The institutionalisation of sustainable practices in cities: how initiatives shape local selection environments

• Published in: Environmental innovation and societal transitions 2018-12, Vol.29, p.68-80
• Main Authors: Barnes, Jake, Durrant, Rachael, Kern, Florian, MacKerron, Gordon
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agency; Cities; Governance; Institutionalisation; Sustainability; Transitions
• ISSN: 2210-4224; 2210-4232
• DOI: 10.1016/j.eist.2018.04.003

•Framework combines agency with an explicit focus on local governance processes.•Three instances of successful institutionalisation are examined.•In practice, we find, incumbent rules are hard to locate and often constrained.•Informal horizontal governance arenas are found to aid the reconfiguration of urban selection environments. The ways in which institutions are reconfigured to change mainstream selection pressures to favour sustainability is central to research on sustainability transitions but has only recently begun to receive more attention. Of this existing work, empirical attention has mainly focused on the national level with less attention to local dynamics. Attending to this gap, we mobilise theory on institutionalisation processes and insights from the politics of transitions literature and take an actor perspective to investigate the agency of local sustainability initiatives to navigate local governance processes and reconfigure selection environments at the urban scale. Our work subsequently demonstrates the importance of diverse actor tactics, of networking for advocacy and of networking for the creation of informal, ad hoc governance arenas.