EASST 2010 – Track 37 ‘System Innovation and Transitions to Sustainability’
Managing transition towards energy efficient housing at the local level
Maj-Britt Quitzau, Birgitte Hoffmann and Morten Elle
DTU Management Engineering
This paper is work-in-progress.
1. Introduction
Reduction of energy consumption represents a key issue in the European Union, since the commission has set up the ambitious target to reduce the European energy consumption by 20% by 2020 (European Commission, 2006). Energy inefficiency of buildings is one issue, which the European Commission has committed Member States to address, since 40% of the total energy consumption in the EU is related to the building sector (European Commission 2008). This implies, among other things, raising the energy standards of mainstream buildings in order to reduce heat loss from building envelopes and implementing a greater share of renewable energy in buildings.
Raising the energy efficiency of mainstream buildings – in view of the current level of policy ambitions – is not straightforward, since technical change is often locked into dominant sociotechnical regimes. Larger jumps in environmental efficiency require radical innovations and system innovations in order to break with such mechanisms of lock-in (Geels 2006:1). E.g., a deadlock in supply and demand of energy efficient buildings persists, since construction companies do not offer developers to build energy efficient buildings, as they cannot identify sufficient demand, while developers complain about the reluctance of construction companies to come up with viable solutions (Rohracher 1991). Many policies and initiatives to overcome this lock-in have little success in dissolving the inertia that persists in existing building practices. Even in a pioneer country such as Denmark, many of the past initiatives, like economic incentives, demonstration projects, and minimum energy requirements, have not succeeded in overcoming this inertia within the building sector (Jensen and Gram-Hanssen 2008).
Policy-makers are prime movers in terms of pushing for a break with the persisting lock-in, since policy-makers have a history of deliberately seeking to manage processes of technological change (Berkhout et al. 2003:3). To promote such a transition differs widely to typical ways of governing processes of technological change, since a higher degree of process management (or governance) is required. To break with the persisting lock-in is not simply about controlling or promoting a single technology, but about enabling a transition towards a new energy efficient sociotechnical regime in the building sector. Such a change in an integrated system of technologies and social practices can hardly be realized through application of singular instruments, but calls for the more complicated process management, since activities among a broad community of social groups have to become aligned, in order for a new regime to gain foothold and, over time, replace the old regime (Kemp et al. 1998:184; Geels and Schot 2007).
In Denmark – as in other countries – a new form of planning practices has been developed, where the application of singular instruments in spatial planning has been replaced by a more process management oriented approach. In these experiences, municipal planning authorities have engaged in management of local processes of change by committing themselves to mobilise practitioners in the building sector to more active innovation in terms of energy efficiency. This new form of initiative in spatial planning is interesting in a transition perspective, since it paves the way for succeeding in breaking with persisting lock-ins in the building sector in local building projects. In this paper, we explore how this kind of sustainable transition management at the local level is practiced, and how these practices are significant in relation to the more general transition pathways towards energy efficiency. This represents somewhat of a transversal perspective on the transition process, compared to typical studies of transitions. Our interest is not to describe the generic pattern of the transition towards a new energy efficient sociotechnical regime, which is often in focus in transition studies. Rather, we wish to study how ‘local’ subplots of deliberate sustainable transition management become linked to the overall ‘global’ framing for all transition pathways (as Geels and Schot (2007:415) frame it). Agreeing with the studies of transition processes underlining the point that ‘no transition is planned and coordinated from the outset’, as Geels and Schot (2007:402) states, we however argue that deliberate efforts to manage transitions at the local level are important to underpin a more global shift towards a new energy efficient sociotechnical regime in the building sector.
The paper is based on a case study of a local subplot of transition, where the planning authority in the municipality of Egedal, in the Northern part of Sealand near Copenhagen, has worked with a deliberate strategy to implement more energy efficient buildings in a local urban development project. The planning authority in this municipality has taken on the challenge of developing a large new urban area (76 hectares with 750 new dwellings) with housings that are more energy efficient than prescribed by the Danish Building Regulation. Compared to many other initiatives, the planning authority has in this case succeeded in mobilising ordinary stakeholders in the building sector to produce a more energy efficient sociotechnical regime. These positive results have been obtained through a strategic design of the planning framework, which involves a mixture of regulation, support and facilitation (Quitzau et al. 2009). The paper is based on work carried out in a European Concerto Plus project called ‘Class 1’.
The argument is structured as follows: In section 2, we present the theoretical approach in the paper, where emphasis is put on describing how the planning authority in Egedal has practiced spatial planning in order to mobilise local stakeholders to change their ways of doing. Here, we also explain how we perceive spatial planning as an example of a local subplot of the transition towards a new energy efficient sociotechnical regime in the building sector. In section 3, we describe how the planning strategies of the municipality of Egedal are targeted towards changes in the existing sociotechnical regime, being an example of what Berkhout et al. (2003:8) refers to as an endogenous renewal process. In section 4, we describe the planning strategies more thoroughly in order to elaborate on the sustainable transition management performed by the planning authority in Egedal. Here, we focus on how the municipality worked on aligning different activities in the sociotechnical regime; especially with regards to two major challenges: forming an effective regulation framework and mobilising the building industry to play along. In section 5, we conclude our findings by arguing that although transitions cannot be managed from one end to the other, it is possible through deliberate strategies at the local level to push towards the desired goal of building energy efficient buildings.
2. Strategic governance of transition processes through spatial planning
An important arena of change of the built environment is that of spatial planning, since so much effort is put into developing and maintaining the qualities of both urban areas as well as the open land through this administrative technique in the public sector. As this section will argue, we perceive spatial planning as an important local subplot in the transition to a new energy efficient sociotechnical regime, since this is an arena where planning authorities are hands on, regarding implementation of energy policies in practice.
Spatial planning involves administration of the built environment at different levels of societies, but often, the local level plays a particular role, since the hierarchical structure of most European spatial planning systems delegates the responsibility and performance of local building regulation to municipalities. Specifically, the local planning authority is responsible for examining every building project undertaken in the municipality and approving that the project is in accordance with national legislation and regulation. This implies that these planning authorities have the responsibility of making the national policies and strategies operational in relation to local practitioners. This responsibility of the local planning authority implies that planning authorities in municipalities have a strong position, when it comes to changing the way that practitioners in the building sector interact and think, since they are hands-on specific building projects and in continuous interaction with different social groups within the sociotechnical regime. Besides administration of the built environment, the local planning authorities have also been heavily involved in promoting sustainable development, since municipalities were pointed out as leaders of local initiatives through formulation of international Local Agenda 21 strategies (United Nations, 1992). Through performing Local Agenda 21 activities, many municipalities have worked actively on promoting sustainable development, and gained experience in acting as an agent of change in local matters. This shows that even though many energy policies are formulated at the national level, the more specific configuration of the administrative task in practice is to a great extent carried out at the local level.
Promoting sustainable development at the local level represents somewhat of a challenge, since spatial planning involves a dynamic diversity of a complex co-location of multiple webs of relations that transect and intersect across an urban area (Healey 2006:3). Similar to the transition process, the development of urban areas cannot be ‘planned’ by government action in a linear way (from plan, to action, to outcome) (ibid). Local initiatives to promote sustainable development are thus carried out in a complex setting that involves physical, economic, socio-cultural, environmental and political/administrative dynamics that evolve across and within an urban area (ibid). As a result of this complexity, many of the attempts at the municipal level to shift towards new sustainable sociotechnical regimes have been discouraging, since evaluations show little impact of the municipal efforts. Also, in relation to promotion of energy efficiency of buildings, there is a tendency that policy formulations have become void declarations of intent from policy makers, since existing initiatives and regulative tools have not succeeded in mobilizing the building industry to enforce the ambitious policy objectives. To a large extent, local planning authorities have gotten bogged down into a passive planning role, acting as henchmen for national policy makers (having the role of merely controlling compliance to current regulation). The current sociotechnical regime is thus characterised by stabilization of certain cultures, preferences, industries, technologies, sciences and policies in the building sector, to an extent that paralyze planning authorities.
As the above suggests, policy strategies often come short, since these strategies either have little effect on, or merely induce small incremental changes in, prevailing practices. This lack of penetration of policy strategies represents a general problem in the transition towards a new, more sustainable sociotechnical regime, according to Kemp et al. (1998). The lack of penetration of these strategies has to do with the complex challenge that a shift to a new sociotechnical regime represents. Such a shift is not simply about controlling or promoting a single technology, but about changing an integrated system of technologies and social practices, and this calls for process management rather than application of singular instruments (Kemp et al. 1998:184). Process management is required, since a shift into a new, more sustainable sociotechnical regime requires that the activities among a broad community of social groups become aligned in order for a new regime to gain foothold (Geels and Schot 2007).
The planning authority in the municipality of Egedal is an example of a local planning authority, which has turned down the passive planning role, and taken up the challenge of actively influencing the process of change. This planning authority became engaged in the idea of formulating more proactive and focused strategies for how to promote energy efficiency in local building projects. This more proactive role of the municipality became rooted in the specific urban development project of Stenloese South, where the municipality resolutely and self-reflectively worked on how the municipality could actively contribute to facilitate the implementation of ambitious energy requirements in the different building projects to be carried out in this new urban development area. The strategy of the municipality, in order to implement more energy efficient buildings, was to get into the driver’s seat of the planning and development process of the area, in order to influence the entire development project in more details than usually. The efforts of the planning authority in Egedal Municipality represent a new form of initiatives in Denmark, where municipalities commit themselves to mobilise practitioners in the building sector to more actively innovate in terms of energy efficiency through combination of different means. These new forms of initiatives are especially interesting in transitions to sustainability, since municipalities engage in facilitating and managing transition processes at the local level. The initiative of the planning authority in Egedal represents a local success story of a transition to a new energy efficient sociotechnical regime.
The process undertaken by the planning authority is characterized by perception of spatial planning as governance, rather than government of the urban area. Such a shift from government to governance represents an on-going slide in spatial planning (Healey 2006). The idea of governance represents a showdown with the widespread norm in policy-making of mainly formulating energy efficiency requirements in the building sector. For example, one of the most principal policy instruments today in terms of promoting energy efficiency of buildings is the implementation of a low energy efficiency limit in building regulation, introduced by the European Commission (European Commission 2008). In Denmark, such a low energy efficiency limit has long existed in the building regulation, and as a result hereof, important incremental changes towards more energy efficient buildings have been realized, but not a radical shift towards a new, more sustainable sociotechnical regime. On the contrary, the Danish low energy efficiency requirements seem to represent a strong centre of gravity of the practices within the building industry; withholding stability and order in the existing sociotechnical regime, since it has become the norm among developers, constructors and suppliers, to just only comply with the lower limit of energy efficiency (Quitzau et al. 2008). Governance represents a necessary and reflexive component to traditional policies, since it involves a high degree of follow-up and engagement into the transition process, similar to that of strategic niche management. This involves building on the on-going dynamics of socio-technical change, while simultaneously exerting pressure to modulate the dynamics of sociotechnical change into desirable directions (Kemp et al. 1998:185). For example, this involves changing the rules of the game, creating room for experimentation and variation and shaping the interactions between actors. Such an approach is markedly different from the traditional planning practices of today.