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Site de veille et de vulgarisation de la recherche sur le développement durable, l’entrepreneuriat et la PME

Projet du Laboratoire de recherche sur le développement durable en contexte de PME, affilié à l’Institut de recherche sur les PME (INRPME) de l’Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Vigie-PME repère, collecte et rend accessible à tous et en un même endroit les derniers développements scientifiques sur les sujets du développement durable et de la responsabilité sociétale associés à l’entrepreneuriat et à la gestion des petites et moyennes entreprises.

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Vigie-PME

World natural gas endowment as a bridge towards zero carbon emissions

09 Mars

Clics: 6173

Articles scientifiques

Publication year: 2012
Source:Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 79, Issue 3

Roberto F. Aguilera, Roberto Aguilera

We use a global energy market (GEM) model to show that natural gas has the potential to help stabilize global carbon emissions in a span of about 50–100years and pave the way towards low and zero carbon energy.

The GEM provides a close fit of the global energy mix between 1850 and 2005. It also matches historical carbon and CO2 emissions generated by the combustion of fossil fuels. The model is used then to forecast the future energy mix, as well as the carbon and CO2 emissions, up to the year 2150.

Historical data show relative decarbonization and an increase in the amount of hydrogen burned as a percent of fossil fuel use between 1850 and 1970. The GEM indicates that with a larger contribution of natural gas to the future energy market, the burned hydrogen percentage will increase. This decarbonization will help to advance economic and environmental sustainability.

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Using the multi-level perspective on socio-technical transitions to assess innovation policy

09 Mars

Clics: 6033

Articles scientifiques

Publication year: 2012
Source:Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 79, Issue 2

Florian Kern

In recent years a growing literature on socio-technical transitions towards sustainability has emerged. Scholars have explored ways through which configurations of technologies, infrastructures, social practices, institutions and markets can change to fulfil their functions in a more sustainable way. A multi-level perspective (MLP) has been developed to describe and analyse these complex, long-term processes. It has also been used to help design policy for example in the Netherlands. In this paper the MLP is used in a novel way: as a heuristic to ex ante assess policies to stimulate socio-technical transitions. Instead of using it for policy development, the MLP is used here for an assessment of policy. The analysis focuses on a particular policy initiative intended to stimulate the transition to a low carbon economy in the UK: the Carbon Trust. This paper makes two contributions to the socio-technical transitions literature: Conceptually, the paper demonstrates the usefulness of the socio-technical multi-level perspective to analyse policies and assess their likely impact ex ante against the background of theorising about the patterns of large scale, socio-technical change. Empirically, the paper finds that the activities of the Carbon Trust consist of a variety of well targeted ways to stimulate the development of socio-technical niches as well as to change regime practices directly. Nevertheless, the paper argues that this model also faces difficulties in promoting a transition towards a low carbon economy.

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Integrated transitions toward sustainability: The case of water and energy policies in Israel

09 Mars

Clics: 5588

Articles scientifiques

Publication year: 2012
Source:Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 79, Issue 3

Na'ama Teschner, Adrian McDonald, Timothy J. Foxon, Jouni Paavola

Transition Management literature has examined how long-term transitions could be directed toward greater sustainability. However, it has mostly taken a sectoral approach which neglects the potential relationships between environmental changes and policy dynamics in different sectors. This paper examines parallel and interrelated dynamics in the Israeli water and energy sectors by combining insights from the literature on policy dynamics, transition management, co-evolution, and policy integration. The developed approach examines how sectoral transitions may be coupled and technological regimes may co-evolve. Israel has battled water, energy and other scarcities from its formation. Consecutive dry years, the loss of stream flows, salinization of the coastal aquifer, and severe pollution are problems facing water managers, while air pollution, imported fossil fuels and carbon emissions are salient energy issues. Water and energy sectors are both in transition because earlier policies have resulted in socially-induced scarcity, degradation of environmental assets and loss of adaptive capacity to respond to future challenges. Current approaches to water and energy scarcities have evolved around technological configurations which emphasize traditional supply side solutions such as seawater desalination and additional power plants. They may be difficult to change without explicit integrative transitions management.

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Credible expectations — The US Department of Energy's Hydrogen Program as enactor and selector of hydrogen technologies

09 Mars

Clics: 5376

Articles scientifiques

Publication year: 2012
Source:Technological Forecasting and Social Change

Sjoerd Bakker, Harro van Lente, Marius T.H. Meeus

There are many competing transition paths toward sustainability and even more competing visions and expectations, while only a limited of number of paths can be supported. In the literature so far, not much attention has been paid to the question: what makes one expectation more credible than another?

On the basis of a case study on the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Hydrogen Program we show how credible expectations build on three arguments in favor of the promising option. First there is the technology's current level of performance and its historical progress toward that level. Second a path forward is constructed to argue that even higher levels of performance can be achieved. And third, an end target is constructed that relates to relevant societal needs. All three elements can, and often are, subject of contestation and competing options will provide the same type of arguments and relate to the same societal needs.

Finally, a transition path needs promising enabling technologies to remain credible, and the ‘losers’ are dropped as soon as the credibility of the path is challenged.

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