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Published: 2019

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 9789294800855

During the last two decades, the concepts of 'sustainability transitions' and 'transformations' have emerged with steadily growing prominence in academic literature. Since 2010, this trend has been matched by increasing uptake of the language and logic of sustainability transitions in European policy and frameworks. Behind these trends lies an evolving understanding of the scale and character of the sustainability challenges facing societies globally — and how those societies can respond. In the environmental domain, this has involved a move away from addressing individual issues, based on linear cause-effect principles, towards acknowledging multi-causality and systemic causes. In policy terms, this has meant a shift from targeted policies towards integrated and systemic policy frameworks. Similarly, in the area of science, technology and innovation (STI) policy, the emphasis has moved from state interventions aimed at overcoming market failures and promoting economic growth towards addressing grand challenges and achieving multidimensional sustainability objectives, such as those set out in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Collectively, there is growing recognition that addressing the major societal challenges of our age and achieving sustainability objectives will require fundamental changes in lifestyles and patterns of consumption and production in all industrialised and industrialising countries. The European Commission's long-term vision for a climate-neutral Europe (EC, 2018g) expresses this clearly, affirming that achieving the transition to net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 will require 'economic and societal transformations ..., engaging all sectors of the economy and society'. The Commission's recent 'reflection paper' on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development likewise refers repeatedly to the need for a sustainability transition to achieve the SDGs (EC, 2019b). The emergence of the sustainability transitions discourse in science and policy represents a significant reframing of Europe's sustainability challenges and response options. However, the implications of this shift for public policy and institutions are, as yet, largely unexplored. As noted in a recent European Commission report: 'It is now well understood how transitions arise. However, turning this understanding into sound advice on how to better manage present and future transitions is still a major challenge' (EC, 2018l). The present report represents a response to that knowledge gap.