Ambivalent urban sustainability transitions: Insights from Brisbane's building sector

Abstract

Cities are suggested as being the key level for shifts towards more sustainable modes of production and consumption. The building sector with its significant carbon footprint plays an important role in urban climate change adaptation strategies. Using the case study of Brisbane (Australia), the paper examines the place-specific contextualisation of green building transitions by analysing the co-evolution and interplay of building practices, policy making and involved actors. Drawing on theoretical approaches of Transition Studies and Evolutionary Economic Geography, we trace back and analyse policy and economic trajectories focusing on formative and hindering processes. The paper discusses ambivalent pathways and 'regime resistance' caused by local economic and political specificities. The analysis illustrates how crucial the continual support from both policy makers and industry actors can be when economic market mechanisms do not drive sustainability transitions. Regime actors can play a powerful role as 'transition detractors' and can determine the dynamics and the scope of sustainability transitions.

Introduction

Cities are increasingly understood as the key level for addressing climate change and as loci for action towards low-carbon solutions (Bulkeley et al., 2014, Hodson et al., 2017, IPCC, 2014, Loorbach et al., 2016, OECD/IEA, 2016). Scientific advisory bodies such as the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU, 2016) highlight the ‘transformative power’ of cities as far as sustainability is concerned. Related to these understandings, sustainability transitions – socio-technical shifts from conventional towards more sustainable modes of production and consumption (Markard et al., 2012) – have been predominantly analysed and interpreted on a national level (Hodson et al., 2017). However, the role of place specificity in the sustainability context remains underdeveloped (Coenen et al., 2012, Frantzeskaki et al., 2017, Hansen and Coenen, 2015, Murphy, 2015, Nicolosi and Feola, 2016). It is widely unclear how and why sustainability transitions occur, develop and vary in different urban contexts, even though the origins are often identified on the local level (Geels, 2011).

While a growing body of literature helps in understanding ‘successful’ shifts, explanations for slow or distracted sustainability transitions remain largely unexamined. In other words, apart from research on model cities and ‘best practice’, more solid empirical research considering path dependencies, barriers and resistance is needed (de Gooyert et al., 2016, Geels, 2014, Maassen, 2012). Research is particularly lacking on ‘transition resistant’ city contexts for innovative practices (technological and institutional) that do not gain momentum, are delayed or distracted. We argue that a city's specific and distinctive political, economic and technological pathways and their interrelated co-evolution need to be investigated further to better understand current dynamics, drivers and barriers in urban sustainable development.

This paper contributes to closing this research gap by providing empirical insights from a case study of green building transitions in Brisbane (Australia). In contrast to global forerunner cities such as Freiburg in Germany or Vancouver in Canada, Brisbane can be seen as a ‘latecomer’ due to a relatively slow uptake of ‘green building’ practices. The building and construction sector has a significant carbon footprint and therefore plays an important role in climate change adaptation strategies (IPCC, 2014, OECD/IEA, 2013, UNEP, 2011). Surprisingly, relatively little academic literature has been published in this field. While there is increasing interest in different aspects of sustainability processes in the building sector (Cidell, 2014, Faulconbridge, 2013, Gibbs and O'Neill, 2014, Smith, 2007), in-depth analyses at the city level are still lacking. This paper examines how and why green building practices develop and what barriers exist at the city level. Investigating this issue is not only relevant for further research but also for practitioners and policy makers seeking to take action on different urban sustainability areas.

The city context of Brisbane provides the opportunity to explore pathways of green building practices, in both residential and commercial sectors, with a special focus on barriers and distractions. Following a transdisciplinary approach, which combines expert knowledge from public, private and academic sectors, policy document analysis and secondary statistical data, this paper traces back Brisbane's green building pathways. We particularly focus on changed practices and the interrelated institutional, economic and political city context. More specifically, the paper examines the following research questions:

• What are significant changes in practice in Brisbane's building sector; when and why did changes occur or were hindered?

• Who are the key actors actively participating in these processes; who drives or resists sustainability transitions?

• How are policy making processes (e.g. regulations, incentives, guidelines) interrelated to practices in the building sector?

• What are significant barriers and challenges in transitioning Brisbane's building sector?

The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 covers a brief discussion of the literature on urban sustainability transitions and the conceptual approaches used for this paper. An overview and the relevance of the building sector is provided in Section 3 before the case study Brisbane and the broader context are introduced in Section 4. Section 5 outlines the methodical approaches applied in this paper. The research results are presented in Section 6 by tracing back and analysing the different phases of Brisbane's green building pathway. A final discussion, conclusions and an outlook for further research completes this paper in Section 7.