Innovation Pathways to Transition

he transformation of the energy sector is important in addressing the challenges of both climate change mitigation and adaptation. Energy is crucial for supporting basic human needs, development and well- being. The future evolution of the energy system will be fundamentally shaped by socio-economic conditions and drivers, available energy resources, technologies of energy supply and transformation, and end-use energy demand, as well as social acceptance and policy choices. The energy sector transformation also has important implications for social and environmental sustainability goals. Consequently, bottom-up and practice-based social innovations need to be incorporated in an integrated manner to achieve the required paradigm shift.

This Deliverable has presented outcomes of Task 6.3 of the ENTRUST project. This task is framed in recognition that technological innovation alone is insufficient to achieve low-carbon transitions. The key framing question has been: “how can new technologies and practices be best supported/disseminated to achieve ‘lift-off’ and impact?”

Innovation studies approaches, including Strategic Niche Management thinking have been applied in this Deliverable. Innovation needs, and specific and tailored innovation responses have been identified for 4 of the ENTRUST communities of practice; these are Stockbridge, Le Trapèze, Secondigliano and Dunmanway. The outcomes of this innovation needs-mapping and an in-depth review of the Strategic Niche Management literature has produced outcomes which point to new policy mixes and practice-based changes at the community level to inform innovation pathways for each community.

To identify innovation needs for each community, an analytical framework was developed based on the Shared Socio-economic Pathway (SSP) concept. The SSPs are a set of five storylines on possible trajectories for human development and global environmental change, which include five different global futures (SSP1-5). The SSPs complement, and build upon, existing scenario development frameworks by adding socio-economic narratives and quantitative pathways consistent with the challenges to mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. These scenarios allow exploration of different futures with and without climate policy responses. The different characteristics and main dynamics of each SSP scenario are as follows:

SSP1: Sustainability
SSP2: Middle-of-the-road
SSP3: Regional Rivalry
SSP4: Inequality
SSP5: Fossil fuelled Development

Report on Innovation Pathways to Transition

In this deliverable, a qualitative description and identification of where constituent components of the SSPs match the characteristics of the profiled communities serves to highlight where innovations are required. These areas include population growth, energy use, agriculture, urbanisation rates, income, and emissions and climate change. For this Deliverable, a spreadsheet was applied to ‘map’ the constituent components of the SSPs including population size, migration, consumption and diet, land use, and environmental policy according to the characteristics of each of the 4 studied communities. Developed SSP profiles outline how the characteristics of the profiled communities match with constituent components of the SSPs, and where each community most likely aligns to one of the 5 SSPs. The developed profiles are then applied to identify where innovation for sustainability is required for each of the communities in a bespoke and community specific manner. Innovation needs identified from the SSP analysis are collated with appropriately matching innovations from the policy tool-kit presented in D4.4. In addition, community based innovations from the literature are identified and matched with the specific requirements of each of the 4 communities.