A Service of Leibniz-Informationszentrum econstor Wirtschaft Leibniz Information Centre Make Your Publications Visible. zbw for Economics Sauer, Thomas et al. Working Paper The Role of Cities in the Socio-Ecological Transition of Europe (ROCSET) WWWforEurope Working Paper, No. 93 Provided in Cooperation with: WWWforEurope - WelfareWealthWork, Wien Suggested Citation: Sauer, Thomas et al. (2015) : The Role of Cities in the Socio-Ecological Transition of Europe (ROCSET), WWWforEurope Working Paper, No. 93, WWWforEurope, Vienna This Version is available at: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/125748 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Documents in EconStor may be saved and copied for your Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. personal and scholarly purposes. 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Authors: Thomas Sauer, Stephanie Barnebeck, Yannick Kalff (EAH Jena), Judith Schicklinski (UNIBZ) Contributions by: Susanne Elsen (UNIBZ), Cristina Garzillo (ICLEI), Johanna Hopp (EAH Jena), Stefan Kuhn (ICLEI) The Role of Cities in the Socio-Ecological Transition of Europe (ROCSET) Work Package 501 MS94 “Final draft report” Working Paper no 93 This document can be downloaded from www.foreurope.eu Please respect that this report was produced by the named authors within the WWWforEurope project and has to be cited accordingly. THEME SSH.2011.1.2-1 Socio-economic Sciences and Humanities Europe moving towards a new path of economic growth and social development - Collaborative project This project has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no. 290647. The Role of Cities in the Socio-Ecological Transition of Europe (ROCSET) Stephanie Barnebeck (EAH Jena), Yannick Kalff (EAH Jena), Thomas Sauer (EAH Jena), Judith Schicklinski (FUB) Abstract Taking into account the potentially different starting and framework conditions of cities in different regions of the European Union, we present a new approach for sustainability transition analysis with a special focus on the governance of urban common-pool resources. The aim is to identify the conditions which are supportive for innovative institutional arrangements, like self- organised and co-operative forms of governance for urban resource systems like energy, water and green spaces. This report explores these conditions systematically focussing on the overarching research question: What is the transformative role of institutional diversification and innovation in the governance of core urban common pool resources? The role of the resource systems energy, urban green spaces and drinking water is empirically analysed in field studies of 40 European cities, exploring the potential for local self-organisation and socio-ecological transition. Keywords: Beyond GDP, Biophysical constraints, Common-pool resources, Energy, Green spaces, Water, Multi-level governance, Urban commons, Socio-ecological transition, Sustainable cities, Sustainable urban transitioning Jel codes: Q56; R11; D70 Content Content 3 Figures 5 Tables 7 Abbreviations 8 Acknowledgements 10 Executive Summary 1 1. Cities: Places of a new human prosperity 4 1.1 Sustainability needs transition 4 1.2 New seeds of sustainable prosperity 6 1.3 The European cities of tomorrow: an urban commons focus 8 2. Patterns of Change: A General Model of Socio- Ecological Transition 12 2.1 An institutional focus for transition analysis 12 2.1.1 Self-organised governance of common-pool resources 13 2.1.2 Goods and commons – the difference 15 2.2 General model of socio-ecological transition 16 2.2.1 An institutional perspective on socio-ecological transitions 16 2.2.2 The socio-ecological context variables 19 2.2.3 Micro-situational context variables solving social dilemmas 20 2.2.4 Institutional elements of action situations 21 2.2.5 Norms ruling socio-ecological systems 22 2.2.6 Sustainability transitions as a sequence of norm changes and interactions with the socio-ecological resource system 26 2.2.7 Research questions 28 2.3 Research strategy and research design 29 3. Selecting forty cities 30 3.1 Methodological approach 30 3.1.1 The Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework 30 3.1.2 Experts and expert knowledge 31 3.2 Criteria for the country and city selection 32 3.2.1 Country Selection 33 3.2.2 City Selection 38 3.2.3 Identifying and interviewing seventeen key local actors 43 3.3 Methods and Methodological reflections 45 3.3.1 Quantitative data 46 3.3.2 Qualitative data 46 3.3.3 Additional field research resources 47 3.3.4 Methodological reflections 47 4. Socio-ecological transitions in the energy system: The local government view 50 4.1 The role of the resource system energy in sustainability transition 50 4.2 Self-organisation capabilities and Sustainability transition 52 4.2.1 Socio-ecological transitions 52 4.2.2 Self-organisation capabilities 57 4.3 Actors, factors and lessons learned 62 4.3.1 Actors, actions and factors 62 4.3.2 Lessons learnt 68 4.4 Norm adoption and local decision making autonomy 70 4.4.1 Norm adoption 70 4.4.2 Local decision-making autonomy 73 4.5 Discussion of the findings 77 5. Socio-ecological transition in the resource system green spaces 81 5.1 The role of the resource system green spaces in sustainability transition 81 5.2 Self-organisation capabilities and sustainability transition 82 5.2.1 Socio-ecological transition 82 5.2.2 Self-organisation capabilities 88 5.3 Actors, factors and lessons learnt 96 5.3.1 Actors, actions and factors 96 5.3.2 Lessons learnt 100 5.4 Norm adoption and local decision making autonomy 102 5.4.1 Norm adoption 102 5.4.2 Local decision-making autonomy 105 5.5 Discussion of the findings 108 6. Socio-ecological transitions in the water system 111 6.1 The role of the resource system water in sustainability transition 111 6.2 Self-organisation capabilities and sustainability transition 113 6.2.1 Socio-ecological transitions 113 6.2.2 Self-organisation capabilities 118 6.3 Actors, factors and lessons learned 122 6.3.1 Actors, actions and factors 122 6.3.2 Lessons learnt 127 6.4 Norm adoption and local decision making autonomy 130 6.4.1 Norm adoption 130 6.4.2 Local decision-making autonomy 136 6.5 Discussion of the findings 138 7. Institutional Diversity 141 7.1 Comparison of the resource systems 141 7.2 Delegated power and citizen control 144 7.3 The Role of institutional arrangements in socio ecological transition 145 References 147 Partners 158 Figures Figure 1: Decomposition of the Change in Total Global CO2 Emissions from Fossil Fuel Combustion 5 Figure 2: At-risk-of-poverty rate by degree of urbanisation, 2012 9 Figure 3: Eight Rungs on a Ladder of Citizen Participation 14 Figure 4: Micro-situational and broader context variables of social dilemmas affect the levels of trust and cooperation 18 Figure 5: Action situations embedded in broader socio-ecological systems 19 Figure 6: Rules as exogenous variables directly affecting the elements of an action situation 22 Figure 7: Socio-ecological systems transition model as a sequence of norm set adoption 26 Figure 8: Research questions derived from the SES transition model 28 Figure 9: Sample creation process 32 Figure 10: Map of 40 selected cities 41 Figure 11: Differences in sustainability perception according to European region (scaled from 0: none to 4: very high) 53 Figure 12: Anticipated challenges to the availability of affordable energy (scaled from 0: very low to 4: very high) 56 Figure 13: Leadership shown by local actors in developing local renewable energy (scaled from 0: none to 4: very high) 58 Figure 14: Leadership in improving energy efficiency and developing renewable energy locally (scaled from 0: none to 4: very high) 59 Figure 15: Cooperation and conflicts (scaled from -2: strongly disagree to +2: strongly agree) 61 Figure 16: Influence on the local energy mix (scaled from 0: none to 4: very high) 62 Figure 17: Influences on the energy consumption in the past 10 years (scaled from -2: decreased a lot to +2: increased a lot) 65 Figure 18: Difficulties to agree on local energy strategy (scaled from -2: strongly disagree to +2: strongly agree) 67 Figure 19: Agreement