow society to progress towards sustainability. However, understanding how governance changes may help to facilitate transitions is a valuable endeavour. For example, Boston (2017) has argued that the nature of representative democracy means that democracies tend to have a short-term focus, and do not pay enough attention to longer term issues such as environmental problems. He proposes reforms to political institutions (in the New Zealand context), including longer parliamentary terms, improved long-term reporting, and governmental ministries and commissions tasked with addressing long-term problems.

Research on the governance and policy of sustainability transitions can also provide valuable insight into the effectiveness of specific policies (e.g. Green and Gambhir 2020). For example, Lockwood (2013) investigated the political sustainability of the UK’s landmark 2008 Climate Change Act. While the Act promised to create a legal imperative for the UK to reduce emissions, it has not necessarily been accompanied by ‘political lock-in’. Although climate change was a salient issue in the UK at the time the Act was passed, the politics have since evolved and some aspects have been undermined. Lockwood’s analysis illustrates the difficulties of sustaining political action for environmental issues that may take decades to properly address. Stabilising the planet ecologically, as the planetary boundary framework referred to in Section 2 calls for (Steffen et al. 2015), requires major innovations in how sovereign states collaborate to put in place radically more effective international institutions for the governance of irreplaceable ecosystems.

Another strand of research addressing the governance of sustainability transitions has focussed specifically on political institutions, including their interactions with citizens and with experts, through advisory and participatory mechanisms. For instance, Struthers (2020) examines the Chilean approach to climate adaptation in terms of the party system, executive-legislative arrangements and electoral rules. She finds that the government’s response to the effects of climate change was hindered by institutional features such as presidential power and ideologically opposed party alliances. Madden (2014) compares 23 OECD countries and finds that countries with more political institutions tend to have worse climate policy, due to an increased number of veto-players.

In this special issue, Hall discusses the recently established New Zealand Climate Change Commission within the context of debates over the respective value of democracy, ‘the rule of the people’, and epistocracy. The Commission lacks a de jure authority to impose climate-related policy, but does it have a de facto authority? Is the weight of its expertise enough to compel Parliament to accept its advice, for fear of appearing against science or against climate action? A lot hangs on whether political representatives and their electorates are motivated to acknowledge the Commission’s epistemic authority, a requirement which seems uniquely under threat today, given the widespread rejection of expertise (Davies 2018). As such, the Commission’s authority will depend substantially on how it can navigate these epistemic challenges. Hall suggests that a re-examination of how institutional arrangements operationalise the concept of democracy may also be required,

Numerous studies have concluded that more democracy, through wider opportunities for public engagement in decision-making, is associated with better environmental outcomes (Bättig and Bernauer 2009; Bernauer and Koubi 2009; see, also: Ellis 2016). In the current issue, Dreyer and Ellis investigate the role of submission to Parliamentary Select Committees in drafting the 2019 New Zealand Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill 2019. The select committee process is generally viewed as being an ‘institutionalised pressure point’ (Grey 2015, 466) where the public may influence legislation, and committees are expected to act in democratically acceptable ways. Select committees are thus important avenues for public discourse around legislation that can facilitate sustainability transitions. However, in this particular case, Dreyer and Ellis find high alignments between the majority perspective recommendations and the recommendations of the political Executive. Furthermore, few of the committee’s majority perspective recommendations were strongly supported by public submissions, indicating that the committee was not responsive to public interest. Considering the growing literature supporting the need for deliberative environmental democracy for successful sustainability transitions (e.g. Lövbrand and Khan 2010) these findings have implications for the adoption of effective legislation aimed at supporting sustainability transitions, particularly in the New Zealand context.

Overarching many of these discussions on the governance and policy of sustainability transitions are ideas about what role the state should take (Johnstone and Newell 2018; Boston 2017; Hajer 1995). In particular, should neoliberal ideas of the state be abandoned in favour of the state taking a much more central role in transitions (for example, instituting industrial policy, regulation and enforcement)? Although the contributions to this special issue do not speak directly to these questions on the role of the state, such debates should be kept in mind when considering the governance of sustainability transitions.

3.3. Businesses and industries

The role of businesses and industries in sustainability transitions has become a focus of increasing importance in the literature (Köhler et al. 2019). Much of this research, as noted by Köhler et al. (2019), has focussed on the business sector’s role in developing innovative new technologies to keep pace with a changing world (e.g. Planko et al. 2016), tensions between those advocating system change and those defending the status quo (e.g. Lauber and Jacobsson 2016), and moves to adapt to advancing climate change (e.g. Ansah and Sorooshian 2019; Etzion et al. 2017; Wright et al. 2013).

Although Köhler et al. (2019) point to the connections between research on businesses with other strands of transitions research such as politics, the inherently political nature of sustainability transitions in the business sector often remains unseen. A few authors have examined these issues, typically focussing on the ways in which businesses and industries are involved in lobbying on transition issues. For example, Hess (2014) investigates the role of grassroots and industrial coalitions in campaigning for Green energy policy in the US. The author examines three types of coalitions: incumbent regime (particularly fossil fuel companies), grassroots and countervailing industry. The latter includes technology and financial services organisations that have provided funding to political campaigns which can counter-balance campaigning by the fossil fuel industry. The study finds that political coalitions comprising corporate interests have, in some cases, been able to assist grassroots campaigns in achieving their goals (see also: Sühlsen and Hisschemöller 2014).

Taking a somewhat different tack to previous research on the intersection of politics and businesses in the context of sustainability transitions, Kurian et al. (this issue) focus on the political aspects of climate change adaptation in a specific business context – that of the tourism sector, a central cog in the New Zealand economy. The New Zealand tourism sector has demonstrated limited capacity to respond to the challenges of climate adaptation despite being fundamentally dependent on the country’s natural assets that are vulnerable to climate change. Kurian et al. examine how culture and conflicting stakeholder interests influence the success and failure of projects aiming to help tourism adapt to climate change. The authors contrast ‘business as usual’ approaches with those that prioritise Māori values, and the place of deliberative processes in identifying potential pathways for change. The article’s emphasis on ‘cultural politics’ actively engages with the role of culture and values in transitions literature (Amenta and Polletta 2019). Their line of research highlights the importance of culture in changing the political contexts necessary for meaningful transitions, both within the business world and more broadly.

3.4. Economy

While the ‘economy’ is not a theme of sustainability transitions research, as defined by Köhler et al. (2019), as noted in Section 2, approaches to economic innovations play a crucial role in differentiating between strong and weak visions of sustainability. It is important to make a distinction between investigating sustainability transitions from the standpoint of economics as a discipline and investigating which visions for economic development are likely to be compatible with particular sustainability conceptualisations. The former, for example, might include examining the policy instruments that would be most cost-efficient in facilitating particular transitions, such as the diffusion of renewable energy technologies and electric vehicles. The latter, which is the main economic focus in this volume, might be investigated in the context of finding alternative to the current neoliberal capitalist economic model.

As noted in Section 2, the Green Growth model was the first vision to emerge, suggesting how weak sustainability ideas could be pursued in terms of economic innovations. The concept of Green Growth (GG), which has been widely critiqued in the academic literature, relies on technology improvements as a ‘panacea capable of … perpetual economic growth by overcoming biophysical limits both on the input (depletion or non-renewable resources) and sink-side (pollution and GHG emissions)’ (Giampietro 2019). Alternative visions for economic development that have been proposed are referred to as Bio-economies (BE), Circular economies (CE), Circular-bio-economies (CBE), Green Economy (GE), low-Carbon or Carbon-neutral economies. To what extent these visions can lead to genuinely alternative economic models, from a sustainability standpoint, is still an open question. As noted in Section 2, this depends on both their conceptualisation and implementation in national jurisdictions.

In 2009, the OECD (2009) produced a strategy on transitioning to bio-economies by 2030. The European Commission adopted strategies and regulations to stimulate the adoption of both BE and CE innovations (European Commission 2012, 2015). The Green Economy model was put-forward by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). While, in the literature many conflate the Green Economy with the Green Growth model, there are differences. UNEP states that its concept of Green Economy enables transitions for socio-institutional innovations to improve ‘human well-being and social equity, while significantly reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities’ and transitions towards sustainable consumption (UNEP 2011).

In the current issue, Dinica examines the transition preferences for alternative economic visions among the main political parties in New Zealand, since 2009. She focusses on the following models: green growth, circular economy and two approaches to the bioeconomy – differentiated by their position regarding the acceptability of high-risk genetic-engineering with outdoors applications. Of all the above-mentioned models claiming to be ‘alternatives’ to the current capitalist model, these are the only visions for which the New Zealand governments have adopted policies in recent decades.

Dinica’s findings suggest that so far the conservative National Party has only promoted the current capitalist model, a very weak approach to GG and a BE vision that embraces all types of genetic-engineering. The Labour Party’s strategies and legislative revisions are dominated by a GG approach in the short and medium term, but with an emphasis on just and equitable transitions (with limited implementation, so far). This is an interesting emphasis, going beyond current GG conceptualisations in the literature, by supporting elements of UNEP’s GE vision. In addition, longer-term transitions towards a CE have been initiated in 2018, alongside limited attempts at an innovative bio-economy driven by naturally-occurring resources. The Green Party has held ministerial positions since 2017, including the role of Minister of Climate Change. The policies proposed by the Green Party, prior to the 2017 national election, were well aligned with a CE vision, next to a cautious interest in a BE based on naturally-occurring resources. The Green Party explicitly rejects all types of genetic engineering biotechnology, while the Labour Party appears open, at some point, to consider some technologies promising to combat the loss of native biodiversity due to introduced pests and weeds. These preferences reflect a chasm between right and center/left political parties, with the former much more grounded in weak approaches to sustainability than the Labour and Green parties.

4. Concluding remarks

The environmental problems facing humanity are complex, diverse and pressing. The extent of the socio-technical transformation required to properly address these problems is difficult to overstate and will involve transitions in terms of technology, the economy, policy, politics and everyday life. Moreover, many environmental issues are global in nature, thus requiring a wide-ranging geographical focus in order to fully understand them and the required sustainability transitions. Politics is central to understanding how sustainability transitions can be achieved, impacting on institutions, and being affected by public discourses.

We trust that the contributions in this special issue help to shed light on the nature of sustainability transitions by broadening the focus of investigation. In particular, we have considered jurisdictions that have so far received less attention in the sustainability transitions literature. In addition, we have focussed on the political aspects of sustainability transitions, as well as on related themes such as governance, institutions and the economy. In doing so, we hope that the current volume contributes to the burgeoning sustainability transitions literature that has developed over the last decade.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sam Crawley

Sam Crawley is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Political Science and International Relations Programme, Victoria University of Wellington. His research focuses on public opinion on climate change and the environment and how it relates to policy. He is also interested in broader aspects of public opinion, political behaviour and comparative politics.

Valentina Dinica

Valentina Dinica is Associate Professor in Public Policy and Sustainability at the Wellington School of Business and Government, Victoria University of Wellington (VUW), New Zealand. She has been researching and teaching on governance for sustainability and resilience, environmental policy, sustainable tourism, Protected Area regulations, renewable energy policies, policy analysis theory and methods, participatory policy processes. Valentina is a member of the IUCN's World Commission for Protected Areas and member of the Standing Committee on Humanities and Social Sciences of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.

Notes

1. In discussing these themes, we note that there are many studies that address the broad topic of sustainability transitions without using the term or connecting with the sustainability transitions literature. These studies were included in the current analysis, where possible.

2. There has been an ongoing scholarly debate over whether the term ‘denier’ is appropriate when referring to people who do not accept the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change. While some authors argue that the term ‘denier’ or ‘denial’ is overly moralistic (O’Neill and Boykoff 2010), it has been widely used in the literature (e.g. Cann and Raymond 2018; Dunlap and McCright 2011) and aligns with the broader literature on ‘science denial’ (Björnberg et al. 2017). We thus use the term ‘denier’ (and related terms) throughout this special issue.