Innovation for sustainability: The case of sustainable transportation

Global warming and energy security are the main drivers for innovation towards alternative and sustainable energy solutions. The prevailing notion is that eventually technological innovations will solve the problem. However, scenario studies point out that deep change processes in institutions, life styles, and values will be necessary in addition to technological innovations. Moreover, there are some persistent problems with technological innovation itself: • In the case of energy for transportation, there is no consensus about which technologies to choose and how to select them. Picking winners is not a good idea, but keeping options open is neither. There seems to be a consensus that, in the long term, hydrogen fuel cells, battery electric vehicles, or biofuels are the only available sustainable options. It is not clear how and when to choose, depending on long-term cost-benefits and risk assessments, on public acceptance, and on the urgency. • Technological innovations are mainly driven by large business interests and by large government programs. After many years of discussion, supply side policies still dominate demand-side approaches. Thinking from the perspective of sustainability is even less developed. Transportation is again a case here. From the perspective of sustainability, the automobile is a suboptimal solution to individual mobility needs. In this paper we explore both theoretically and practically some alternative ways of thinking about how to connect technological innovation to sustainability. First of all, we think that small-scale experimentation including heterogeneous actors will help to generate deep learning processes, which are relevant for transitions to sustainability. In earlier papers we have coined the concept of BSTEs, “Bounded Socio-Technical Experiments” as situations in which deep learning could be generated and diffused into wider society. Second, we think that visioning exercises with heterogeneous stakeholders will help to create shared future visions for sustainable societies that are powerful enough to guide BSTE processes, and eventually could influence policy making aimed at the long term. In the Dutch Sustainable Technological Development program in the 1990s, and in the SusHouse project we have showed the viability of such an approach. Third, we think that back-casting from future visions, in combination with BSTEs, could generate roadmaps for technology development and policy development that will guide and direct individual innovation efforts. In the Netherlands backcasting is currently being investigated as to its effectiveness in generating long-term changes. As examples we will describe two cases: hydrogen fuel cells for transportation, and the Boston Scenarios Project. In the first case, we lay out the options and uncertainties, and explore the possibilities for a broad societal debate in addition to small-scale experiments, in order to develop a clear broadly-endorsed solution direction. In the latter project, a combination of visioning, BSTEs, and backcasting is being developed in order to generate “deep change” alternatives for the “Business As Usual” scenario for the Boston area. For transportation, “Deep Change” goes beyond fuel cell solutions and