2.3. The MLP perspective
2.3 Transitions in socio-technical systems: the MLP perspective
In the field of sustainability transition studies, the MLP model has become established as the most influential perspective focusing on production and consumption systems. MLP stands for Multilevel perspective [to transitions].
In the early 2000s, Frank Geels, Professor of System Innovation, and Johan Schot, Professor of Global History and Sustainability Breakthroughs, studied changes in transport systems, such as the shift from sailing boats to steamships, and the origins of major technological breakthroughs in general. Major breakthroughs have changed not only the technologies but also the practices, assumptions and ways of thinking that affect how we understand different technologies and their significance in the world.
Since then, the use of MLP has broadened: it is applied to large-scale systemic transformations that have already occurred but also to understanding and promoting sustainability transition. For example, research seeks to identify windows of opportunity that open up particularly powerful opportunities for changing the system. For example in Manila, Philippines, the COVID-19 pandemic acted as a window of opportunity that made cycling a popular mode of transport in the city. This was facilitated by the creation of a large number of “pop-up bike lanes” in the city to enable rapid and COVID-safe movement from one place to another and to reduce traffic congestion (exacerbated by people switching from buses to private transport). In many countries, the pandemic transformed workplace meeting practices: it was necessary to learn how to hold remote meetings, and the development of meeting systems “leapt forward” (a business opportunity that many companies sought to exploit) and remote meetings briefly became the new normal and, even after the unusual COVID conditions, a viable alternative to travel.
At the heart of the MLP framework is a three-level map of socio-technical systems, which is used to explain the mechanisms of the formation, progression and stagnation of systemic transitions. Starting from the broadest of the analytical map levels, the levels are 1) operational environments, i.e., landscapes, 2) prevailing systems, i.e., regimes, and 3) niches: local micro-innovations, or alternative or new activities.
Multi-level perspective model (MLP) based on Geels & Schot 2007.
For example, the landscape of a food system is the set of environmental and social (political, cultural, international) conditions that determine the likely and possible ways in which food is produced, processed and sold.
The regime map layer can in turn be defined in different ways depending on the objectives of the analysis. The regime analyzed can be, for example, a single-country food system (which of course is internationally linked), an intensive meat production system (including its established actors and operating models and the socio-cultural factors that contribute to the demand for cheap meat) or, for example, a school meal institution. The distinction between regime and landscape is therefore not straightforward but depends on the perspective.
A niche, then, is any experimental, alternative and innovative activity that departs from prevailing practices and solutions. The niche of the food system is represented by, for example, local food circles as well as new plant protein products that compete for consumer attention alongside the default protein (meat, dairy) of the regime.
Reinforcing understanding: put your exercise or eating habits into the MLP framework!
Examine either your usual eating habits or your usual habits of moving from one place to another. You can draw your answers on a paper in a three-level model as shown above, but you can also do the exercise in your head by answering the following questions.
- Identify the regime: what is your usual way of eating or moving from place to place (work/study/hobby trips) in everyday life?
- Identify at least three factors that explain why you act the way you do. What kinds of technological, cultural and value-related, market-related, and political factors are relevant in explaining (i.e. influencing) your usual behavior?
- Identify the pressures for change in the landscape: are there any wider phenomena, debates or developments that could affect the way you move or eat in the future? What are they?
- Identify the niche: what kind of behaviors are there that represent a "niche" in your own routines? For example, do you move in very different ways in certain situations (and how and why) or do you occasionally eat differently (and how and why)?
The prevailing system, the regime, does not include just the technical dimensions of a particular activity. Politics, culture, values, science and market are all elements of the system. The "resistance to change" of regimes identified in studies is often related to political, cultural and economic factors. For example, the actors who benefit most from the current system – such as the companies that make the most profit from current consumption habits and the groups of people who lead prosperous lives amidst the inequalities created by the present situation – have an interest in preserving the regime. As benefits accumulate, they often have more power or other resources to support the preservation of the regime.
On the other hand, the regime also influences public values and norms. In the early 20th century, the social philosopher Antonio Gramsci discussed this phenomenon through the concept of cultural hegemony. He argued that in a capitalist system, for example, the ability of the dominant group to maintain its position is based not so much on political power as on cultural hegemony, in which the very values that support the interests of those in power become mainstream and are eventually taken for granted. "Common sense” and dominant narratives thus easily mold to the values and norms that serve the interests of those in power. This is exemplified by a saying that has taken many forms, emphasizing that everyone has the potential to succeed if they just try hard enough: “everyone is an architect of their own fortune” (as if the environment and family background gave all people the same starting point for success), they just have to “get their act together”.
Nor, for example, is Western individualism and its emphasis on individual freedom of choice a universal and timeless ideal, but a relatively new idea in human history (see the section 3.3 Making wise pathway choices for more on this). Similarly, the idea of flying as a normal way of traveling on business and holiday trips is that only about 4 % of the world's people take an annual flight to another country and about 90 % of the world's population never flies.
While the advantages and power gained strengthen the ability of those who benefit from the status quo to put the brakes on change, the current systems of production and consumption are not monoliths that cannot be challenged. Science, politics, economics and culture can put unintended or intentional pressure on systems to change, as we will learn in this course. For example, civil society and grassroots innovations have become increasingly important as drivers of change. This is evident, for example, in the debate on food choices: cultural values and assumptions are being challenged both by different voices in the public debate and by grassroots campaigns such as Meatless October and Veganuary (Vegan January), which encourage people to change their eating habits. Many widely followed social media accounts and hashtags have questioned assumptions about food and eating habits, for example by challenging perceptions of the link between physical strength and meat-eating, and by launching the openly unhealthy concept of ”junk food veganism” to break down the perception that vegetarianism always means healthy but unenjoyable food choices. As you progress through this course, you will discover many other examples of civil society and grassroots activities that promote sustainability.
2.3.1 Mechanisms of transitions
Many pathways can lead to system transition. Researchers have outlined these pathways and identified among them a number of ideal types; simplified versions of a messier reality. However, understanding these ideal types helps us to see how many different trajectories can lead to transition.
Reconfiguration is an example of a very gentle pathway of transition. It involves existing key players changing their ways of working and/or adopting new technologies on a large scale. This is illustrated by a number of system transitions related to waste management and wastewater treatment (which thus are very relevant, inter alia, for the impact that human activities have on water system). For instance, the growing understanding and concern about hygiene and its link to the health status of people and whole cities led to gradual reforms in many cities, the nature of which was actively negotiated with government representatives (the London sewerage project was an exception in this respect because of its rapid and groundbreaking nature).
At other times, however, several solutions compete for the role of the new regime as the old system either collapses or faces increasing criticism. The transition from horse-drawn carriages to fossil-fuelled cars (circa 1870–1930) was a multi-stage process in which, as late as the 1880s, steam, electricity and petrol were all alternative propulsion systems. Initially, different systems occupied different niches: for example, using electricity in taxis and luxury cars was popular. Eventually, the petrol engine took over the regime. Its success was explained, among other things, by its early success in cars intended for driving longer distances (the range of electric cars was too short, for example, for driving in the countryside) and the suitability of the workshops already operating on farms to service and repair petrol engines with a minimum of investment. There was also already a fairly good distribution network for petrol in general stores.
The triumph of the petrol engine would not, in itself, necessarily have meant the mainstreaming of private motoring. In particular, private cars gaining popularity as a mode of transport rather than public transport and bicycles was supported by a side-effect of urbanization, namely suburbanization: the location of residential areas in the outer zones of the city, which increased the distance traveled, for example, between home and workplace. A fast, physically effortless way to cover even long distances offered the optimal solution in terms of freedom and convenience. In
Finland, the triumph of motoring occurred after the mid-20th century (slightly later than in many other countries of the Global North), when the number of passenger cars in particular started to increase. In the early 1960s, there were about 55 cars per 1 000 Finns. In the early 1980s, the number had risen to 260 and in the early 1990s to 480. By the early 2020s, Finland already had around 780 cars per 1,000 people. More than 80% of these were passenger cars.
Two ongoing transitions of the transport system
In terms of car propulsion, we are entering a new period of transition as the landscape imposes pressure for change (climate crisis as part of the landscape). The transition to electric cars as a mainstream system seems to have accelerated since the car manufacturers already in position of power have started to produce their own models of electric cars, which were originally innovated in the niche. Tesla, originally known as the niche flagship, is now competing with electric models from traditional car brands. At the same time, biogas has been promoted in some places at regional or national level as a means of car propulsion and as part of transition policies. The main motivation for promoting biogas is that petrol cars can be converted to run on biogas at relatively low cost. This will help to mitigate the delay caused by technological transitions of expensive equipment, where the full benefits of new technology would only be realized once all equipment has been renewed.
In addition, the issue of propulsion can be seen as a part of the wider pressure to transform transport systems. The predominantly car-based transport system, supported by both social infrastructure and land-use solutions (which determine distances between home, work and stores), has been questioned from environmental and health perspectives. At the same time, a significant proportion of public health problems are linked to reduced physical activity levels. In 2016, the World Health Organization WHO (2022) estimated that around 40% of the adult population in the US and 29% in Europe were too inactive to stay healthy, and 80% of 10-19 year olds. For adults, insufficient physical activity is directly linked to income level: around 16% of low-income earners were too physically inactive, 26% of middle-income earners and almost 37% of high-income earners.
In a sense, of course, the whole pressure for change that is challenging the dominance of private cars is fundamentally a question of propulsion: when it comes to moving from one place to another, how much do we utilize the power produced by the human body and its need to be active enough to stay healthy?
Transition almost never happens overnight or simplistically, and the trajectory of the transition, with its various twists and turns, can often only be seen properly in retrospect or after the transition has at least passed a certain threshold, such as the threshold in the energy transition when wind power became economically viable without separate subsidies. The path of transition often involves tensions, conflicts and unexpected challenges, where the transition may take new directions or go backwards – sometimes even reverting to the previous regime. The energy transition in Germany illustrates the twists and turns along the pathway of transition.
Germany's energy transition from the MLP perspective
The German energy transition (Energiewende) – a transition in which both fossil and nuclear energy were replaced by renewable energy sources and natural gas in significant quantities – is an example of a socio-technical systemic transition. Although various innovations in renewable energy had already been made in the 1970s and pioneering groups had introduced, for example, small-scale wind power, it was only the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986, according to researchers, that provided a landscape level shock needed for systemic transition. This shock was followed by the strengthening of support policies that fueled innovation and gave renewables a certain competitive advantage (feed-in tariffs and an obligation to feed renewable energy to the grid if it is available – electricity cannot be fed into the grid unless there is a buyer). These measures made wind power in particular economically viable. The success of German turbine manufacturers boosted support for wind power.
The next environmental shock came when the red–green government that emerged from the 1998 election victory shook up the rigid relationship between politicians and energy companies. For example, the new government liberalized the electricity market to a considerable extent, weakening the previously self-evident dominance of the giant companies. At the same time, the government created incentives for small electricity producers (such as farmers, municipalities and households) to enter the market and introduced a program to phase out nuclear power. Between 2005 and 2011, the share of electricity generated from renewable energy doubled to 20% as a result of both policy measures and changes in market profitability. Half of wind power generation was owned by households.
The years 2011–2016 have been described by researchers as a destabilization of the prevailing energy regime. However, the nuclear phase-out was very close to being cancelled (illustrating the resilience of the prevailing regimes even in the face of change), but the Fukushima nuclear accident in 2011 "cancelled the cancellation plans", allowing the phase-out program to proceed. The energy transition continued, thanks to a combination of political, market and debating forces. The market access of niche innovations was driven by the continued improvement in the profitability of renewable energy, the success of renewable energy technology companies and the growing criticism of nuclear power.
The complex (and here considerably simplified) story of the German energy transition illustrates how the destabilization of the dominant energy technology system required not only technological innovations but also a series of landscape level shocks and changes within the dominant system, affecting, among other things, the price of different solutions, the support for nuclear power and the diversification of the players allowed to enter the market. On the other hand, over time, some undesirable aspects of the transition have also become apparent. In the case of solar energy, the final breakthrough was significantly facilitated by the entry of China into the technology market and the consequent collapse of the price of solar modules by a third in just a few years (2007–2011). However, this also led to the bankruptcy of many previously strong German companies and to a decline in domestic production. The transitions can therefore have many negative effects on social (and perhaps also ecological) sustainability.
The German energy system also showed its vulnerability in the context of the Russian war of aggression in 2022. Around a quarter of Germany's energy consumption is met by gas, more than half of which was still imported from Russia in 2021. The war prompted a plan to phase out gas imports over a two-year transition period, but estimates made during the early phases of the transition suggest that this would require both an increase in coal use and an extension of the lifetime of nuclear power plants.
The anti-nuclear civil movement, which has been strong in Germany for decades, has played its part in the Energiewende. A picture of an anti-nuclear demonstration in Berlin in 1980. Photo by W.Seiler, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
2.3.2 Fostering transition through intervention points
Like the leverage point theory, the MLP approach seeks to identify intervention points from which it is more likely possible to steer systems in the desired direction of change because of the systems dynamics. (Despite their similarities, leverage points and MLP intervention points are not the same thing; MLP points were developed specifically to influence policies.) Acting on more than one intervention point at a time greatly improves the chances of influencing the system. Laur Kanger’s research team working on MLP research has proposed six policy intervention points as particularly relevant for changing socio-technical systems. We will explore these points below.
Intervention points of the multi-level perspective model (MLP, see 2.4), based on Kanger et al. 2020 and Geels & Schot 2007. Intervention points are points at which the prevailing socio-technical systems can be sought to change. The six intervention points are (1) stimulate different niches, (2) accelerate the niches, (3) destabilize the regime, (4) address the broader repercussions of regime destabilization, (5) provide coordination to multi-regime interaction, and (6) tilt the landscape.
(1) Stimulate different niches
Often the best solutions to problems are found through ideation and experimentation. Along the way, there are many experiments that end up not working or that are lost when someone comes up with an even better solution. Revolutionizing technological solutions and practices in energy, transport and food systems requires stimulating different niches to find as many alternative solutions as possible to the current habits of production and consumption, from which the best can be screened.
Innovation can be stimulated in particular through support for research and development (R&D funding), thought exercises and strategy work to build visions for the future (more on this in section 3 of the course), reduced regulation restricting experimentation and small-scale use of innovations, and public procurement to encourage testing and further refinement of innovations. In innovation, a wealth of ideas is particularly important, rather than being locked into a single solution.
For example, the Netherlands, a pioneer in producing easy-to-use "meat substitutes" to support the sustainability transition in food systems, invested in stimulating niches by setting up the Profetas program in 1999, with funding of almost €1.5 million granted by various ministries and research institutes. The Profetas program provided insights, for instance, into the need to find new technologies to modify the structure of the pea protein in order to bring products to market that consumers would like.
The program itself did not yet produce any final marketed products, but it was followed by a wider series of experiments and development projects around different raw material processing technologies, which enriched innovation and produced success stories that have since reached the market. On the other hand, experimentation was limited by the regulation of the regime. The EU Novel Foods Regulation required a heavy and expensive authorization process for raw materials considered as novel, citing safety concerns; peas were defined as novel raw materials if their protein components were separated and transformed into more meaty products. Such regulation made it difficult for smaller operators in particular to participate in innovation.
(2) Accelerate the niches
For innovation to change the regimes, the most promising innovations must either grow out of the scale of marginal experiments, i.e. scale up and become part of the regime, or create a genuinely challenging alternative to the regime and eventually replace it.
Niches can be accelerated through interventions to either production, market or consumption. Support for production means in particular supporting the activities of small and medium-sized enterprises (e.g., advisory services or the allocation of risk capital to encourage start-ups and investment). On the market and consumption side, niches are accelerated by measures such as subsidies that encourage experimenting on or adopting new innovations.
The transport system offers many examples of accelerating niches. The transition to electric cars has been encouraged by market and consumer regulation. A 2020 benchmarking of policy measures across 20 countries showed that tax incentives and subsidies for the purchase of electric cars were particularly popular as a means of promoting the prevalence of electric cars. 19/20 of the countries surveyed (with the exception of South Africa) had already introduced financial incentives for consumers to motivate them to use electric cars. Subsidies for the purchase of electric cars were particularly high in Norway, which has strongly promoted the purchase of electric cars through other means, as well. By the end of 2022, more than 75% of new cars sold in Norway were full electric cars, compared to only 40% in 2017. On the other hand, a sufficiently extensive network of charging stations is a necessary condition for full electric cars to become more popular. Therefore, expanding the charging network and supporting the installation of private charging points has been a critical element of scaling up.
(3) Destabilize the regime
Sustainability transition does not proceed by only fostering positive developments; it also requires conscious destabilization of regimes and the dismantling of harmful processes, that is, deliberately causing "creative destruction" by mean of politics. The transformation of systems into regimes is often facilitated by processes that at the same time bolster them.
For example, the low-carbon sustainability transition is made more difficult by the carbon lock-in: technological lock-in to fossil fuels. This lock-in started when a whole technological infrastructure was built around the use of fossil fuels. This infrastructure is reinforced by many investments, and the production of the skills currently needed to use and develop the same infrastructure leads to a situation where knowledge, skills and training are concentrated on the continued operation of the current system based on fossil fuels. In the locked-in state of the system, it is the operations based on fossil fuel-based energy that are particularly easy, cost-effective and reliable. This lock-in makes the system stubbornly resistant to change and makes it difficult to bring about a transition of energy and transport systems. It is essential that the regimes are destabilized to ensure a fairer playing field between established solutions (which, without any destabilizing action, have the advantage) and new solutions and to allow new solutions to become increasingly common.
Regimes can be destabilized by removing subsidies for harmful activities, such as tax reliefs and investment subsidies for fossil energy, or by increasing environmental taxes, such as the fuel taxes or energy taxes for fossil energy. Even stronger form of regulation would be banning certain activities after a transitional period. For example, the EU has decided to effectively ban the sale of internal combustion engine cars from 2035, because EU regulations require cars sold in 2035 to be emission-free. Transition periods are a compromise between the urgency of environmental action and the time needed to make changes in a socially sustainable way. The tension between urgency and
slowness is an inescapable feature of sustainability transitions. It involves political negotiations and many debates about the level of acceptable harm and whether the transition can be accelerated by combining stricter requirements with partial compensation for harm (see also section 3.6 Just transition).
Divestment of fossil fuels
Fossil fuel divestment is an example of a niche international movement that has emerged in recent decades to undermine the energy regime. It seeks to accelerate the energy transition by focusing attention on the responsibility of fossil fuel companies and on the structures of the economic system that support them. Fossil fuel companies are the main emitters of GHG emissions. They can continue to operate because they continue to receive funding from the market. The divestment movement requires financial market participants to withdraw their investments (disinvestment, i.e. divestment) in fossil fuel companies (Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) et al. 2021).
The divestment movement has been compared to previous campaigns against the tobacco industry and apartheid in South Africa. Calls for divestment from fossil fuels began in the early 2010s with student campaigns at US universities. Thanks in particular to the writings of the environmental organization 350.org and its leader Bill McKibben, the divestment campaign quickly began to spread to other organizations and countries. It is difficult to estimate the amount of money divested, as divestment decisions and actions vary widely from one actor to another. However, by 2022, more than 1,500 financial market participants of a combined value of around $40 trillion had committed to divest partially or fully (see current situation here). Most divestments have been made by actors with societal responsibilities: universities, cities, foundations, religious communities, etc. Banks and investment institutions have also divested: for example, the world's largest multinational investment bank, the European Investment Bank (EIB), decided in 2019 to stop investing in and providing financial services to fossil fuel companies. The EIB also decided to end subsidies that had been paid to the former giant polluters for the development of renewable energy: EIB considered that giant polluters have an obligation to pay for the transition with the profits they have accumulated from activities that exacerbate climate change ("the polluter pays" principle). In Finland, divestment campaigns have targeted, for example, the University of Helsinki, banks and pension companies.
The direct impact of divestment tactics on the energy crisis has been questioned in public debate and research. Divestment decisions by organizations are often inadequate or may be used as a pretext to shift investments to countries where fossil energy use is more subsidized. The more fundamental problem is that as long as the fossil fuel business remains profitable, there will probably always be an ethically indifferent buyer ready to buy the divested fossil fuel stocks. At worst, critics say, divestment can distract attention from the fossil system as a whole and from measures such as carbon taxes and emission trading that would make the fossil business unprofitable.
According to the defenders of divestment, the movement's leading figures have always been aware that divestment is mostly a "symbolic" measure and a means among others. The movement influences the landscape of the energy system by reinforcing negative attitudes towards fossil fuel companies (e.g. by drawing parallels with the tobacco industry) and by undermining the social and moral legitimacy of the fossil fuel economy. A change in attitudes may facilitate the passage of policies that restrict fossil fuel economy. The movement has also influenced the financial sector's perceptions of investor responsibility and the risks of the fossil fuel business. For example, it has
succeeded in raising awareness that if climate policy proceeds in line with international agreements, the vast majority of the world's fossil reserves will be stranded assets (so-called “carbon risk”).
Over time, the divestment movement has also diversified its demands on investors: in addition to divestment, money should be invested in assets that accelerate the energy transition. The demand is therefore now both to undermine the status quo and to accelerate innovation in the alternative system. A coherent, holistically impactful carbon policy has become the demand aimed at the investors.
(4) Address the broader repercussions of regime destabilization
As systems always operate within a wider environment, the effects of regime destabilization and the measures aiming at destabilization always extend beyond the system itself. The broader repercussions of environmental actions can be economic, social, cultural and also environmental, for example, when actions taken with regard to climate also affect biodiversity or water bodies. When regimes are destabilized, particular attention may need to be given to large-scale repercussions that are harmful to the environment and to human well-being or equality, such as negative impacts on jobs in entire industries and on regional livelihoods: for example, shutting down coal-fired power plants already implemented in Germany and Canada have had a severe impact on regional livelihoods in some regions. Because addressing the broader repercussions side-effects is so integral to a just transition, we discuss this topic in more detail in section 3.6, Just transition.
(5) Provide coordination to multi-regime interaction
Many of the prevailing socio-technical systems or their processes are mutually reinforcing. For example, certain planning and land-use decisions, such as suburban expansion, have reinforced the role of the private motoring. This, in turn, has made living in the suburbs more desirable, as from the motorist's point of view, distances do not increase significantly, even if the suburban area extends further.
Sustainability transition requires breaking the linkages that connect environmentally harmful features of systems to another or tackling different aspects of the linkage simultaneously. Public administrations play a critical role in such efforts: they are able to direct sectors in a coordinated manner, while businesses often operate in only one sector, and civil society often lacks the capacity for cross-sectoral coordination that aims to break the linkages. Policy mixes, that is, combinations of several policy instruments, are key to coordinating several regimes at the same time and breaking the linkages. The design and implementation of policy mixes can also be a challenge for public administrations, where the departments that prepare and implement decisions – civil servants and public sector employees – tend to operate separated from one another: environment, transport, health and planning departments each work on their own issues. This kind of siloing enables specialization and deeper control of one's own subject area in an increasingly complex world, but makes decisions that cross system boundaries challenging to plan and prepare.
Examples of actions that coordinate multi-regime interaction include pairs of measures that promote sustainable mobility from two different directions. From one direction, the change is supported by investment in urban public transport. From the other direction, investments are made in the design of new, denser residential areas and in infrastructure that encourages public transport use in these areas (e.g. good bus stops, rain shelters for bicycles next to bus stops, and efficient scheduling of services).
Another example of action to break unsustainable linkages is the tackling of the problem of textile waste, which is currently underway thanks to multi-stakeholder cooperation. Textile production is also interlinked with agriculture, specialized division of labor and waste management systems that are both related to world trade, and the rapid growth of e-commerce. The combined effects of these systems have enabled a growing demand for fast fashion and low quality clothing, and fueled a growth in the amount of waste, which has become “someone else's” (effectively, no-one's) problem. Breaking the multi-regime linkages often requires cooperation not only among public administration but also between different actors, as the example of textile recycling shows.
From dumping textile waste to recycling
The recycling of clothing and other textiles has so far been largely unregulated, and textile waste is becoming one of the biggest environmental problems caused by high-income countries and their lifestyles. It is estimated that in 2022, only 1% of the material used for textiles globally was recycled for textile use; the rest ended up in landfills, energy incineration or poor countries. In the early 2020s, 11 kg of textile waste accumulated per EU citizen per year, and in Europe as a whole, around 2 million tonnes per year. Textiles contribute significantly to the environmental burden of European consumption: they are the third most water and land-use intensive product of all consumed products and the fifth most GHG emitting. Recycling of textile waste is difficult, firstly because of blended fibers, which are difficult to separate, and secondly because of the globalization of cheap clothing manufacturing: it is difficult to make recycling economically viable compared to the mass production of new clothes.
Before 2023, textiles have mainly been recycled through donation points. Recycling only through donation points is a very unsustainable option for textiles (not only because it only allows the recycling of perfectly clean and intact clothes, i.e. those that people in the West should still use instead of giving away). For example, in the UK, the world's largest exporter of second-hand clothes in proportion to population, it is estimated that 70% of the clothes donated are exported. Most of the exporting is commercial: the aim is to make a profit for the company or organization that arranged the donation-collecting. A large proportion of these exports end up in Africa. For example, around 2010, Oxfam, one of the UK's largest clothing collectors, exported half of its clothing to West Africa. Around a third of the material is unusable and ends up as heaps of garbage here and there, sometimes in waterways. In addition, the dumping of usable second-hand clothing in poor countries (which the documentary Textile Mountain explores) often “kills” the local clothing industry. According to Betty Maina, President of the Kenya Association of Manufacturers, the Kenyan clothing industry employed half a million people in the 1980s, but now employs only about 20 000 people.
Solving the recycling and waste problem in the textile sector has long been stuck because of the so-called "chicken or the egg" problem: no single initiative by one actor alone is enough if no other solutions and factors important for a functioning recycling system exist. At the same time, it is necessary both to increase recycling rates, to reduce the need to recycle (by reducing fast fashion and short-lived clothes) and to reduce the export of used clothes to lower-income countries (whether for sale, donation or disposal).
However, between 2022 and 2023, the EU is in a period of potential transition. The conditions for a systemic transition in textile production and consumption are being created at many levels simultaneously. Environmental organizations and various citizens' campaigns, also supported by the EU, have created pressure in the public debate to change the situation and raised awareness of the
scale of the problem (landscape level pressure). Clothing made from recycled materials, brought to market by innovative companies such as pioneers in the camping and outdoor clothing sector, has shown the potential for new approaches (maturation of a niche solution to enable consumers to support the desired change). At the same time, the first, partly experimental, industrial-scale textile recycling plants have been opened in different countries (the journey of a niche solution towards the ability to operate as part of the regime) – for example in Paimio, Finland, in 2021. These plants are being developed with new innovations. At the same time, at the regime level, the EU adopted a Textiles Strategy in 2022, which aims to implement, among other things, legislation to strengthen corporate responsibility, restrict textile waste exports and promote the recyclability of clothing. In Finland, the collection of textile waste became mandatory for municipalities from the beginning of 2023.
An abandoned clothing factory in Cambodia. Photo: Francois Le Nguyen, Unsplash.
(6) Tilt the landscape
Systemic transition can also be promoted by tilting the system's landscape, including social, cultural, economic, political and other societal conditions. Tilting the landscape can create pressure for systems change and in some cases even lead to rapid transitions. "The Great Stink" of London serves as a good example of a socio-technical systems tilting (waste/water management). Examples of landscape level tilting in the 2020s include the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. The pandemic led to the rapid invention of remote meeting and remote project working solutions in many workplaces and to widespread adoption of virtual lectures and webinars in education. These changes reduce the need to travel and can further improve the accessibility of events when the time and money required to travel is not a barrier to participation.
The trade sanctions linked to the war accelerated Europe's energy transition, as substitutes had to be found quickly for fossil fuels imported from Russia. In 2020, according to Eurostat statistics, a quarter of the EU's total energy was produced by burning fossil fuels from Russia. Overall, Russia's share of EU energy imports fell from 25% to 15% by autumn 2022.
EU countries varied widely in their dependence on Russian energy imports. For example, Germany, which faced major difficulties in the 2022 energy crisis, had purchased large quantities of fossil fuels from Russia: over 50 000 million cubic meters of gas, 59% of its total consumption, almost 35 000 thousand tonnes of oil and oil products (35%) and 14 356 thousand tonnes of coal (22%). Finland was more dependent than the EU average on Russian fossil energy (45%), as the energy-intensive export industry means that Finland imports more oil and oil products than it consumes domestically (141% of the country's consumption, 11 243 Kt). Russia imported 92% of the natural gas and 30% of the coal used in Finland.
These intrinsically undesirable events illustrate the impact that tilting the landscape has on the systems. Coordinatedly tilting the landscape are more desirable than unforeseen ones, which often do not lead to the best solutions in terms of sustainability transition. The suddenness of the war, the path dependencies of the regime and the lack of political will, among other things, led European countries to substitute imported energy from Russia with wood-fired power, imported liquefied natural gas and, in the case of Finland, peat, because renewable energy production could not be increased fast enough and overall energy consumption was not sufficiently reduced by mere campaigns to save electricity and by the rise in energy market prices.
It is therefore important to ensure that short-term "stop-gap" measures do not lead to a new lock-in to fossil fuels or other fuels that cause significant damage to the climate and nature. On the other hand, the International Energy Agency estimated in its 2022 State of the Energy World report (2022) that the consequences of Russia's war of aggression have brought forward the so-called fossil fuel demand peak to 2027. The fossil fuel peak is the year when global fossil fuel use peaks and then permanently declines.
The landscape can be tilted in particular through general level legislation, strategies and agreements. Strategies and agreements related to climate change and biodiversity loss will put pressure on systems to change, although the intensity and timeframe of these pressures does vary. Binding agreements with clear rules for monitoring progress towards objectives are more effective than non-binding declarations of intent or agreements that leave open the means of measuring progress, but they are also more difficult to achieve (see also the section on international environmental agreements in the Introduction to planetary well-being course).
Nevertheless, non-binding agreements between countries to reduce environmental damage can also create pressure for change. They signal a shared will to reduce environmental damage over a given period of time. These signals can influence not only production and consumption systems but also, for example, financial markets and the orientation of research. So-called framework laws, of which the Finnish Climate Act is one example, also have a signaling effect. Framework laws are only binding on public authorities and they are very general in content, obliging the actors of the public sector to define more specific means and legislation to achieve a given objective. However, regulation is challenged by the hierarchy of different levels of contracts, the problems of which are illustrated by the example of the food system.
The global dimension of the food system is part of the system of international trade. The international agreements that govern it define equal rights for companies operating in the market, which cannot be restricted by national measures. As a general rule, products must not be treated differently according to the level of environmental standards in their country of origin. If environmental standards at home country raise production costs and thus the price of domestic products, foreign and less responsibly produced similar products may gain an advantage because they can keep their prices lower by avoiding environmental standards. The competitiveness of domestic operators may therefore be undermined by the cost effects of environmental actions if consumers make their choice mainly on the basis of price. In order to support the competitiveness of domestic operators, it is possible either to regulate the systems affecting the cost of domestic production (subsidies and tax breaks for environmentally friendly activities) or to influence trade systems in such a way that products can be treated differently depending on the sustainability of their production.
International activities and the policies of other countries and the companies operating in them can be influenced by the choices and sustainability requirements of the purchasing countries. However, World Trade Organization (WTO) rules state that requirements must be "non-discriminatory" and treat "similar products" in the same way, which prevents treating products differently according to their country or region of origin.
For a long time, this principle was interpreted as meaning that sustainability regulations concerning production and processing were illegal in trade agreements. Today, however, a growing number of solutions have been found by various trading parties to incorporate sustainability criteria into trade agreements between countries and regions. There has therefore been a paradigm shift in interpretation: in some cases, the mode of production is now seen to matter so much that a product produced by a different mode of production becomes a different product and may be treated differently. For example, if all parties to a trade agreement agree, trade agreements between countries may specify more favorable import tariffs for more sustainably produced products or stipulate that at least a certain proportion of a country's total imports must be produced in accordance with sustainability criteria. However, since trade agreements always involve a limited number of parties, their impact on the landscape is more limited than that of agreements concerning almost all countries – if the international community manages to reach them.
In terms of the sustainability transition, international environmental agreements such as the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 and its predecessor climate agreements (the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) of 1993 to protect biodiversity and halt biodiversity loss, and the Montreal Convention of 1987 to curb ozone depletion) are relevant examples of the landscape tilting. Of these, only the Montreal Convention has been binding in nature. International climate change commitments are considered to have had a significant impact on at least the increasing popularity of electric car technology. However, the pressure for change generated by these agreements also constantly faces challenges, as the international and national landscapes also generate many other signals and pressures on systems, some of which complicate or conflict with the implementation of measures to support the sustainability transition.
An example of the contradictions at the landscape level are the protections for foreign investors in global free trade agreements. These have enabled fossil fuel companies to claim, and in some cases win, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in international arbitration from governments when investments in fossil fuel companies have lost value as a result of tightening government climate policies. The cancellation or halting of oil and gas projects already in preparation – which is essential for the objective of limiting the Earth’s warming to 1.5°C – could mean hundreds of billions in compensation claims for states. At worst, fear of these costs could stall climate action. The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), in which Finland is a party, is considered to be particularly problematic as it protects investments in the energy sector. Many European countries have left the ECT at the end of 2022 after lengthy attempts at reform, but the treaty can still protect investments in fossil fuel companies for up to 20 years after its annulment, and, in addition, there are also efforts to extend the treaty to concern new countries.
Limits and criticisms of the MLP model
The MLP framework is one but not the only one nor an all-encompassing explanatory model for changing systems. Each conceptual framework emphasizes certain issues and obscures others. Since MLP was created specifically to study socio-technical systems and to understand major technological upheavals, it has been characterized from the outset by an emphasis on innovation. MLP therefore does not necessarily include very sophisticated tools for examining “the prevailing and the normal”, for example, for understanding the persistence of prevailing practices. For example, for understanding the pervasiveness of currently dominant cultural practices and their normalization or resistance to change – whether it is meat-eating, private motoring or air travel – research approaches that emphasize the social dimension of human activity may be more illuminating.
The MLP has particularly been criticized for ignoring, or at least downplaying, agency and power relations. Promoting sustainability transition and understanding its obstacles requires paying attention to actors and agencies, which are also determined by past historical events and prevailing structures: people and groups in different positions have significantly different possibilities, for example to change certain habits or to adopt new solutions (we will explore these further in the fourth section of this course). In addition, MLP focuses on explaining change by moving from the niche to the dominant systems of production and consumption, and from there to the top level (landscape) and back again. The approach may not be well suited to examining systems operating at the same level or to identifying problematic linkages between, for example, energy, transport and food systems.
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