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Purpose Public procurement is a major driving force that can be used to advance societal goals such as sustainability. The lack of strategic management and top-level commitment have been found to be major hindrances to the promotion of sustainable public procurement (SPP). This study aims to examine the functioning of a successful Finnish SPP development programme, the KEINO Academy (2019–2020), that tackled these challenges in a holistic way. Design/methodology/approach The article is mainly based on qualitative analysis of interviews with 24 municipal representatives. Findings The KEINO Academy advanced SPP management through the following functions: legitimising SPP development work, structuring SPP development work, offering expert support and facilitating peer support. The functions were mainly able to meet the key challenges experienced by the participating municipalities. However, some challenges cannot be directly solved by an intermediary such as the KEINO Academy. These challenges include, for example, a lack of resources. Social implications On the basis of the study, SPP development programmes should: build a holistic working model; respect the versatility of the participating organisations; involve all the key people in the organisations, including the directors; and sustain change. Originality/value The main theoretical contribution is the combination of two streams of literature, those of SPP management and intermediary functions. Further, the article makes an empirical contribution by studying the KEINO Academy as a pioneering SPP development case.

Funding Information: We gratefully acknowledge the two projects – “Developmental evaluation of the Finnish sustainable development policies and transformation pathways ( PATH2030 )”, funded by the Finnish Government unit of analysis, assessment and research activities, and “Towards Eco-Welfare State: Orchestrating for Systemic Impact (ORSI)”, funded by the Strategic Research Council at the Academy of Finland (grant no. 327768 ) for their financial contributions to this study. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 The Authors No country is on its way to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by the year 2030. The expectations for rapid transformations have not materialized, and hence a strategy combining both incremental and more radical changes is needed. Such strategies have been discussed in other fields, but they have been largely unaddressed in relation to sustainable development. This article seeks to increase understanding of how changes of various sizes interact in sustainable development policy. Here, we utilize the concept of small wins as concrete, implemented and often incremental changes that can create momentum for larger-scale changes. By analyzing key government documents and reports, interviews, questionnaires and workshop material, we study Finland's sustainable development policy. We focus on changes in the realms of the 4Is, meaning institutions, interests, information and ideas. Based on the research, Finland has been particularly successful in building multi-sectoral institutions and mainstreaming the idea of sustainable development. There is a vast information base available. In practice, however, various conflicts of interest remain unsolved. We conclude that while a sustainable development policy based solely on small wins can be too slow and incremental to meet the major sustainability challenges of our time, it would pave the way for more transformative reforms. These include, for example, the current Government Programme based on the idea of sustainable development and challenging the status quo on various fronts.

The Technological Innovation System (TIS) framework has become a popular tool for the analysis of innovation dynamics, particularly on a national scale. There have been calls to utilise the framework at sub-national levels too, and to pay attention to location-specific features and interactions. This article contributes to the discussion by studying how the sub-national intermediary network of the Finnish Carbon-Neutral Municipalities (HINKU) complements and challenges the national cleantech innovation system in Finland. To achieve this, we propose an analytical framework that combines the TIS framework with intermediary functions. Our study shows that the TIS framework is a practical tool for analysing potential discontinuities and policy development possibilities regarding innovation systems across spatial scales. Empirically, the study reveals the ways in which certain technological innovation system functions, such as market formation and experimentation, are particularly important for local-scale cleantech deployment and should be analysed further.

Societies around the world are faced with wicked problems such as climate change. In this context, experimental governance approaches have emerged as tools with potential utility in both top-down and bottom-up governance efforts. At the same time, experimental governance has gained momentum as a desirable policy goal in its own right. As the various experimental approaches differ in their origins and serve different purposes, there is a need to organize the field. If more experimental development processes are desired, what can be expected from certain kinds of experiments? How can the field be organised in a way that benefits those designing, conducting, and evaluating experimental governance processes? In attempting to answer these questions, we carried out a meta-study of 25 articles on experimental climate governance. On the basis of the results and the previous work on experiments, we have built a 'triangle model of experimental governance' that proposes both vertical and horizontal dynamics within and between different functions and uses of experiments. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Public procurement of innovation (PPI) can promote the quality and efficiency of public services.

Academic discussion on economic growth and the environment has made a comeback under the auspices of the degrowth debate. To date, however, literature on the topic has been mainly theoretical and empirical studies of actual policy discussions have received less attention. This article contributes to the debate with a narrative policy analysis of interviews with members of Finland's Committee on sustainable consumption and production. Narrative policy analysis is suitable for complex policy cases. By tracing and comparing the different stories, non-stories and counterstories in the debate, the analysis clarifies the issue and paves the way for solutions. We found that it is common even among business and ministry representatives to criticize the current growth-bound economic system. From the perspective of narrative policy analysis, however, this critique only increases uncertainty and complexity in the policy field which, paradoxically, leads to a strengthening of the dominant growth stories. We suggest that constructing a complete degrowth story is essential for supporting democratic deliberation on sustainability. Robust institutional support for degrowth work together with research and experimentation are important milestones on the way.

The scope and cross-disciplinary nature of challenges related to sustainable consumption and production (SCP) have led to calls to develop national SCP programmes. This article analyses and evaluates one of the pioneers in the field, the Finnish programme to promote SCP. However, traditional evaluation approaches that are centred on effectiveness are blind to the successful features of the programme process, thus providing an obscure picture of the project. To develop an alternative approach that would depict the variety of uses that the programme process has enabled, we turn to knowledge-for-action and particularly knowledge use theories. From this perspective, we track five different use categories from the Finnish SCP process: scripted, deliberative, political, ritual and unprompted. From the use perspective, one of the key problems in the process was the discrepancy between the uses that were anticipated by the majority of the committee members and the actual uses that took place. The majority expected scripted use, i.e., implementation of the programme as agreed on by the committee. However, few effects can be directly associated with programme implementation. At the same time, the programme process mainly succeeded in its deliberative and ritual uses. Also the unprompted uses have turned out to be almost as significant as the scripted ones. The article challenges the leaders, participants and evaluators to rethink broad sustainability programmes from the use perspective. It is important to be transparent about the reasons why these programmes are made and, particularly, to whom and for which uses.

The profusion of knowledge about the complexity of promoting sustainable consumption has led to calls to address the issue in a cross-cutting manner. This article discusses pioneering national sustainable consumption and production (SCP) programmes as tools for informed decision making. The analysis is based on a theory of three organizing principles for SCP policy: (1) deliberation, (2) efficiency and (3) sufficiency. These organizing principles protect and enact particular values and can be promoted in either a weak or strong manner. A comparison of three SCP programmes from Finland, Sweden, and the UK shows that different programmes emphasize somewhat different principles: programmes in the UK and Finland emphasize the efficiency principle, whereas the Swedish programme places considerable emphasis on promoting sufficiency, as well. Meanwhile, deliberation is well presented in all the programmes, but the countries apply it somewhat differently. On the whole, government commitment to the programmes is limited, and clear targets, timetables, and resources are mentioned only occasionally. Thus, rather than being credible roadmaps towards SCP, the pioneering programmes take the form of mixed toolboxes. The programmes contain many innovative and potentially effective proposals, but in responding to the challenges acknowledged in the programme documents, individual actors must bear heavy responsibilities. From this perspective, the pioneering SCP programmes also provide false reassurance and a means to outsource the promotion of SCP to non-government actors.

This chapter aims to shed more light on the ways in which the members of the Finnish Parliament viewed the decision on the fifth NPP unit. Why did some of the MPs vote for the building of the new NPP unit? Why did some of them vote against it? In which ways have the general ideas about desirable development, economic growth and environmental risks affected their decisions? What was the structure of the discursive field in general? When analysing the discourses the author has also been interested in the ways in which the parliamentarians viewed the role and performance of different actors in deciding on the nuclear issue. How did they see their own role? What were their ideas about expert knowledge and citizen participation in the process?

Arviointi on selvittänyt, missä määrin ehdotus ilmastolaiksi muuttaisi ilmastopolitiikan valmistelun ja toimeenpanon nykytilaa. Arvioinnissa on hyödynnetty asiantuntijahaastatteluita ja siinä on verrattu haastatteluissa esitettyjä argumentteja muissa tutkimuksissa esitettyihin havaintoihin. Samalla on tarkasteltu mahdollisuuksia saavuttaa ilmastolaille asetettuja tavoitteita lakia säätämättä. Varsinainen arviointityö tehtiin lakiehdotuksen valmistelun aikana ennen lakiehdotuksen lausuntokierrosta. Tulosten tarkastelussa on otettu huomioon ne muutokset, jotka tehtiin lakiehdotukseen lausuntokierroksen jälkeen. Ehdotetussa ilmastolaissa olisi suurelta osin kyse nykyisen käytännön muuttamisesta lakisääteiseksi. Keskeisimmät muutokset nykyiseen järjestelmään olisivat ilmastopolitiikan pitkän aikavälin tavoitteen kirjaaminen lakiin sekä suunnittelu- ja raportointiprosessien aikatauluttaminen ja sääntely. Pitkän aikavälin tavoitetta lukuun ottamatta lakiehdotuksessa ei ole aineellisoikeudellisia säännöksiä. Ehdotuksessa annettaisiin osa työ- ja elinkeinoministeriön aiemmin hoitamista yhteensovittamistehtävistä ympäristöministeriölle. Ehdotetussa ratkaisussa kaksi eri ministeriötä olisi koordinointivastuussa asioista, jotka liittyvät sekä ilmasto- että energiapolitiikkaan. Koordinointitehtävien yhteensovittaminen on siten ratkaisevan tärkeää hallinnollisen sekavuuden välttämiseksi. Pitkän aikavälin päästövähennystavoitteen kirjaamisella lakiin olisi ensisijaisesti symbolinen merkitys. Se olisi selvä viesti kotimaan toimijoille ja kansainvälisille neuvotteluosapuolille Suomen tahdosta tehdä aktiivista ilmastopolitiikkaa. Ilmastolaki voisi vähentää avoimuudessa ja osallistamisessa esiintyvää vaihtelua eri suunnitteluprosesseissa. Nykytilaan verrattuna laki parantaisi laaja-alaisen ilmastopoliittisen osallistumisen edellytyksiä. Lakisääteinen selontekomenettely ja ilmastovuosikertomus varmistaisivat myös, että eduskunnalla olisi keinoja seurata ilmastopolitiikkaa ja vaikuttaa sen muotoutumiseen. Ilmastolailla olisi mahdollista vahvistaa ilmastopolitiikan tietoperustaa. Ilmastopaneelin aseman kirjaaminen lakiin toisi paneelille jatkuvuutta ja vahvistaisi sen asemaa. Ilmastopaneelin painoarvo ja vaikutusvalta ovat kuitenkin pitkälti riippuvaisia käytännön toteutuksesta: paneelin jäsenistön valinnasta, viestinnän onnistumisesta ja paneelin käyttöön asetettavista voimavaroista. Ehdotettu ilmastolaki ei mainittavasti lisäisi raportointitaakkaa nykytilaan verrattuna, mikäli raportointi toteutetaan joustavasti ja koordinoidusti EU:n ja kansainvälisten raportointien mukaisesti. Laki tarjoaisi sysäyksen ilmastopolitiikan raportoinnin kokonaisvaltaiselle kehittämiselle. Arvioinnin yleinen johtopäätös on, että ilmastolaki voisi edistää nykyisten ja tulevien ilmastotavoitteiden saavuttamista sillä edellytyksellä, että eri suunnittelujärjestelmien ja -käytäntöjen yhteensovittamisessa onnistutaan. Asetettujen tavoitteiden saavuttamista voitaisiin edistää myös ilman lakia. Vastaavien edistysaskelien saavuttamien edellyttäisi kuitenkin todennäköisesti suurempia erillisiä ponnistuksia, kuin mitä lain säätäminen ja toimeenpano vaatisi.