The document discusses the role of cities, specifically Graz and Freiburg, in low-carbon transitions and their potential to influence energy systems through innovative policies and community engagement. It highlights how these cities have implemented comprehensive environmental strategies, showcasing successful practices and the challenges they face in a multi-level governance context. Key themes include the need for long-term policy integration, collaboration among various stakeholders, and the importance of local governance in driving sustainable transformations.

1. Cities as arenas of low-carbon
transition?
Analysing the cases of Graz and
Freiburg
Harald Rohracher
Professor, Dept. of Thematic Studies –
Technology and Social Change
Linköping University, Sweden

2. Cities &Climate Change

Sustainability transitions: radical
reconfigurations of systems of production and
consumption
 Energy,

mobility, food systems etc.
Cities increasingly regarded critical to
transitions
as ‘megatrend’
 Source of 70-80% of anthropogenic GHGemissions
 Foremost among victims of climate change
 Key sites of ‘innovative response’
 Urbanisation

3. A sociotechnicalsystemsperspective

Individual transport / the car: Just a technology?

Which social, cultural and technical elements
stabilise our car-based system of mobility?
 Is

it just habits? Lack of technological alternatives?
How are cars entrenched in our society? Why is
such a system so difficult to change?

4. Culture andsymbolic
meanings (freedom,
individuality, indepencence..)
Regulationsandpolicies
(rules, standards;
finance, insurance…)
Marketsanduser
practices (preferences,
expectations, mobility
patterns …)
Socialinstitutions,
practices, meaning
Socio-technicalconfiguration
in personal transportation
Builtenvironment
(settlementstructures)
Industrystructure
(carmanufacturers,
suppliers)
Economicinterests
Research
Maintenance and
distributionnetworks
(retail, repair etc.)
Sunkcosts / investments
Vehicle / Artefact
Road infrastructure
andtrafficsystem
New technologies – ICT, Smart cars, materials…
Fuel infrastructure
New fuels;
newpropulsion
technologies
(ModifiedfromGeels 2004)

5. Socio-technical change and
stability
Multi-level perspective: niches, regimes and landscapes
Macro-level
(landscape)
Meso-level
(regimes,
institutions)
Micro-level
(Niches,
projects)
Source: Geels and Kemp, 2001
Socio-culturalbackground etc.
- veryslowchanges
Regimes providestability
andresistancetochange
Niches as test-beds /
protected spaces for learning

6. Transitions as multi-level
process
Focus on transformative change – systemic
innovations
 Interaction between three levels is
important

 Destabilisation
of regime; landscape pressures
 Formation of niches – social learning, networkformation, shaping of expectations

Helpful for thinking about
 Stability
/ obduracy of existing configurations
 Variety of social and technical elements that
have to come together to cause a regime shift
 Need for integrated and long-term policy

7. How can cities shape regime
change?


Infrastructures / regimes often reach far
beyond city limits + limited formal power of
cities
‘Soft power’ to shape change processes:
 Self-governing:
own operation of e.g. buildings,
public procurement
 Limited forms of regulation – mandates and
planning
 Provision of services
 Enabling: facilitating, coordination & encouraging
action, civil society involvement
 Horizontal coordination: city networks

8. City of Graz, facts and figures
 260.000 inhabitants
 128 km2
 Geographically situated in
basin
 Capital city of Styria
 45.000 students

9. ‘Eco-City’Graz: historic development

External pressures on existing energy
regime
 Bad

air quality due to geographical situation
Network of energy activists established
within city administration and politics (policy
entrepreneurs)
 Partially

roots in anti-nuclear movement
Early 1990s: From ‘smog city’ to ‘eco city’
 Integrated
2000’
Environmental Programme‘Eco-City

10. Innovative Energy & Climate
Policies


Ambitious aims: Cutting CO2-emissions by 50%
until 2010 (based on 1987 figures)
Innovative type of programmes
Comprehensive and integrative perspective
(policy integration)
 Participatory planning (stakeholders, wider public)
 Partial outsourcing to research partners
 New types of instruments (economic framing; win-win)
 Action oriented; concrete targets; monitoring


Integration with social and economic aims

Local companies & jobs, social housing etc.

11. International support
Participation in international city networks
 International attention and acclaim for its
activities, e.g.

Greenpeace International Climate Protection Award in
1993
 International Sustainable City Award of the European
Union
in 1996
 Dubai International Award & Climate Star in 2002
 Sustainable Energy Europe Award in 2008
 Civitas City of the Year 2008


Creation of urban identity

12. Thermoprofit





Energy performance contracting for private and
public buildings
Includes energy supply, building envelope, building
services
New financial arrangements + aggregation of
knowledge on energy-efficient refurbishing, models
for tenant participation, legal issues, dealing with
energy aspects in tendering etc.
Networks of local partner companies (Thermoprofit
partners)
Guaranteed quality standards

13. Basic idea of contracting

14. ‘Soft power’ of institutional change

Institutional change
 Strengthened
department for energy and
environment
 Establishment of more effective intra-municipal
working groups across departments and issues
 Establishment of a municipal energy agency which
is owned by municipality and municipal utilities, but
collaborates internationally and acts (rather)
independently

Importance of intermediaries at urban level
 Facilitation
and coordination of systemic change
 Knowledge brokers; competence centres

15. Freiburg
Population: 230.000
Area:
150 km²
(40% forest)
Density: 1435
inh./km²
„Green City“

17. Priorities for an energy transition

Vision: substitution of nuclear electricity, lead in
efficiency and renewables, solar industry cluster
 Germany’s


‘Solar capital’, various international prizes
Policies driven by experts & citizens rather than
administration (main admin-focus: PR, green
image)
Reduce demand by increasing energy efficiency
 Pioneering
enforcement of high energetic building
standards (by plans, private contracts etc.)
 District heating, CHP
 Transport: Change in modal split achieved but anticar policy highly contested

18. Vauban district – the plan
18
Ph. Späth, Environmental Policies in Freiburg

19. ‘Lessons’ from eco-cities

Despite limited power within multi-level
governance structures cities can be
successful in achieving a (moderate)
restructuring of the energy regime
 Not
so much technology development, but
implementation skills, formation of actor alliances,
new business clusters (e.g. energy-efficient building
renovation; solar installations)
 Urban governance brings together actors across
energy system level in new roles –
incumbents/utilities, local businesses offering new
products/services, concerned citizens…

20. Cities as facilitators of systemic
change

Not only niche-regime dynamics, but other
socio-political dynamics important
 Particular
local agendas, jobs, tourism, visibility
 Interactions between different governance levels
 Competition between cities / networks of cities
important

Despite severe constraints, cities and regions
can be important social context for deviations
from dominant energy system
 Legitimacy
for visions of more sustainable regimes
 Demonstrating the viability of alternative regime

21. Cities as facilitators of systemic
change

Significant governance capacity at local level…
 Not
only formal powers, but proximity effects,
inclusion of civil society, capacity for coordination,
regional identities
 Strategic action at city/regional level can have
(discursive) repercussions on other scales =>
diffusion of alternative configurations

Regions / cities as sites for
 Formation
of new visions and discourse coalitions
 Formation of heterogeneous networks across
different interests and actor types as effect of
proximity / trust

22. Challenges for urban transitions

How to create learning effects across different
initiatives and experiments?
 Upscaling?

Systemic change?
How to create long-lasting institutional change?
 New
instruments, standardisation, agencies,
new structures for policy integration

How to broaden the actor basis?
 Involvement


of civil society? Companies?
How to link energy with other socio-political
issues?
Vision building? Urban identity? Measuring

23. Thank you for your
attention!
harald.rohracher@liu.se