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Voluntary carbon offsets are a rapidly growing market and claims related to offsetting and carbon neutrality are visible in citizens' daily lives. Proponents suggest that carbon offsetting offers a cost-effective way to incentivize climate action while critics discuss offsetting as an opaque and dysfunctional practice. Previous studies have examined citizens' perceptions principally through quantitative data, and especially by economic choice experiments. As voluntary carbon offsetting is unsettled in citizen's everyday lives, we argue that such studies overlook the more subtle ways in which this is happening. To address these ways in detail, we conducted a multi-method analysis of a nationally representative survey (n = 1000) in Finland. The closed questions of the survey were first analysed quantitatively, and the insights then enriched by a qualitative analysis of the open questions. The combined results highlight citizens' views and understandings as uncertain and ambivalent: despite a widespread willingness to address climate change, there is little unreserved support for voluntary carbon offsetting and distrust towards the sector is high. Our study cautions against placing high hopes in individuals' voluntary carbon offsetting as a form of climate action.

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In this dissertation, I examine how societal debates on energy policy and the necessity of energy transitions unfold in Finland. Transforming energy systems is acknowledged as one of the most important areas for action on climate change and numerous voices across the globe have called for radical shifts in current energy policies and practices. Simultaneously, discussions on energy policy revolve around futures – both expected and feared – and the measures required to attain them. Finland is an interesting context to study claims about change and transitions as it has both commitments to action on climate change as well as stable institutional structures that have been described as resistant to change. My perspective on energy policy and governance is broad and I analyse various arenas where energy issues are debated. These include the Finnish Parliament and Helsinki City Council, the media and discussions amongst various actors attempting to influence energy policy and working at the science-policy interface. In my analysis, I show how Finnish energy policy actors are broadly committed to a sociotechnical imaginary of carbon neutrality, or a collectively held and publicly performed vision of a desirable future. In the imaginary, Finland is envisioned as a prosperous welfare society that has addressed climate change by attaining a balance between greenhouse gas emissions and removals. The imaginary of carbon neutrality is broad and interpretatively flexible, thus accommodating diverse views on what carbon neutrality can entail. In the articles that comprise this dissertation, I engage with a wide range of literature from science and technology studies, sociotechnical transitions studies, social scientific studies on energy, institutional theory and analyses on science-society relations. Specifically in the thesis summary, I address a research gap within the literature on sociotechnical imaginaries, by examining how questions regarding scale, heterogeneity and mobility shape the co-production of imaginaries as well as enable and curtail the scope of agency. I build on a constructivist and interpretative approach to research and use a range of materials, such as interviews, documents, news articles, Parliamentary and City Council transcripts, press releases and participant observation. Empirically, I focus on the 2010s as the decade when a sociotechnical imaginary of carbon neutrality emerged and became consolidated in Finland. In this thesis, I argue that sociotechnical imaginaries, in this case carbon neutrality, form the imaginative foundations of national policy debates that motivate and justify action, while simultaneously retaining space for negotiation on how to attain those futures. The empirical analysis demonstrates that there is no overarching consensus in Finland over what carbon neutrality means and what practices it allows for. I demonstrate that the context where an imaginary is co-produced both enables and constrains the scope of possible political debate and action by requiring actors to formulate their views through interpretations of desirable pathways towards carbon neutrality. I conclude that carbon neutrality is likely to persist as a widely shared sociotechnical imaginary in Finland due to the political possibilities for debate and compromise that it offers. At the same time, I propose that the concept of carbon neutrality will be increasingly challenged by questioning whose imaginary is it, what type of practices does it enable and how are different actions evaluated as carbon neutral. Likewise new concepts, such as climate emergency, are likely to challenge the imaginary of carbon neutrality. I conclude that such debates are both necessary and desirable as we collectively face, address and learn to live with climate change. Tarkastelen tässä väitöstutkimuksessa suomalaista energiapolitiikkaa ja sen muutostarpeita koskevia yhteiskunnallisia keskusteluja. Suomessa on yhtäältä vahvat poliittiset sitoumukset toimia ilmastonmuutoksen hillitsemiseksi, toisaalta vakaat, muutosvastarintaisinakin pidetyt yhteiskunnalliset järjestelmät. Tästä asetelmasta käsin on mielenkiintoista tarkastella väitteitä muutoksen tarpeesta. Näkökulmani energiapolitiikkaan ja -hallintaan on laaja, ja tarkastelen useita eri foorumeita, joissa keskustellaan energiasta ja energiapolitiikasta. Osoitan, että energiapolitiikan eri tahoilla on yhteinen näkemys toivotusta tulevaisuudesta, jossa Suomi on saavuttanut hiilineutraaliuden. Tämä muodostaa sosioteknisen kuvitelman, eli jaetun ja julkisesti esitetyn näkemyksen tavoittelemisen arvoisesta tulevaisuudesta. Kuvitelmassa Suomi nähdään menestyvänä hyvinvointivaltiona, joka on vastannut ilmastonmuutokseen saavuttamalla tasapainon tuotettujen ja ilmakehästä sidottujen kasvihuonekaasupäästöjen välillä. Samaan aikaan hiilineutraaliuden kuvitelma on tulkinnallisesti joustava ja mahdollistaa lukuisia eri näkemyksiä siitä, mitä hiilineutraalius yksityiskohtaisesti pitää sisällään. Väitöstutkimukseni empiiriset artikkelit tuottavat uutta tietoa hyödyntäen muiden muassa tieteen- ja teknologiantutkimusta, sosioteknisten järjestelmien tutkimusta, yhteiskuntatieteellistä energiatutkimusta, instituutioteorioita sekä tieteen ja politiikan vuorovaikutuksen tutkimusta. Tarkastelemalla sosioteknisten kuvitelmien tasoja, moninaisuutta ja liikkuvuutta osoitan, miten sosiotekniset kuvitelmat sekä mahdollistavat että rajoittavat toimijuutta. Nojaan tutkimuksessa konstruktionistiseen ja tulkinnalliseen metodologiaan sekä hyödynnän laajoja tutkimusaineistoja (esimerkiksi haastatteluja, uutisartikkeleita ja poliittisia puheita). Tarkastelu ajoittuu 2010-luvulle – vuosikymmeneen, jolloin hiilineutraaliuden kuvitelma nousi ja vakiintui Suomessa. Keskeinen väitteeni on, että sosiotekniset kuvitelmat, tässä tapauksessa hiilineutraaliuden kuvitelma, luovat perustan kansallisille keskusteluille tavoittelemisen arvoisesta tulevaisuudesta. Vaikka hiilineutraaliuden kuvitelma on Suomessa jaettu, maassa ei vallitse jaettua näkemystä siitä, mitä hiilineutraalius tarkoittaa ja minkälaisia käytäntöjä se mahdollistaa. Tulkinnallisesti väljä kuvitelma jättääkin tilaa keskustelulle erilaisista keinoista ja käytännöistä mielekkään tulevaisuuden saavuttamiseksi. Tutkimukseni osoittaa, että hiilineutraalius tulee todennäköisesti säilymään laajasti hyväksyttynä sosioteknisenä kuvitelmana Suomessa, koska se mahdollistaa sekä poliittisen keskustelun että kompromissien hakemisen. Samaan aikaan hiilineutraalius tullaan haastamaan eri suunnilta: kenen kuvitelma hiilineutraalius on, minkälaisia toimia se mahdollistaa ja miten eri toimia arvotetaan hiilineutraaleiksi? Tällaiset keskustelut ja haasteet ovat sekä olennaisia että toivottuja oppiessamme elämään ja toimimaan ilmastonmuutoksen kanssa.

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Transitions research argues that destabilizing current carbon-intensive regimes is necessary for transforming energy systems. In this study, we analyze how both new and established energy policy actors seek to influence energy transitions in a relatively stable institutional context. Our empirical focus is on Finland, where the governance of energy policy has been characterized as closed and stagnant and is increasingly challenged by novel actors. The analysis is based on expert interviews (n=24), completed with existing literature and other documentary material. We examine the different forms of institutional work actors undertake. Our analysis shows how the existing institutional setting conditions actors’ choices over the endeavors that are worth pursuing. We show how the institutional work approach adds nuance to studying actors’ activities in regime destabilization processes. We find that actors focus on creative institutional work and avoid disruptive activities. While our results confirm a strong commitment to carbon neutrality, the focus on creative institutional work and a lack of disruption point to incremental changes in energy policy and networks.

This article critically reviews the use of discursive approaches in studies of sustainable energy transitions. The review is motivated by calls to further incorporate social scientific methodologies into energy research and assess their contribution to policy. We strive to answer three questions: (1) which discursive approaches have been used to study sustainable energy transitions; (2) what thematic topics and issue areas have been covered and (3) what is the added value of discursive research designs? Our analysis is based on a review of 77 articles from the years 2004–2016. Our findings show that discursive approaches were mostly used to analyse institutional change and policy strategies at the national level and to examine energy choices through political ideology and the perceptions of publics. Nuclear power received most coverage, while renewable energy technologies were mainly studied through conflicts and opposition. We demonstrate discursive research designs to examine four distinct policy areas and discuss the added value of these approaches for energy policy and research. Discursive methodologies enable scholars to enrich policy discussions through accounting for transitions as complex and dynamic processes of change.