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Governance, Innovation & Change
Transition pathways
Transition pathways map the co-evolutionary routes through which energy system may change over time leading into different configurations and logics.
Why this matters
[To be drafted]
Shared definitions
Core pathway conceptions
In the context of climate change mitigation, the concept of “pathways” is frequently used to frame the challenge of transitioning to a low-carbon society. Rosenbloom (2017) identifies three core conceptions of pathways that emphasize different, yet interconnected, dimensions of this transition: socio-technical, techno-economic and biophysical. Socio-technical pathways focus on the unfolding patterns of change within societal systems as they evolve to meet human needs in a low-carbon manner. This perspective considers the interlocking nature of social and technical elements, including political, institutional, and cultural structures. A key analytical framework within this conception is the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), which explores the interactions between innovative “niches,” the dominant “socio-technical regime,” and the broader “landscape” to understand how established, carbon-intensive systems can be subverted and transformed. In contrast, techno-economic pathways stricly focus on outling the specific series of technical and financial changes required to move an industrial sector from its current setup to a sustainable, low-carbon future. Finally, biophysical pathways are long-term plans for greenhouse gas levels. They calculate the total amount of pollution the planet can handle to reach a specific temperature target. These pathways serve as a scientific foundation for global climate models. 1)
Recognizing that existing interpretations of transformation pathways often treat nature as a passive context, Andersson et al. (2024) propose a 'socio-techno-ecological' approach to sustainability transitions. They argue that ecological elements should not be viewed merely as background variables, but as active, interdependent components that co-evolve with social and technical systems throughout the transformation process. By integrating ecology within the analytical framework, this perspective seeks to better account for both the influence of natural resources on transitions and the environmental impacts resulting from them. 2)
Table 1. Contrasting conceptions of pathways in the context of low-carbon transitions extendet with the socio-techno-ecological pathway concept from Anderson et al. (2024)
Source: Rosenbloom (2017).
Source: Anderson et al. (2024).
| Core conceptions | General character of core conceptions | Dynamics exposing the character and maturation of core conceptions | Research strands |
|---|---|---|---|
| Biophysical pathways | Long-term trajectories of GHG emissions linked to particular stabilization targets and derived from macro-level parameters describing human-climate interactions over time | (1) attempts to map the possibility space around human-climate interactions; (2) a growing emphasis on mapping low stabilization levels; and (3) emerging efforts to account for broader socio-economic possibilities | —Climate science |
| Techno-economic pathways | Sequences of techno-economic adjustments linking current sector configurations to desirable low-carbon future states | (1) the integration of ideas from technology assessment and economics; and (2) the adoption of a somewhat less value and policy neutral orientation | —Technology assessment —Economics |
| Socio-technical pathways | Unfolding socio-technical patterns of change within societal systems as they move to meet human needs in a low-carbon fashion | (1) the elucidation of transition processes; (2) the deliberate stimulation transitions; and (3) recent efforts to bridge perspectives with quantitative modelling approaches | —Socio-technical transitions |
| Socio-techno-ecological pathways | Unfolding socio-technical patterns of change within societal systems as they move to meet human needs in a low-carbon fashion | (1) the elucidation of transition processes; (2) the deliberate stimulation transitions; and (3) recent efforts to bridge perspectives with quantitative modelling approaches | —Socio-techno-ecological transitions |
A transition pathway describes a bundle of strategies and actions that support the achievement of a long-term vision, positioned in relation to — rather than separate from — social, cultural, political, economic, and institutional contexts. The pathways approach enables integrated systemic thinking about the short-, medium-, and long-term actions needed to reach a more sustainable future.3)
Within the multi-level perspective, transition pathways outline co-evolutionary developments across the layers of a socio-technical regime, consistent with and dependent on framework conditions at the landscape and niche levels. Landscape factors — long-term cultural and biophysical conditions including climate change impacts — influence the regime without being structurally influenced by regime change within a given time horizon. Niche developments, understood as innovation ecosystems, provide the space for institutional, social, technological, and business innovation at multiple regime levels.4)
Four transition pathway types
Geels and Schot (2007) identify four distinct patterns through which socio-technical regimes change, determined by the relative timing and strength of landscape pressure and niche development:5)
Table 1. Four sociotechnical transition pathways.
Source: Geels & Schot (2007).
| Pathway | Conditions | Mechanism |
|---|---|---|
| Transformation | Moderate landscape pressure; niche innovations not yet sufficiently developed | Regime actors modify the direction of development paths and innovation activities without regime breakdown |
| De-alignment and re-alignment | Large, sudden, divergent landscape change | Increasing regime problems cause actors to lose faith; regime erodes before a new configuration stabilises |
| Technological substitution | Strong landscape pressure; niche innovations sufficiently developed | Niche innovations break through and replace the existing regime |
| Reconfiguration | Symbiotic niche innovations adopted to solve local problems | Innovations trigger further adjustments in the basic architecture of the regime incrementally |
Regime layers
The socio-technical energy regime can be understood as four interacting layers, each with its own dynamics:6)
- Governance and institutions — regulatory frameworks, rule systems, actor networks, market institutions, and policy structures at the socio-economic meso-level
- Actors layer — incumbent and emerging actors with their strategies, wants, needs, practices, and routines at the socio-economic micro-level
- Functional — functional structures and mechanisms of energy extraction, transformation, production, storage, and distribution
- Biophysical — the biophysical foundation of materials and energy flows, including artefactual infrastructure
Enduring change within the regime is achieved only through cumulative causation: elements across the four layers interact in self-reinforcing ways. Change triggered by niche innovation in one layer must propagate across layers to produce lasting structural change.
Figure 1. Transition pathways framework: four regime layers and their relationship to landscape and niche levels.
Source: Kubeczko (2022), adapted from Foxon et al. (2010).7)
Figure 2. Ontological layers of a socio-technical energy regime.
Source: Adapted from Foxon et al. (2010).8)
Perspectives
Actors and stakeholders
Technologies and infrastructure
Institutional structures
Figure 1. The SSP scenarios and their five socio-economic SSP families.
Source: Mainshausen et al. (2020).9)
Distinctions and overlaps
Transition pathway vs. scenario
Scenarios describe plausible future states without prescribing how to reach them. Transition pathways describe the co-evolutionary routes by which a regime transformation unfolds, connecting actions and strategies across timescales. A pathway has an explicit normative orientation and a long-term vision as its endpoint; a scenario may be exploratory and value-neutral. See Scenarios.
Transition pathway vs. transition
A transition is the outcome — the systemic reconfiguration of a socio-technical regime. A transition pathway is the analytical description of the route through which that reconfiguration occurs. The same transition may be interpreted through different pathway types depending on which actors, pressures, and timescales are emphasised. See Transitions.
Related topics
Transitions · Scenarios · Governance · Innovation policy · Systems · Change