Abstract
In 2015, at the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), global leaders agreed that urgent, collaborative action on climate change is not only an environmental and social imperative but also represents a significant economic opportunity. The transition to a decarbonized global economy presents a challenge of unprecedented scale, yet a growing body of research identifies local level energy transition processes as an effective locus for action and change. There is an identified lack of systematic learning about transitions at the municipal level and this presents an ideal opportunity to address it through collaborative cross-sectoral research. This paper analyzes the case of Waterloo, Canada, through the lens of socio-technical transitions to assess potentially innovative pathways to a more sustainable (low carbon) future. In particular, we examine a new participatory process called Decarbonize Waterloo Region, a forum within which local stakeholders, scholars, and practitioners can envision low carbon futures and negotiate paths toward them. Participation in the forum as embedded scholars and the administration of post-forum surveys delivered insights into the effectiveness of this process, the partnerships, and policies at various levels of government that might be required to accelerate this sustainability transition, and the roles that entrepreneurs can play in driving innovation. Waterloo Region presents an interesting case as a municipality with a history as a hub of technological innovation, in which local entrepreneurs have played a significant part. The analysis of the Decarbonize Waterloo Region process will investigate how entrepreneurs can now be engaged to articulate and implement a vision to create a local hub of transition innovation. New actors and participatory processes are of particular interest. Our investigation probes the role of entrepreneurs in experimentation, a crucial part of sustainability transition processes. Innovative low-carbon energy solutions require testing before they can be scaled up, and local entrepreneurs have the potential to play a key role in the development, roll out and evaluation of those early experiments. Ultimately, we find that a clear picture of local energy systems and distinct set of challenges (as daunting and complex as they are) provided local stakeholders with places to start and arenas for ongoing innovation. The forum process also strengthened bonds among an expanding network of stakeholders who can now move forward with a collective desire to take on those challenges and transform their local energy picture.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Following on Pelling et al. (2015), transformation can be thought of as a fundamental shift in the structure or function of a social-ecological system, including a rethinking of core values and relationships. Whether this is the result of accumulated incremental action or a more radical, disruptive shock, remains an issue of discussion and debate.
References
Biermann, F., Betsill, M., Gupta, J., Kanie, N., Lebel, L., Liverman, D., et al. (2009). Earth system governance: people, places, and the planet. Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project, Earth System Governance Project Report, 1.
Bradford, J., & Fraser, E. D. (2008). Local authorities, climate change and small and medium enterprises: Identifying effective policy instruments to reduce energy use and carbon emissions. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 15, 156–172.
Bulkeley, H. (2016). STEPS 2016 annual lecture at the University of Sussex. Accessed at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KATUvvZ8fiw.
Bulkeley, H., & Castán Broto, V. (2013). Government by experiment? Global cities and the governing of climate change. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 38(3), 361–375.
Bulkeley, H., Breitfuss, M., Coenen, L., Frantzeskaki, N., Fuenfschilling, L., Grillitsch, M., et al. (2015). Theoretical framework working paper on Urban living labs and urban sustainability transitions. Lund University, Lund.
Burch, S. (2010). In pursuit of resilient, low carbon communities: An examination of barriers to action in three Canadian cities. Energy Policy, 38, 7575–7585.
Burch, S. (2011). Development paths: Investigating the roots of responses to climate change. Sustainable Development, 19, 176–188.
Burch, S. (2016). Will Ontario’s climate change action plan transform communities? Policy Brief No. 90, Centre for International Governance Innovation. Available at: https://www.cigionline.org/sites/default/files/documents/PB%20No.90web_0.pdf.
Burch, S., Andrachuk, M., Carey, D., Frantzeskaki, N., Schroeder, H., Mischkowski, N., et al. (Forthcoming). Governing and accelerating transformative entrepreneurship: Exploring the potential for small business innovation on urban sustainability transitions. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability.
Burch, S., Shaw, A., Dale, A., & Robinson, J. (2014). Triggering transformative change: A development path approach to climate change response in communities. Climate Policy 14, 467–487. business in sustainability transitions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 45, 20–28.
Castan Broto, V., & Bulkeley, H. (2013). A survey of urban climate change experiments in 100 cities. Global Environmental Change, 23, 92–102.
Davies, M., & Oreszczyn, T. (2012). The unintended consequences of decarbonising the built environment: A UK case study. Energy and Buildings, 46, 80–85.
Driessen, P. P. J. (2015). Societal transformations in the face of climate change: Research priorities for the next decade. JPI Climate [online].
Dryzek, J. S. (2000). Deliberative democracy and beyond: Liberals, critics, contestations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Environment and Climate Change Canada. (2016). Canadian environmental sustainability indicators: Greenhouse gas emissions. Consulted on Feb 6, 2017. Available at: www.ec.gc.ca/indicateurs-indicators/default.asp?lang=en&n=FBF8455E-1.
Government of Canada. (2016). Pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change: Canada’s plan to address climate change and grow the economy. Ottawa: Government of Canada.
Hooks, B. (1989). Talking back: Thinking feminist, thinking black. New York: South End Press.
IEA. (2016). Decoupling of global emissions and economic growth confirmed. International Energy Agency.
Kerr, W. R., Nanda, R., & Rhodes-Kropf, M. (2014). Entrepreneurship as experimentation. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 28(3), 25–48.
Kinley, R. (2016). Climate change after Paris: From turning point to transformation. Climate Policy, 1–7.
Klewitz, J., & Hansen, E. G. (2014). Sustainability-oriented innovation of SMEs: A systematic review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 65, 57–75.
Klewitz, J., Zeyen, A., & Hansen, E. G. (2012). Intermediaries driving eco-innovation in SMEs: A qualitative investigation. European Journal of Innovation Management, 15, 442–467.
Loorbach, D., & Wijsman, K. (2013). Business transition management: Exploring a new role for business in sustainability transitions. Journal of Cleaner Production, 45, 20–28.
McCrone, A., & Moslener, U. (2016). Global trends in clean energy investment. United Nations Environment Program and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Pahl-Wostl, C. (2009). A conceptual framework for analyzing adaptive capacity and multi-level learning processes in resources governance regimes. Global Environment Change, 19, 354–365.
Parker, P., & Rowlands, I. H. (2007). City partners maintain climate change action despite national cuts: Residential energy efficiency programme valued at local level. Local Environment, 12, 505–517.
Pelling, M., O’Brien, K., & Matyas, D. (2015). Adaptation and transformation. Climatic Change, 133(1), 113–127. doi:10.1007/s10584-014-1303-0.
Pereira, L., Karpouzoglou, T., Doshi, S., & Frantzeskaki, N. (2015). Organising a safe space for navigating social-ecological transformations to sustainability. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 12, 6027–6044.
Pidgeon, N. F., Poortinga, W., Rowe, G., Horlick-Jones, T., Walls, J., & O’Riordan, T. (2005). Using surveys in public participation processes for risk decision making: The case of the 2003 British GM nation? Public debate. Risk Analysis, 25(2), 467–479.
Renn, O., Webler, T., & Wiedemann, P. (Eds.). (1995). Fairness and Competence in Citizen Participation. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. doi:10.1007/978-94-011-0131-8.
Robinson, P. (2005). Barriers to Canadian municipal response to climate change. Canadian Journal of Urban Research, 14, 102–120.
Scannell, L., & Gifford, R. (2013). Personally relevant climate change the role of place attachment and local versus global message framing in engagement. Environment and Behavior, 45(1), 60–85.
Schweizer, S., Davis, S., & Thompson, J. L. (2013). Changing the conversation about climate change: A theoretical framework for place-based climate change engagement. Environmental Communication: A Journal of Nature and Culture, 7(1), 42–62.
Shaw, A., Sheppard, S., Burch, S., Flanders, D., Weik, A., Carmichael, J., et al. (2009). Making local futures tangible—Synthesizing, downscaling, and visualizing climate change scenarios for participatory capacity building. Global Environmental Change, 19, 447–463.
Sova, C.A., Chaudhury, A., Helfgott, A., & Corner-Dolloff, C. (2012). Community-based adaptation costing: An integrated framework for the participatory costing of community-based adaptations to climate change in agriculture, CCAFS working paper 16. CCAFS, Denmark, Copenhagen.
Westley, F., Olsson, P., Folke, C., Homer-Dixon, T., Vredenburg, H., Loorbach, D., et al. (2011). Tipping toward sustainability: Emerging pathways of transformation. Ambio, 40(7), 762–780.
Wittmayer, Julia M., & Schäpke, Niko. (2014). Action, research and participation: Roles of researchers in sustainability transitions. Sustainability Science, 9(4), 483–496.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ninomiya, S.M., Burch, S. (2018). Beyond “The Business Case”: The Emerging Role of Entrepreneurs in the Multilevel Governance of Urban Decarbonization in Canada. In: Hughes, S., Chu, E., Mason, S. (eds) Climate Change in Cities. The Urban Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65003-6_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65003-6_16
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-65002-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-65003-6
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)