Future green economies and regional development: a research agenda

Abstract

The past thirty years have seen an explosion of interest and concern over the detrimental impacts of economic and industrial development. Despite this, the environmental agenda has not featured substantially in the regional studies literature. This paper explores a range of options for regional futures from a 'clean tech' economy and the promise of renewed accumulation, through to more radical degrowth concepts focused on altering existing modes of production and consumption, ecological sustainability and social justice. In so doing, we investigate the potential role of regions as drivers of the new green economy, drawing on research into sustainability transitions.

Green technologies and Smart Specialisation Strategies: a European patent-based analysis of the intertwining of technological relatedness and key enabling technologies

“…As Gibbs and O'Neill (2017) have recently recognised, in spite of the increasing concern for the environmental impact of economic development at the local level, the green economy has been addressed by regional studies to a is still limited extent. Their review of the literature does not find substantial additions to the picture that Truffer and Coenen (2012) had already delineated five years before.…”

“…In spite of some recent efforts to substantiate these conceptual insights and to map their evidence on the territory (on this, see the cases illustrated by Gibbs and O'Neill (2017)), the research on sustainability transition remains however largely a-spatial. Socio-technical systems are mainly depicted as "footloose cognitive and institutional structures" (Truffer and Coenen, 2012, p. 6).…”

“…More in general, very limited is the extent to which environmental issues have entered into regional studies so far. Research agendas for a more encompassing analysis of the locational implications of the green economy are actually still looked for at the intersection between regional studies, economic geography and sustainability transition (Truffer and Coenen, 2012;Gibbs and O'Neill, 2017).…”

Shared Yet Contested: Energy Democracy Counter-Narratives

“…Realizing this transformative energy vision will largely depend upon the capacity for groups working toward energy democracy to influence the direction of transition through both practice and persuasion (Davis, 2002;Bushell et al, 2017). To better understand and recognize energy democracy as part of a contemporary socio-political struggle, research can seek to uncover and analyze the central characters of this struggle, the contending mobilized counter-publics (Hess, 2017), their core political claims and arguments (Montgomery, 2016), and their motives and strategies on the ground (Turnheim et al, 2015, p. 244) as embedded within and publicly performed through particular locations and diverse social institutions and modes of organization (Jasanoff, 2015;Becker and Naumann, 2017;Gibbs and O'Neill, 2017;Hess, 2017).…”

“…Realizing this transformative energy vision will largely depend upon the capacity for groups working toward energy democracy to influence the direction of transition through both practice and persuasion (Davis, 2002;Bushell et al, 2017). To better understand and recognize energy democracy as part of a contemporary socio-political struggle, research can seek to uncover and analyze the central characters of this struggle, the contending mobilized counter-publics (Hess, 2017), their core political claims and arguments (Montgomery, 2016), and their motives and strategies on the ground (Turnheim et al, 2015, p. 244) as embedded within and publicly performed through particular locations and diverse social institutions and modes of organization (Jasanoff, 2015;Becker and Naumann, 2017;Gibbs and O'Neill, 2017;Hess, 2017).This original research examines energy democracy initiatives and their transition narratives in northeastern North America to understand (1) how energy democracy works as a counternarrative to mainstream energy transition narratives, and (2) whether and how a diversity of counter-narratives for energy democracy are presently communicated publicly and how they compare across this region. Transition narratives include and extend beyond stories about political life to serve as collective justification for actions to create sustainability transition pathways (Luederitz et al, 2017, p. 394; Wesley, 2014, p. 138).…”