Transition management as a form of policy innovation. A case study of Plan C, a process in sustainable materials management in Flanders. Erik Paredis Centre for Sustainable Development – Ghent University Flemish Policy Research Centre on Sustainable Development October 2011 – Working Paper no. 26 1 This paper was written in the context of two research projects of the Flemish Policy Research Centre on Sustainable Development, i.e. “Transition management as an instrument for long-term policy on sustainable development” and “Sustainable production and consumption patterns in Flanders: the potential of system innovation”. Reactions are welcomed: Erik Paredis Centrum voor Duurzame Ontwikkeling / Centre for Sustainable Development Universiteit Gent / Ghent University Poel 16 9000 Gent Belgium Tel. +32-9-264.82.08 Fax +32-9-264.83.90 [email protected] www.cdo.UGent.be www.steunpuntdo.be The Flemish Policy Research Centre on Sustainable Development is one of the 14 Centres for Policy Relevant Research that were established by the Flemish government in January 2007. These centres are financed for the period 2007-2011 and are expected to deliver a combination of short term and longer term policy relevant research in a wide range of policy fields. The Policy Research Centre on Sustainable Development gathers 4 research groups from 3 universities (GEGSD-KUL, HIVA-KUL, MEKO-VUB, CDO-UGent). General contact address: Secretariaat Steunpunt Duurzame Ontwikkeling Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Hoger Instituut voor de Arbeid Parkstraat 47 – Bus 5300 B – 3000 Leuven Contact person: Sonja Wuyts Tel.: (32) 016 32 31 28 Fax: (32) 016 32 33 44 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.steunpuntdo.be 2 Contents Summary 5 1. Introduction and problem definition 9 2. Analysing the politics of transition management: a glance at research design 12 and analytical framework 2.1. The multilevel perspective and policy dynamics 12 2.2. Policy arrangements to conceptualise politics and policy innovation 13 2.3. Transition management in the analytical frame 15 3. The Flemish waste system and its policy arrangement 17 3.1. 1981-1994: A system focused on waste removal 18 3.2. 1994-2010: Reorienting the system on the basis of the waste hierarchy 19 3.2.1. Discourse 21 3.2.2. Rules 22 3.2.3. Actors 23 3.2.4. Resources 24 3.2.5. Towards a next step 24 4. The TM-process Plan C: history and characteristics 26 4.1. A history of the Plan C process 26 4.1.1. Context and predevelopments: how and why Plan C was introduced 26 4.1.2. Phase 1: The transition arena Plan C, September 2006 – May 2007 28 4.1.3. Phase 2: Broadening and deepening Plan C, May 2007 – May 2008 31 4.1.4. Phase 3: Going public and defining a business plan, May 2008 – early 2009 32 4.1.5. Phase 4: Trying to develop along several lines, early 2009 – mid 2011 33 4.1.6. Standstill or take-off: mid 2011 – … ? 38 4.2. The characteristics of Plan C as a policy arrangement 38 4.2.1. Discourse 38 4.2.2. Actors 41 4.2.3. Rules of the game 44 4.2.4. Resources 46 4.3. Some reflections and interim conclusions 48 5. A system in a state of flux: the changing waste regime, the role of Plan C, and beyond. 51 5.1. The waste regime under pressure: driving forces for change 52 5.1.1. Landscape pressures / processes of structural transformation 52 5.1.2. Regime tensions 55 5.1.3. Niche developments 56 5.2. A change in discourse? 56 5.2.1. From waste to materials 56 5.2.2. From waste to a broader agenda 58 5.3. A change in the rules of the game? 62 5.4. A change of actors? 65 5.5. A change in resources? 69 5.6. Interim conclusions 70 3 6. In search of policy lessons: understanding stability and change in policy 73 6.1. Mechanisms at work 73 6.1.1. Converging policy streams and the role of policy entrepreneurs 73 6.1.2. The influence of discourse 74 6.1.3. The prevailing modes of policy-making 76 6.2. Characterising the developments around Plan C 77 6.3. Some recommendations 82 7. Conclusions 87 Annex. List of interviews 90 References 91 Acknowledgements I thank all people from Plan C and the follow-up committee of the Policy Research Centre on Sustainable Development, who gave freely of their time for interviews, feedback meetings and other exchanges. A special word of thanks to Walter Tempst (OVAM), who was an invaluable source of advice and who has supported this research project from the beginning. Remaining mistakes and all interpretations are of course the author’s responsibility. 4 Summary This paper discusses the policy characteristics of a transition management (TM) process that was introduced by the Flemish government in 2006 with the goal of reorienting its waste policy towards a sustainable materials policy and stimulating a transformation of the waste/materials system. Part 1 of the paper concisely describes the background of the TM approach and introduces the research questions. The paper interprets TM as one particular type of a broader set of transition governance approaches. Typical characteristics of TM include working with an arena of frontrunners and the development of a long-term vision upon which transition pathways and transition experiments are based. TM has first been used in the Netherlands as a way of trying to influence and reorient socio-technical systems (such as the energy, mobility and agrofood system) in a more sustainable direction. Inspired by the Dutch example, the Flemish government decided in 2004 to experiment in its environmental policy with transition management, first in the domain of sustainable living and building (a process called DuWoBo), two years later in the domain of waste and sustainable materials management (a process called Plan C). This latter process Plan C is the empirical focus of the paper. The goal of the paper is to investigate the position and role of Plan C in the reorientation of waste policy, how and why such a TM process has influence (or not), which characteristics this influence has, and what the interaction is between this TM process and the broader political and societal context. A basic assumption of the analysis is that transitions are intrinsically political: they change long-established structures, institutions, actors and actor relations, policy discourses and ways of thinking, patterns of action and behaviour. As a consequence, policy initiatives such as TM that want to stimulate change in socio-technical systems, will unavoidably meet with resistance, power struggles, questions of trust and legitimacy. A better understanding of processes, mechanisms and patterns at work in TM processes, can help politicians and practitioners (such as civil servants and societal actors) in dealing with the politics of transitions. The analytical framework that is used in the paper is clarified in part 2 . The analysis of Plan C builds in fact on a combination of two frameworks. The first, the multilevel perspective (MLP), is well-known in transition studies. It describes transitions as a result of interactions between a so-called socio-technical regime at meso-level, innovative niches at micro-level, and trends and pressures at macro- or landscape level. The MLP is useful for describing the context in which a TM process such as Plan C has to find its way, but the MLP does not have a good conceptualisation of politics in transitions. Therefore, to analyse change and stability of policies on the level of substance as well as organisation, the MLP is combined with the policy arrangements approach (PAA). A policy arrangement has four dimensions, where three refer to organisational elements of policy (actors and actor coalitions, resources, rules of the game) and one refers to substantial elements (discourse). Understanding how a TM process functions as a from of policy innovation can then be answered through questions such as: Do actor coalitions change under influence of Plan C? What is the influence on discourse? Does Plan C change the access to and availability of resources in the system and policy domain? Are the rules of policy-making influenced by Plan C? And how and why does all of this happen (or not)? Part 3 starts the analysis with a description of the context in which the TM process Plan C had to play its role when it started in 2006. In terms of the analytical framework: what are the characteristics of the waste regime that Plan C wants to have influence on and what are important landscape trends? And more specifically for the policy context: what does the 5 policy arrangement look like? Part 3 sketches the growth of the current Flemish waste system and its policy arrangement. The start of waste policy as a separate policy domain is usually situated in the late seventies, early eighties. Due to the reform of the Belgian state structure in 1980, waste policy was one of the first domains to be developed under the new Flemish environmental competences. Although from the start the policy discourse prescribed a policy based on the waste hierarchy (as stated in the Waste Decree of 1981), in practice almost all efforts were focused on getting control over the situation through legislation, planning and organisation of infrastructure around landfilling and incineration. Selective collection and recycling were supportive of these policies. All of this happened through a form of planning that was strongly top-down, with the Flemish government and its agency OVAM in control. Once the basics were more or less in place, the next steps could be taken.