Eco-innovation for sustainable tourism transitions as a process of collaborative co-production: the case of a carbon management calculator for the Dutch travel industry

Abstract

Eco-innovations that reduce carbon emissions help advance sustainability transitions in tourism. This article examines the analytical potential of actor-network theory (ANT) to study eco-innovation. ANT assumes that reality consists of actor-networks made of human and non-human elements that perform actors as network effects. We argue that, in a time when climate change is the simultaneous product and producer of human actions, eco-innovation is better understood when research gives the human and non-human elements that perform eco-innovations equal analytical treatment. We therefore develop an ANT-inspired framework, which we apply in a case study to investigate the development of a specific eco-innovation: CARMACAL, a web-based carbon management application in the Dutch travel industry. We find that technological novelty alone is insufficient to instigate transition. CARMACAL affords multiple new practices with opposite implications for socio-economic and environmental sustainability. The practices triggering most industry support are least effective in addressing tourism's climate impacts and vice versa. Examining eco-innovation through ANT helps us put eco-innovation in a different light. Seemingly contradictory practices may be mutually supportive: their individual strengths and weaknesses may help prevent the failure of eco-innovations. This new possibility opens the way for concerted policies strengthening the contribution of eco-innovations to sustainability transitions.

Keywords:

• Actor-network theory
• carbon management
• climate change
• eco-innovation
• corporate social responsibility
• sustainability transitions

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Erratum

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to express their gratitude to Reiswerk, the Centre of Expertise Leisure Tourism & Hospitality (CELTH) and NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences for funding this research and to the respondents for sharing their opinions and providing valuable feedback. The authors would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this journal for their comments and suggestions that have helped to strengthen this article. The views expressed in this article and any further shortcomings remain the responsibility of the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Harald Buijtendijk is a lecturer and PhD researcher at NHTV Breda University of Applied Sciences (the Netherlands) and interested in sustainability transitions.

Juultje Blom is an MSc student in geo-information science at Wageningen University, and interested in the socio-environmental applications of new technologieslike remote sensing.

Jorine Vermeer is an MSc student in environmental science at the University of Antwerp, and interested in business models for sustainability.

René van der Duim is Personal Professor at Wageningen University and co-chair of the Association of Tourism and Leisure Education and Research (ATLAS). René is interested in tourism and actor-network theory.