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While current policies aiming at a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions seem to be successful from the territorial perspective of industrialized countries, emissions are still increasing at the global level. The term weak carbon leakage describes a situation where an increase in consumption in developed countries leads to growing emissions in less developed countries. This effect is strongly related to phenomena like globalization and outsourcing of production. As a consequence, a large part of daily consumed products are imported and include embodied emissions (i.e. direct and indirect emissions that occur in the regions of production). For the development of effective policy instruments addressing consumption-based-emissions (CBE) embodied in these international products and processes, it is essential to apply a consumption-based approach (CBA), including both consumer-oriented policies, focusing on final demand, and producer-oriented policies, focusing on industry. Since a considerable share of consumption behaviour is performed by routines, habits and within social practices (cooking, working or shopping), CBE due to consumer behaviour are analysed in this paper by applying the social practices (SP) approach to the case of Austria. Based on this approach the development of effective policy instruments addressing a reduction of CBE by three types of interventions (re-crafting, substituting and interlocking) are discussed for the main hotspots of Austria’s CBE: construction and mobility.

Collective action—the involvement of a group of people carrying out common and voluntary actions to pursue shared interests—has a high potential to contribute to agency and wellbeing freedom. It is a current and recurrent phenomenon in society, but it is still poorly explained by the Capability Approach (CA). This paper’s main aim is to look more closely at how the CA can be used to better frame, understand and evaluate the impacts of collective action. Based on a discussion of the literature on collective capabilities and agency we suggest extending the perspective of the original approach, mainly through a more explicit distinction between three layers: individual processes, collective action, and social institutions. We argue that such an extension is useful in order to evaluate how collective action can alter wellbeing and agency freedoms. By way of example, we look at community currency (CC) initiatives—trading schemes that are designed and implemented as a supplement to the legal tender money—and employ the three-layered CA to describe and evaluate the effects of acting collectively in such a setting. We also point out what distinguishes such an assessment from other approaches that we have found in the literature on CC. We conclude that a more systematic analysis of collective action through the CA may enable the latter to provide for useful assessments of collective action. Keywords: Capability Approach, Agency, Agency freedom, Wellbeing freedom, Collective action, Community currencies, Collective capabilities

Auch wenn die Dringlichkeit einer sozial-ökologischen Transformation zur Nachhaltigkeit längst von praktisch allen Seiten anerkannt wird - moderne Gesellschaften verteidigen ihren Wohlstand und Lebensstil entschiedener denn je. Beharrlich wird eine sozial und ökologisch zerstörerische Politik der Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit betrieben. Die Konjunktur des Rechtspopulismus signalisiert, wie sehr das ökologisch-demokratische Projekt vergangener Jahrzehnte brüchig geworden ist. Und die Corona-Pandemie verschiebt die Prioritäten erneut in Richtung Wachstumspolitik und Konsumstimulation. Dieser Band stellt grundlegende Annahmen der Nachhaltigkeitsforschung und Umweltsoziologie in Frage. Er skizziert neue sozialwissenschaftliche Forschungsperspektiven, um die eigenartige Fortdauer der Nicht-Nachhaltigkeit zu erhellen.

The role of sustainability initiatives and niche groups in transitions towards sustainability has received a good deal of attention. However, little is known about the people who make up these groups. This paper discusses their psychological wellbeing – a concept that comprises six elements: self-acceptance, personal growth and development, purpose in life, environmental mastery, autonomy, and positive relations with others. In the study we performed 46 semi-structured interviews with people from 11 sustainability initiatives in five countries across Europe. We find that the groups offer a platform to build and maintain social relations with other, often like-minded, people. While these relations often serve an important motivational function to stay engaged, they are not free of challenges. The interviews show that sustainability initiatives can also provide fertile ground for personal growth and other dimensions of psychological wellbeing. Environmental mastery – and specifically the capacity to cope with global environmental problems beyond individual control – is a major challenge for people engaged in sustainability initiatives. Overall, the data suggests strong links between social engagement and psychological wellbeing. From a theoretical perspective, this paper enriches the transition literature by exploring the role of psychological wellbeing among people engaged in niches.

Ausgangsbeobachtung ist, dass in der Debatte um die Rolle von Forschung mit Blick auf das Herbeifuhren eines gesellschaftlichen Wandels nicht ausreichend unterschieden wird zwischen der Generierung wissenschaftlichen Wissens und der Generierung gesellschaftspolitischer Veranderungen. Es wird dafur argumentiert, Wissensproduktion und gesellschaftspolitische Einflussnahme als getrennte, wenn auch nicht disjunkte Grosen zu behandeln, insbesondere mit Blick auf Partizipation und Legitimation. Transdisziplinare Forschung ist primar der Produktion wissenschaftlichen Wissens verpflichtet, deshalb ist die Beteiligung von Praxisakteuren primar anhand des Kriteriums Expertise zu begrunden. Zur Erhohung der gesellschaftspolitischen Wirkung der Ergebnisse transdisziplinarer Forschung sollte erganzend zur Partizipation an der Wissensgenerierung zusatzlich eine Partizipation zur Steigerung der praktischen und der gesellschaftspolitischen Legitimitat der Ergebnisse stattfinden; dafur sollten (weitere) Praxisakteure nach anderen Kriterien als dem der Expertise bestimmt werden. Es wird also fur eine Auffacherung von Partizipationszielen und Praxisakteuren argumentiert. Dies ist weiter zu differenzieren fur Forschung, die Interventionen realisiert, sowie fur transformative Forschung: Hier kommen die wissenschaftliche, die praktische und die gesellschaftspolitische Legitimitat der Interventionen, der angestrebten transformativen Ziele und der realisierten transformativen Aktivitaten hinzu.

Sustainability transitions as processes of fundamental change in societal systems are open-ended, nonlinear and uncertain. Respective research and governance approaches, e.g., transition management, propose a reflexive way of governing, aiming for a number of societal effects to help facilitating a transition. Effects include empowerment, social learning and social capital development. Jointly mentioned effects shall allow for reflexivity and innovation in developing socially robust and contextualized solutions to sustainability challenges that work in practice. But, understanding the mentioned societal effects and their interplay in more depth is necessary to design and assess transition management processes. While such understanding and related assessment framework is under development in the transition management literature, transdisciplinary sustainability research can provide a rich body of tools and experiences. Building on a review of the literature, this article develops an evaluation framework focusing on social learning, empowerment and social capital as important and hitherto under-conceptualised aspects of the sustainability transition literature. This framework is used to empirically investigate the effects of two specific transition management processes at the local scale. In doing so, the article provides a conceptual and empirical understanding of how social learning, empowerment and social capital contribute to a transition towards sustainability. The three effects are shown to be interrelated, mutually supportive and bridging different scale levels from individuals to groups, niches and beyond. Results highlight possibilities to facilitate and assess societal effects, addressing sustainability as their inherent quality.

Der Capability-Ansatz stellt substanzielle individuelle Freiheiten als Ziel nachhaltiger Entwicklung in den Mittelpunkt der Analyse. Diese konkrete Sichtweise ist nicht ohne Probleme, bietet aber auch Chancen. So relativiert der Ansatz die beliebte Diskussion um die starke oder schwache Nachhaltigkeit.