Situations of Opportunity in the Growth and Change of three Stockholm City Districts – everyday life, built environment and transport explored as Energy Usage Systems and Governance Networks
Stockholm and other cities overburden their hinterlands and are almost totally fossil fuel driven. Sustainable development policies such as the Swedish Environmental Quality Objectives indicate the way forward, but how to research the issue of urban sustainable development? In this cross-disciplinary research project, SitCit for short, we formulate it as a challenge: The energy use of three Stockholm City districts is to be reduced to a sustainable level – in fifty years from now it should be 2 kW per person on the average. The vision of a 2 kW Society, as developed at ETH, guides the transition. What can change in buildings, transport systems and users’ habits, how great are the potentials, who are the agents of change? When is change favourable? Research indicates that there are “Situations of Opportunity” in city development when the potential for change is large, resistance low. Climate change, municipal plans and technical innovation leaps are possible "seeds” to Situations. For each district we identify a small number of “seeds” and develop consistent pictures of the planning and realization of the Situation as enacted in the upcoming decades. Each Situation picture consists of three parallel representations:
• The Scenario is a narrative of the process of change, seen from the future looking back;
• the computerized Energy Usage Model quantifies the outcomes in terms of reduced energy use;
• the Stakeholder Network designates the agents of change and their forms of co-operation.
Methodology comes from Backcasting, Energy Systems Analysis and Policy Analysis. Focus group methodology and our previous experience enable cross-disciplinary collaboration. Results take the form of theory and methodology and are presented at international conferences, in refereed journals, as a report and two Ph.D. theses.
Research Team:
Research
Leader: Örjan Svane
Researchers: Stina Gustafsson, Margrit Hugentobler, Mattias Höjer, Daniel Jonsson, Professor Per Lundqvist, Lars Marcus, Professor Lars-Göran Mattson, Josefin Wangel, Carina Weingaertner, Professor Katie Williams
Environmental Strategies Research - fms, Applied Thermodynamics and Refrigeration, ETH - Wohnforum, University of West of England - Centre for Environment and Planning, University of Birmingham - Centre for Urban and Regional Studies
Period: 2007-07-31 - 2011-12-31
Keywords: Situations of Opportunity, Sustainable Urban Development, Energy Usage System, Governance Network, Scenario, Stockholm
Source of funding: FORMAS (The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning), The Swedish Energy Agency
Contact: Do you want to know more? Learn more about SitCit on the projects web site www.kth.se/abe/forskning/sitcit/ Contact us by e-mail to wangel@infra.kth.se or phone +46 (0)8 790 85 88.
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