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Co-creation, co-evolution and co-governance: understanding green businesses and urban transformations

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Abstract

Green businesses based on economic, social and technological innovations are engines of green growth and climate change adaptation across the world. However, without proper interactive mechanisms with the city, green businesses are particularly vulnerable in today’s fast-changing socio-economic and political urban contexts. Existing research on climate change adaptation and low-carbon transitions have not explained the crucial components and mechanisms involved in realising sustainable transformations through green businesses in cities. Synthesizing the latest green innovation and urban transformation literature, the paper analyses four distinctive urban green business cases: free-floating bike sharing in Shanghai (Mobike), a renewable energy cooperative in Girona (Som Energia), urban agriculture in Venice and green building start-ups in Istanbul. Based on a comparative analysis, we theorize a 3-Co model to explain the city-green-business transformation process consisting of: first, co-creation of sustainable values between green business and the respective society; second, co-evolution between the business ecosystem and the city’s visions and policies; and third, co-governance of sustainable trade-offs during the business development and implementation process.

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Fig. 1

Notes

  1. http://www.viuredelaire.cat/ca/

  2. https://blog.somenergia.coop/comunicados-prensa/2018/01/som-energia-financia-en-lleida-proyecto-paliar-efectos-pobreza-energetica/

  3. https://ec.europa.eu/neighbourhood-enlargement/sites/near/files/pdf/turkey/st20002_05_tr_framedoc_en.pdf

  4. Among the 35 Chapters necessary to complete the accession process

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Acknowledgements

This paper benefited from the thoughtful comments of three anonymous reviewers.

Funding

This research is part of the EU-funded H2020 project GREEN-WIN—Green Growth and Win-Win Strategies for Sustainable Climate Action (Grant Agreement No 642018; www.green-win-project.eu).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3QR, UK

    Yuge Ma, Thomas F. Thornton & Dina Hestad

  2. School of Arts & Sciences, University of Alaska, Juneau, AK, USA

    Thomas F. Thornton

  3. NEOMA Business School, 76130, Mont-Saint-Aignan, France

    Diana Mangalagiu

  4. School of Economics, Henan University of Economics and Law, Zhengzhou, 450046, China

    Jing Lan

  5. European Centre for Living Technology, Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Venezia, VE, Italy

    Elena Apostoli Cappello & Sander Van der Leeuw

Authors
  1. Yuge Ma
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  2. Thomas F. Thornton
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  3. Diana Mangalagiu
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  4. Jing Lan
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  5. Dina Hestad
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  7. Sander Van der Leeuw
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Correspondence to Jing Lan.

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This article is part of a Special Issue on Win-Win Solutions to Climatic Change edited by Diana Mangalagiu, Alexander Bisaro, Jochen Hinkel, and Joan David Tàbara

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Ma, Y., Thornton, T.F., Mangalagiu, D. et al. Co-creation, co-evolution and co-governance: understanding green businesses and urban transformations. Climatic Change 160, 621–636 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02541-3

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