Related papers
Civil society actors as drivers of socio-ecological transition? Green spaces in European cities as laboratories of social innovation
Judith Schicklinski
Why are civil society dynamics concerning green spaces across European cities so interesting for socio-ecological transition? All over Europe self-organized civil society movements are emerging to tackle local challenges, becoming active players in local governance processes. These social experiments have even been intensified as a result of tight public local budgets. Their activities contribute to the functioning and well-being of a European society aiming for sustainability. Preserving the availability of bio-diverse green spaces is crucial for the socio-ecological transition of cities since besides providing recreational opportunities for city dwellers, they yield essential ecological benefits from cleaning the air to reducing noise, but also provide habitat for many species and plants and reduce local vulnerabilities to extreme climate events. In cities in which local governments have severe difficulties in affording the provision of green space, new self-organized initiatives have emerged for maintaining and even developing them. Initiatives such as urban gardening have proven that people are able to cooperate, to organize themselves and to take over responsibility for green spaces as well as even introducing new practices that support the socio-ecological transition. This Milestone will contribute to the questions: -how can citizen groups contribute to maintain existing green spaces which are available and accessible for all and possibly being expanded whilst assuring biodiversity and allowing diverse use for local needs (re-creation, community-based food-production, neighbourhood culture, common intergenerational and intercultural learning etc.) at the same time; -which policy framework allows for a constructive colaboration between local authorities, administration, economic actors and citizens, enabling innovative solutions in the area of urban food production, green-space management and participative urban development.
View PDFchevron_right
Cities in Socio-Ecological Transition : The Transformative Role of Urban Commons Contribution to the XVIth IASC Conference 2017 “ Practicing the commons ” in Utrecht by
Thomas Sauer
2017
Contribution #1116 to Track 7: Commons and the City "Cities are where the opportunities and threats to sustainable development come together" (European Commission 2014). This quote nicely summarises why the focus of this research is laid on the role of cities in the European socioecological transition towards strong sustainability, in short the European sustainability transition. What is at stake here is the role of common-pool resources in the urban sustainability transition. This paper provides key results of an EU wide research project (Thomas Sauer, Susanne Elsen, and Cristina Garzillo 2016) concerning the question raised: "For which urban spaces and resources can commons be a viable alternative governance model?" Yet many field studies could find local groups of users managing common-pool resources cooperatively in rural or maritime areas. But what kind common-pool resources (and services) could be conceived as genuinely "urban commons"? In urban contexts such resource-governance systems may be run by civil cooperatives in the energy and housing sectors, or by community groups caring for local green spaces, or nongovernmental organizations intervening into the management of water or other ecological resource systems, or non-profit organizations managing urban farming initiatives. Hence, does it make sense to consider these resource systems-energy, green spaces, water-as "urban commons"? We selected one hybrid (energy) and two natural resource systems (green spaces and water) for our inquiry into the role of the third sector in these sustainability transitions (Ralf Schüle 2007; Michael McGinnis and Elinor Ostrom 2010; Oran R. Young 2012). Considering the urban energy systems, we assume that the decarbonisation of the energy system could have significant spatial implications. Such kind of energy transition in urban areas, decentralising the production of renewable energy as well, could reunite the local production and consumption of electric power. The technological shift from fossil fuels to renewable energies provides a new opportunity for such a spatial recoupling of energy transformation and energy consumption. If the proportion of renewable energy harvesting in overall energy provision increases, and if the chosen path of renewable energy technology development is in favour of miniaturised and decentralised energy generation, the ratio of energy transformation to its total final consumption inside the city limits should increase. As a result, the boundaries of the energy system on the one hand and the governance systems on the other hand could be more equivalent on the local level and enhance the involvement of urban and regional actors in the governance of the energy system. Furthermore, such a
View PDFchevron_right
Cities in Transition: The Transformative Role Of Urban Commons
Thomas Sauer
This paper provides new results of an EU wide research project (Thomas Sauer, Susanne Elsen, and Cristina Garzillo 2016) concerning the question raised: “For which urban spaces and resources can commons be a viable alternative governance model?” Yet many field studies could find local groups of users managing common-pool resources cooperatively in rural or maritime areas. But what kind common-pool resources (and services) could be conceived as genuinely “urban commons”? In urban contexts such resource-governance systems may be run by civil cooperatives in the energy and housing sectors, or by community groups caring for local green spaces, or non-governmental organizations intervening into the management of water or other ecological resource systems, or non-profit organizations managing urban farming initiatives. Does it make sense to consider these resource systems – energy, water, and green spaces –as “urban commons”? The SES socio-ecological systems framework as presented in Amy R. Poteete, Marco A. Janssen, and Elinor Ostrom (2010) and the work of Elinor Ostrom (2005) on institutional diversity provided the main building blocks for this study on urban commons. Based on this, a set of rules set with increasing complexity and dynamics was build, providing an innovative framework for the analysis of the transition of urban socio-ecological systems. For comparing the governance of the three urban resource systems in the diverse institutional settings of 14 European countries, a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods was appropriate to address the research questions derived of the outlined theory. As a result of a multi-stage process produced a selection of 40 European cities was chosen according to the set criteria. After the selection, the actual field research was conducted and transcribed by native speaking researchers in the domestic language and later on translated into English. To achieve a thorough insight into the resource systems energy, green spaces, and water, a quantitative inquiry was conducted as well as qualitative expert interviews with four different local actors from distinct sectors (government, business and civil society). This mix provides a glance on normative shifts, which are facilitating as well as impeding significant institutional changes in the sphere of urban common-pool resource governance. Our empirical inquiry and our conducted interviews show that there are individual traits and differences in the several countries and cities as well as convergences. However, a central role for changing institutional arrangements in favor of urban commons lies in degrees of local autonomy, coherent legal frameworks, and activities of civil society. Urban commons do play a significant role for socio- ecological transitions. However, their role in different resource systems has to be evaluated separately. References Ostrom, Elinor. 2005. Understanding institutional diversity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. Poteete, Amy R., Marco A. Janssen, and Elinor Ostrom. 2010. Working together. Collective action, the commons, and multiple methods in practice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. Sauer, Thomas, Susanne Elsen, and Cristina Garzillo, ed. 2016. Cities in transition. Social innovation for Europe's urban sustainability. Abingdon, Oxon, New York, NY: Routledge.
View PDFchevron_right
Cities: Places of New European Prosperity – Compendium of Case Studies on the Socio-ecological Transition of Urban Commons. WWWforEurope Deliverable No. 6
Thomas Sauer
Monographien, 2015
Contents 1. Motivation 2. Theoretical background 2.1 An institutional focus for transition analysis 2.2 General model of socio-ecological transition 2.3 Research strategy and research design 3. Summary of the empirical findings 3.1 Socio-ecological transitions in the energy system 3.2 Socio-ecological transition in the resource system green spaces 3.3 Socio-ecological transitions in the water system 3.4 Institutional diversity Abbreviations CO2 Carbon dioxide ECO Related ecosystems EU European Union EU13 Newer members of the European Union with the enlargements in 2004, 2007 and 2013 EU15 Members of the European Union prior to the eastward enlargement in 2004 GDP Gross domestic product GS Governance system I Interactions IAD Institutional Analysis and Development ICT Information and Communication Technologies NGO Non-government organisation O Outcomes ROCSET The Role of Cities in the Socio-Ecological Transition of Europe RS Resource system RU Resource units S Variables of the social, economic, and political settings SES Socio-ecological system SET Socio-ecological transition U Users WBGU German Advisory Council on Global Change Cities: Places of new European prosperity Compendium of case studies on the socio-ecological transition of urban commons
View PDFchevron_right
Climate and Energy in a Complex Transition Process towards Sustainable Hyderabad. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies by Changing Institutions, …
Konrad Hagedorn
2009
View PDFchevron_right
Climate and Energy in a Complex Transition Process towards Sustainability in Hyderabad: Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies by Changing Institutions, Governance Structures, Lifestyles and Consumption Patterns
Konrad Hagedorn
2013
View PDFchevron_right
Open-ended design as second-order design : a case study of teaching cybernetics and system thinking to industrial design students
Walter Dejonghe
2017
View PDFchevron_right
Impact of Student Interventions on Urban Greening Processes
Derk Jan Stobbelaar
Sustainability, 2020
The aim of this study is to determine the contribution of student interventions to urban greening processes. In two Dutch cities action research was conducted, including reflexive interviews a year after the first intervention, to assess factors causing change in the socio-ecological system. Results show that students and network actors were mutually learning, causing the empowerment of actors in that network by adding contextualized knowledge, enlarging the social network, expanding the amount of interactions in the socio-ecological system and speeding up the process. Students brought unique qualities to the process: time, access to stakeholders who tend to distrust the municipality and a certain open-mindedness. Their mere presence made a difference and started a process of change. However, university staff needed to keep the focus on long-term effects and empowerment, because students did not oversee that. After a year, many new green elements had been developed or were in the pl...
View PDFchevron_right
Conceptual and Operational Integration of Governance, Financing, and Business Models for Urban Nature-Based Solutions
Amaia Sopelana
Sustainability, 2021
This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY
View PDFchevron_right
Adapted SES Framework for AEFS and Guidelines for Assessing Sustainability of Agricultural Systems in Europe
Emmanuel GUISEPELLI
2018
This report, Deliverable D2.1, explains the adapted SES framework for the sustainability assessment of agro-ecological farming systems and operationalises the framework by providing guidance for the analytical work packages (WP3, WP4, WP5, and WP6) and their collection of information and assessment of SES variables.
View PDFchevron_right