Social ties, homophily and heterophily in urban sustainability transitions: User practices and solar water heater diffusion in China

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the potential of latecomer cities in sustainability transitions from the demand side. The case study investigates the role of users and their social ties in influencing the popularisation of solar water heaters in a latecomer city Dezhou, in contrast to a more developed counterpart, Beijing. The two cities show vast differences in user preferences towards the low-tech environmental innovation, and the stronger social ties in Dezhou facilitate the diffusion through not only frequent social learning and peer pressure, but also enhancing userproducer trust and relation. These findings suggest that latecomer cities could provide less harsh selection environments for disruptive environmental innovations and their comparatively homogenous social ties could be harnessed to empower niche development.

Local governments’ incentives and governing practices in low-carbon transition: A comparative study of solar water heater governance in four Chinese cities

“…Dezhou and Rizhao are economic latecomers compared to Beijing and Shenzhen, but they have been the pioneers in SWH utilization in the urban market, both known as Solar City. Though the different diffusion outcomes have been previously explained from the infrastructure, user preference and industrial perspectives Li, Song, Beresford, & Ma, 2011;Yu & Gibbs, 2018a, 2018b, the incentives and governing practices of the local governments also significantly matter. This research applied a qualitative investigation of local governments' incentives and governing practices.…”

Analysing energy innovation portfolios from a systemic perspective

“…The accumulation of knowledge and experience (learning-by-doing) is a key pathway for improving production processes and technology performance, as well as decreasing costs (Junginger et al, 2010;Yu & Gibbs, 2018). Perceptions of the potential market size for an innovation can reinforce the shared expectations of innovation actors to stimulate and guide innovation activity.…”

Unravelling the role of green entrepreneurs in urban sustainability transitions: A case study of China’s Solar City

“…Existing urban transitions research has focused on the leading cities in the developed world and sustainability transitions in small and ordinary cities have rarely been researched (Hodson and Marvin, 2010). In fact, global environmental imperatives are repositioning the role of peripheral regions in global production networks (Murphy and Smith, 2013) by challenging the economic criteria that used to be viewed as the key to regional development and offering another pathway where latecomers may have a better chance to lead because of less regime resistance in adopting green solutions and their place-specific endowments in, for example, renewable energy resources and interpersonal networks (Späth and Rohracher, 2014; Yu and Gibbs, 2018a). Scholars have thus argued that green niche development could be combined with local economic development in non-core regions because linking environmental sustainability to regional path creation not only strengthens local industry’s competitiveness but also delivers the economic benefits that less-developed regions aim for, and thus ally more strategic actors to empower niche development (Essletzbichler, 2012).…”