Sustainability Transitions: A Survey of an Emerging Field of Research

Falcone, Pasquale Marcello

doi:10.5296/emsd.v3i2.6239

Cited by 23 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 65 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Concepts of transition (Gazheli, Antal, & van den Bergh, 2012) and transition studies have increasingly received attention both in the policy arena and academic literature (Elzen, Augustyn, Barbier, & Van Mierlo, 2017;European Environment Agency, 2016, 2018Falcone, 2014;Lachman, 2013;Loorbach, Frantzeskaki, & Avelino, 2017;Markard, Raven, & Truffer, 2012). Ambiguity, complexity, interconnectedness, and multi dimensionality of sustainability problems imply that incremental changes are no longer sufficient and that there is a need for transformative change at system level (STRN, 2010).…”

Section: Food System Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Food and nutrition security and sustainability transitions in food systems

Bilali

Callenius

Strassner

et al. 2018

Food and Energy Security

225

101

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The concepts of food security and food sustainability are two main paradigms in the food system discourse—however, they are often addressed separately in the scientific literature. We argue that this disconnect hinders a coherent discussion of sustainability transitions, which will be necessary to solve problems (environmental, social, economic, and health) generated by conventional food systems. Our review highlights linkages between sustainability transitions and food and nutrition security using the perspective of sustainable food systems. We explore the diversity of food security narratives and food sustainability paradigms in the agro‐food arena, analyze relations between food security and food systems sustainability, and suggest options to foster a transition toward sustainable food systems. It is widely acknowledged that food systems sustainability must entail long‐term food and nutrition security in its availability, access, utilization, and stability dimensions. For food systems to deliver food and nutrition security for present and future generations, all their components need to be sustainable, resilient, and efficient. These linkages between food sustainability and food and nutrition security intersect at global, national, local, and household levels. Different strategies can be pursued to foster sustainability transitions in food systems: efficiency increase (e.g., sustainable intensification), demand restraint (e.g., sustainable diets), and food systems transformation (e.g., alternative food systems). Creating sustainable food systems requires moving from an agriculture‐centered to a food system policy and research framework. This will be fundamental to foster the complex and holistic transformation necessary to achieve sustainable food systems, which is, in turn, a prerequisite to achieving sustainable food and nutrition security.

show abstract

Section: Food System Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Food and nutrition security and sustainability transitions in food systems

Bilali

Callenius

Strassner

et al. 2018

Food and Energy Security

225

101

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, so far transition management approaches mainly focus on developed countries and lack a global perspective [162]. Their focus on technology and innovation underpins important leverage points for targeted interventions, but will require complementary approaches to address rebound effects and other transition barriers and to provide a more realistic understanding of the biophysical and societal constraints involved.…”

Section: Food For Thought For Socioecological Transformation Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Material Stock–Flow–Service Nexus: A New Approach for Tackling the Decoupling Conundrum

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Fundamental changes in the societal use of biophysical resources are required for a sustainability transformation. Current socioeconomic metabolism research traces flows of energy, materials or substances to capture resource use: input of raw materials or energy, their fate in production and consumption, and the discharge of wastes and emissions. This approach has yielded important insights into eco-efficiency and long-term drivers of resource use. But socio-metabolic research has not yet fully incorporated material stocks or their services, hence not completely exploiting the analytic power of the metabolism concept. This commentary argues for a material stock-flow-service nexus approach focused on the analysis of interrelations between material and energy flows, socioeconomic material stocks ("in-use stocks of materials") and the services provided by specific stock/flow combinations. Analyzing the interrelations between stocks, flows and services will allow researchers to develop highly innovative indicators of eco-efficiency and open new research directions that will help to better understand biophysical foundations of transformations towards sustainability.

show abstract

“…These grand challenges relate to unsustainable consumption and production patterns in systems such as energy and agro-food (STRN 2017). Therefore, transition studies have received increasing attention in both the academic literature (Markard et al 2012;Lachman 2013;Falcone 2014;Loorbach et al 2017) and policy arena (European Environment Agency 2016OECD 2011;UNEP 2011). The field has diversified in terms of journals and grown in terms of the numbers of publications (STRN 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There is a broad range of theoretical and conceptual frameworks that have been used to conceptualise, understand and promote transition towards sustainability (Falcone 2014;Geels 2005a;Grin et al 2010;Lachman 2013;Markard et al 2012;Sovacool and Hess 2017;STRN 2017). For instance, Sovacool and Hess (2017) identified 96 theories and conceptual approaches spanning 22 identified disciplines that are useful at explaining sociotechnical changes; among these, fourteen theories 1 were deemed most useful and relevant, e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Transition heuristic frameworks in research on agro-food sustainability transitions

Bilali

2018

Environ Dev Sustain

106

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The agro-food system needs a genuine sustainability transition to achieve sustainable food and nutrition security in the face of climate change, population growth, ecosystem degradation and increasing resource scarcity. Agro-food sustainability transitions refer to transformation processes needed to move towards sustainable agriculture and food systems. There is a broad range of theoretical and conceptual frameworks that have been used to understand and promote transition towards sustainability. These include the multi-level perspective (MLP) on socio-technical transitions, transition management (TM), strategic niche management (SNM), technological innovation system (TIS) and social practice approach (SPA). The paper analyses the use of these heuristic frameworks in research on agro-food sustainability transitions. A search carried out in March 2018 on Scopus yielded 791 documents, and 127 research articles underwent a systematic review. Results show that more than three-fifths of research papers dealing with sustainability transitions in agriculture, food processing, distribution and consumption use at least one of the five heuristic frameworks (MLP, TM, SNM, TIS and SPA). The MLP is the most prominent framework in research on agro-food sustainability transitions, followed by TM, SPA, SNM and then TIS. Nevertheless, MLP is increasingly complemented with frameworks that focus on humanrelated and social factors (SPA), management and governance (TM, SNM) or agency and interactions between actors (TIS) in sustainability transitions processes. Therefore, the paper makes the case for more integration of transition frameworks in order to better nurture and foster transitions towards sustainable agro-food systems.

show abstract

Sustainability Transitions: A Survey of an Emerging Field of Research

Cited by 23 publications

References 65 publications

Food and nutrition security and sustainability transitions in food systems

Food and nutrition security and sustainability transitions in food systems

The Material Stock–Flow–Service Nexus: A New Approach for Tackling the Decoupling Conundrum

Transition heuristic frameworks in research on agro-food sustainability transitions

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About