As an alternative to traditional politics, Transition Management will seek to steer development in a more sustainable direction by identifying and fundamentally restructuring the unsustainable systems that underpin our society.
The goal of transition management is geared towards enabling, facilitating and guiding the social, technical and political transformations required by embedded societal systems to bring about sustainability.
The inherent complexity of society[4] (from the difference of perspectives, norms and values) added to the intricacy of modern-day issues requires a new form of governance.
[17][18] Geels[15] expanded the focus from engineers to include a wider of range of social groups such as policy makers, financiers and suppliers.
[15] The framework of support provided can be financial (most early ventures being commercially unviable); establishing learning processes and facilitating the social networks that lead to growth.
The model proposed by Geels shows how the success of a new technology requires developments across all levels to support the processes occurring within the niche (figure 1).
[1] In order to fully transform the landscape level, the underpinning socio-political values and beliefs will also need to be radically rewritten, without the full involvement of society, this may be susceptible to failure.
Finally it has also been considered that the heterogeneity of society allows for collective learning which spurs the development of innovations through exploration at the niche level.
[14] Kemp et al.[9] put forward a framework for identifying the different type of activities of which transition management attempts to align.
[9] Tactical activities will also seek to identify the barriers that may be encountered (such as regulation, economic conditions) when interpreting these visions into the regime level.
There are number of key aspects that differentiate transition management from other forms of governance, these differences are most apparent due to the model's prescriptive nature.
Differences in interpretation, perceived pressures, opinions and preference ensues the construction of a plurality of visions and solutions for consideration.
[3][13] Although each vision will require different socio-technical changes they will all seek to broadly ensure the same goals are met, for example a low or no carbon economy and a secure and reliable supply.
Experiments within the niche level form a series of 'development rounds' which provide information to decision makers regarding the viability of different options.
[1] The information provided by the development rounds is evaluated and if the options are considered to be viable the solution is rolled out primarily on a small scale.
[14] Although being less apparent than the Dutch energy transformation, it appears that there is an increasing pressure for theorists to establish frameworks to guide a similar transition within the UK.
The UK energy sector is an example of a socio-technical subsystem that exhibits strong lock-in, socially, politically and technically.
[1] The technical domain exhibits a strongly centralised infrastructure facilitated by a distribution network, socially speaking the UK energy system is heavily relied upon to provide welfare and enable economic activity.
A number of landscape and regime pressures have emerged which impact on the system, primarily related to security of supply and the issue of climate change.
At the regime level, institutions such as the European Investment Bank are beginning to provide funding to facilitate the resources required to advance such niche technology.
As per the method, a number of visions are currently being explored, including smart infrastructure, renewable energy alternatives and the viability of hydrogen.