Mapping expectations for system transformations

Technological Forecasting & Social Change 75 (2008) 1360–1372

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Technological Forecasting & Social Change

Mapping expectations for system transformations Lessons from Sustainability Foresight in German utility sectors B. Truffer a,⁎, J.-P. Voß b, K. Konrad a a b

Cirus, Eawag, Switzerland Öko-Institut and Centre for Technology and Society at University of Technology Berlin, Germany

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 16 April 2007 Received in revised form 3 April 2008 Accepted 5 April 2008 Keywords: Sustainability Foresight Utility sector Socio-technical transformation Expectation mapping

a b s t r a c t Expectations held by different actor groups are of key importance for the shaping of sociotechnical transformation processes. Foresight activities may be interpreted as a means to elicit, aggregate, modulate and contextualize expectations held by different actors. The paper proposes a conceptual framework that allows assessing and reflecting expectations in foresight initiatives that focus on sustainable sector transformations. For this purpose it draws on the recent literature on socio-technical system transformations and social expectation dynamics. The application of the framework is illustrated by experiences gained with the Sustainability Foresight method developed for the case of sustainable utility sector futures in Germany. The process was conceived as a series of participative scenario and strategy workshops involving about 120 stakeholders from the provision, use and governance of utility services. © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The sustainable transformation of product fields or entire sectors may be framed as a problem of system innovation [1]. System innovation does not focus on single artifacts, products or practices, but on the creation of new socio-technical configurations in which artifacts, products and practices are aligned and embedded in broader institutions, infrastructure, use patterns, cultural values, scientific paradigms etc. The analysis of this kind of transformation processes has to anticipate complex interactions between the different technical and institutional components [2]. As an implication, precise forecasts about the actual course of these developments are often not possible. Furthermore the assessment of sustainability of these developments depends on divergent value positions and is therefore fraught with uncertainties and ambivalences. Future oriented methods that want to address sustainable sector transformation processes have therefore to adequately address uncertainty, ambivalence and complexity. The present paper elaborates a conceptual framework based on the recent literature on system transformations and social expectation dynamics. This framework allows interpreting foresight processes that aim at system transformations as structured contexts for eliciting, aggregating and translating expectations among heterogeneous sets of actors. In the recent innovation research literature, system transformations have been analyzed for a wide range of different contexts [3–5]. One of the key insights is that the interplay between different kinds of actors (industry, technology developers, users, government departments, professional associations, NGO's, etc.) is crucial for understanding the resulting transformation dynamics. The strategies envisaged by each of these actor groups will, in general, depend on each other and therefore only those innovations can succeed, for which coherent, mutually aligned strategies are chosen. This alignment depends on different kinds of expectations that these actors hold: (i) expectations about future context conditions, under which the sector has to work, (ii) expectations about future performance characteristics of specific socio-technical configurations and (iii) also expectations about the likely role specific actor groups (or individuals) will hold in the future. In the absence of an already materialized reality these

⁎ Corresponding author. Eawag-cirus, Überlandstrasse 133, CH-8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland. Tel.: +41 44 823 5670; fax: +41 44 823 5375. E-mail address: [email protected] (B. Truffer). 0040-1625/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2008.04.001

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expectations represent “narrative infrastructures” [6], which enable and constrain actions of individual actors and therefore guide the corresponding innovation processes. However, the specific expectations relating to future context conditions, technologies and actor roles will differ considerably between actor groups or even between individuals. In order to identify the potential room for coordinated strategy formulation, these expectations have to be mutually accommodated. Discursive and participatory foresight processes may in this sense be interpreted as occasions for reconstructing and exploring the multi-faceted set of expectations held by different actors in a certain sector. If analyzed appropriately, these expectations may systematically be articulated and related to each other. They can be analyzed with regard to their mutual fit or mismatch [7]. In this view, foresight may support the contextualization of specific expectations, enable the development of shared interpretive frames and may therefore constitute a basis for alignment of strategies in the course of shaping sustainable transformation process. In this article we propose a conceptual framework, which allows mapping patterns and dynamics of expectations within foresight processes that address multi-actor system transformation. For this purpose, we draw on two bodies of recent literature, namely on socio-technical system transformations and on social expectation dynamics. The resulting framework is illustrated by an application of the Sustainability Foresight method, a specific approach to reconstruct and explore these structures of expectations. The Sustainability Foresight approach is inspired by scenario planning processes, which are well established at the level of individual firms [8,9]. While at the firm level scenarios and strategies can be focused to the more or less coherent perspectives of actors within the firm, sustainable transformations of product fields or entire sectors necessitate the integration of a broader range of roles, competences, rationalities and interests of different actor groups. In such a context, coordination failures and conflicts come to the fore and require the development of a high degree of reflexivity on the side of participating actors. In this sense, Sustainability Foresight can be understood as an important element of reflexive governance, which allows for anticipation of co-evolutionary dynamics within socio-technical systems and the mutual adaptation of specific actor strategies [7]. The paper is structured as follows. In the second section we refer to the theoretical strands of socio-technical transformations and social expectation dynamics and propose an integrated framework for carrying out foresight processes on socio-technical system transformations. Against this backdrop, we introduce the Sustainability Foresight method as applied in the context of utility sector futures in Germany, in Section 3. Section 4 interprets the first phase of the Sustainability Foresight process as a deconstruction of implicit visions and expectations and a conjoint reconstruction of various alternative, but more explicit and coherent views on the future. Section 5 focuses on the implications that were drawn from these shared visions by different actor groups. This analysis focused on three critical innovation fields (combined heat and power generation, smart building and network access regulation). They led to mutually reflected strategic implications and an overarching transformation agenda for the sector. Section 6 concludes by interpreting the Sustainability Foresight experience as a series of translation and aggregation processes of expectations of the participating actors and discusses the relevance of this framework for foresight processes, in general. 2. Mapping expectations about system transformations 2.1. Multi-level concepts of system transformations A recent interest of innovation research in the social sciences has been the analysis of far reaching socio-technical transformations, or system transformations. A core tenet in this literature is that separations between “social” and “technological” aspects of such transformations could only be justified for analytical reasons and only for very specific situations. In most transformation contexts, the two sides are intimately intertwined [10]. A wide number of historical analyses about changes in technological systems have since illustrated how new technologies and products are socially shaped (for an overview see [4,11]. Recently these concepts have also been applied in future oriented contexts and especially for sustainable transformation analysis [3,12,13]. An important focus of these studies has been on historically identifiable combinations of technological, use, infrastructural, social and regulatory aspects that make up the totality of a “technology” that we refer to in everyday discourse. Concepts like technological paradigms, technological trajectories or socio-technical systems have been proposed in order to identify coherent socio-technical configurations. One of the well known approaches proposes a multi-level perspective on socio-technical transformation processes [4,5,14]. It distinguishes interdependent patterns at three levels. The core level of analysis is the sociotechnical regime. A regime may be identified in a specific historical period as a mutually aligned, established set of technological artifacts, use patterns, institutional contexts, regulations, infrastructures etc. that prevail for delivering a specific service, e.g. personal mobility [5]. Adaptations within a regime will, as a rule, be rather incremental because the internal couplings of the regime represented by established paradigms, sunk costs and vested interests will limit the possible variations of its structural components. A socio-technical regime will thus in general develop along specific trajectories. In an economic sector or a societal subsystem, several socio-technical regimes may exist alongside each other (e.g. public and private transport, which represent quite distinctive regimes, (see also [15]). Within a given historical period however, often one regime emerges as the dominant mode for delivering the respective services. Regimes are embedded in a broader socio-economic environment, the so-called socio-technical landscape. It provides a macrocontext in which specific socio-technical configurations or regimes may prosper [16]. Regimes are not static structures even though this may appear so in short-term historical appraisals. Changes at the landscape level may put pressure on a regime, which will have to adapt accordingly. Regimes may also come under pressure from “below”, by the growth of new socio-technical configurations that pose alternatives to or require adaptations of the regime's structure. New technologies often do not fit entirely to the institutional structures defined by the dominant regime. They therefore have to adapt by exploiting appropriate niches.

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These can be market niches, if specific application domains favor the new technology. If explicit protection against market pressure has been built up by specific firm, networks or policy contexts they will develop within technological niches [14]. Depending on pressures from the landscape and the momentum of development in certain niches, an established regime could be replaced by an upcoming niche that will in turn be able to develop its own regime structures. 2.2. Social expectation dynamics One of the key mechanisms which determine the emergence of new technologies in niches is the co-evolutionary development of different socio-technical components. As, in general, no single actor is able to oversee and control all aspects of such a coevolutionary process, niche based development processes rely on the successful management of perspectives beliefs, perceptions, interests and expectations which motivate and guide the behavior of the involved actors [14]. In recent years, the formation and dynamics of socially shared expectations has received increased attention as an explanatory factor of the emergence of new sociotechnical configurations [17–21]. Expectations may contribute to the emergence and shaping of socio-technical configurations by attracting interests and resources of producers, financial actors, policy actors and also users [19]. Furthermore, they serve as a means to negotiate the roles different actors may fulfill in promoting innovation and transformation processes and they provide the necessary protected spaces for learning about immature technologies [14]. As a consequence, expectations may be deployed strategically by some actors [20,22–24] and may play an important role in the struggle between competing systems. Besides, expectations differ among the actors due to diverging knowledge, perspectives, values and experiences as a consequence of the role they assume in a specific innovation process. As Brown and Michael [25] have shown, actors who are not involved in innovation processes and feel to have little influence are likely to show more trust into promises than actors dealing more immediately with the uncertainties pertaining to an emerging technology. While expectations depend on individual experiences, priorities and positions, they are at the same time the result of social interaction. Actors' expectations are shaped by their position, but also by the more or less specific social discourses they are actively or passively taking part in, e.g. particular professional discourses or media discourses [26]. Some expectations even become very widespread across different actor groups thereby becoming shared points of orientation. That is, for some actors they become taken-for-granted presumptions. But even if actors are more skeptical, they tend to take these widely held expectations into account, because they know that others share these expectations [27]. As a result expectations can be subject to strong social dynamics. Most obvious are hype and disappointment cycles, which may have a strong impact on the actual development of an innovation [26]. The relationship between individually held and socially shared expectations may be decisive for innovation success. Analytically, we may distinguish different forms of this relationship: On the one extreme, individually formed expectations may be decisive for innovation success independently of expectations held by other actors in society. The classical Schumpeterian conception of entrepreneurial intuition resonates well with this case. In this view, markets will honor those entrepreneurs that have developed more adequate individual routines of expectation formation. Submission to social conformity would nothing but destroy the very basis of innovation success. If however, the relevant innovation processes cannot be controlled by an individual actor alone, then collective expectations may become an important source of coordination and legitimization. If many actors base their investments on similar decision rules, expectations may increasingly become powerful, regardless if the actors really believe in their adequacy (see also [28]). In the following, we use the “scope of social support” of expectations to distinguish between individual expectations (including organizational actors like firms, NGOs etc.) and collective expectations that serve as common points of orientation for several actors. For our purpose to retrace multi-actor expectation topographies in the context of foresight processes, further analytical distinctions between different types of expectations are necessary. We distinguish expectations with regard to the influence actors may exercise over the ‘object’ of expectation. Here we separate expectations that relate to future context conditions from those that have to do with the expected behavior of specific actors. We will term the former as “contextual” expectations and the latter as “behavioral” expectations. Most scientific and technological trends are objects of contextual expectations that are the aggregated result of many actors. But also socio-economic framework conditions, future value orientations of a society or dominant political orientations will most often be attributed to this category. These conditions cannot be addressed by strategic actions of individual actors. Behavioral expectations in turn relate to future strategies and activities of specific actors whose consequences will influence the behavior of other actors in turn.1 A third distinction is between implicit and explicit expectations. Implicit expectations are taken for granted by specific actors in the sense of unquestioned assumptions. Implicit expectations may for instance relate to taken-for-granted social, economic or political conditions under which a specific sector operates, such as the level of welfare in a certain country. Explicit expectations in contrast are those, where the beholder considers alternatives and may retrace evidence for his or her assumption. As a rule, explicit expectations are more accessible in public debates, whereas implicit expectations typically lead to problems of mutual understanding.

1 Actors will differ with regard to their power to influence future characteristics of a sector. Governments may for instance influence a larger array of conditions than individual users. In general, it might therefore be very difficult to distinguish contextual from behavioral expectations. In the context of a specific foresight process, however, it should be much less problematic to specify the leeway for action of different actor groups.

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Table 1 Topography of expectations related to potential system transformations, differentiated with regard to the level of analysis and the scope of social support Whose expectations? Collective expectations

Individual expectations What is expected?

Landscape

Individual beliefs about long-term trends

Regime

Individual believes about ability of regimes to respond to external pressures Individual assessment of development potential for specific innovative technologies and products

Niche

Projections of future context conditions as shared within specific actor groups (e.g. impacts of climate change as identified by scientific experts) Expectations shared within specific actor groups (e.g. associations of electric utilities about future sector structures) Hopeful alternatives preferred by certain actor groups (e.g. NGO's support for a future hydrogen economy)

Broad societal visions about the future (Science fictions and utopias)

Broadly shared visions about future sector structures Sectoral or national priorities in innovation policy to support " promising" technologies

The challenge of foresight methods, which address sustainable sector transformations, may now be reframed as creating a discursive context in which different actors may elicit, contextualize and translate their own (implicit and explicit) expectations. By this, a reference space of explicitly shared (or contested) expectations can be constructed, which allows identifying potential future regime configurations as sector scenarios. These scenarios therefore consist, in general, of more explicit and more broadly shared contextual expectations among the participants of the foresight process compared to the individual expectations held initially. By this diverging contextual expectations and diverging value positions can be better differentiated and therefore actual conflicts may be separated from mere misunderstandings. Finally, based on these considerations interdependencies between different behavioral expectations may be identified, which could give rise to individual and collective transformation strategies. 2.3. Relating socio-technical transformation to expectation structures The two strands of literature focus on important aspects of the dynamics of system innovation. Whereas the study of sociotechnical transformations highlights actual socio-technical and institutional path dynamics, the study of expectation dynamics emphasizes the patterns of anticipation, which guide interactions of the different actors. Expectations relate to potential future socio-technical configurations and therefore represent an entry point to identifying strategies for more sustainable sector structures. Analytically, we may now combine the two dimensions. We may differentiate expectations with respect to the system level of transformation (niche, regime and landscape) they address and with regard to the scope of social support they receive. In Table 1, we have cross-tabulated the three system levels to which expectations may refer with the scope of support they receive. Table 1 may be read in two directions: Vertically, it describes integrated views of potential transformations of socio-technical systems, as seen by certain actors or actor groups. The outer left side represents the view of specific individual actors. It may, for instance, attribute the factors identified in a strategic planning process of a specific firm to the different system levels. The right side of the table encompasses wide ranging expectations that are shared by many or most actors in society. These expectations may

Fig. 1. Map for localizing implicit and explicit expectations relative to their scope of support. The outer ring encompasses individual expectations of different actors. The middle ring describes those expectations that are shared within specific “actor groups”. The innermost circle encompasses expectations and visions shared throughout society.

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be explicit or implicit and will be important reference points in public discourses about future development prospects of a sector [29]. In between these two extremes, we may locate expectations that are shared within specific actor groups. For example, electric utilities in a specific country may largely share expectations about the future prospects of nuclear energy and they will use their associations meetings and conferences to reinforce and share these expectations. Furthermore, technological paradigms [30] or Leitbilder [31] are instances of widely shared expectation structures that guide the variation and selection of engineers in a specific technological field. Reading the table horizontally, we may address the problem of the relationship between specific and collective expectations. This analysis may help to elicit, contextualize and translate expectations within and across different actor groups. By this, implicit assumptions, world views, beliefs etc. may be explicated and framings of contextual expectations may be laid open. These expectations may address different system levels. Expectations located at the level of the socio-technical landscape may give rise to long-term visions. The analysis of future regime structures and landscape forces would typically be addressed in sector res. technology foresight processes. Expectations located in the above two rows, in general, deal more with contextual expectations as these levels are mostly outside the direct influence of most actors. At the niche level behavioral expectations become more relevant. Each of the components of the table may be more or less explicit and more or less contested. It remains a matter of empirical investigation how specific or shared these expectations will be. We may map out the relationship between the expectations along the horizontal dimension as depicted in Fig. 1 in a somewhat schematic way. In the outermost circle, individually held expectations of each actor may be listed. Expectations shared within an actor group will be attributed to the middle ring in Fig. 1.2 In the innermost circle are those expectations that are widely shared by all relevant actors in the system. The table may serve as a tool for mapping out the expectation topography for a specific socio-technical system as represented by the actor setting involved in a foresight process. The foresight process may then be interpreted as identification, exploration and navigation journey across this topography (see Section 6). Horizontal and vertical moves can be interpreted as the explication, translation and aggregation of specific expectations that allow identifying shared views on the transformation process. In the remainder of the paper, we want to illustrate the usefulness of this framework by presenting a foresight method, which was developed to explicitly deal with system transformation processes in German utility sectors. 3. Sustainability Foresight for German utility sectors 3.1. Aim and structure of the Sustainability Foresight method The Sustainability Foresight method was developed in the context of a project addressing development alternatives for utility sectors in Germany in a timeframe of 25 to 30 years.3 The goal of the project was to identify potential future regime structures for the sectors electricity, gas, water, sanitation and telecom, appraise potentials for sustainable development as seen by various actors and develop strategies to cope with identified chances, threats and conflicts. Furthermore, we asked whether the former paradigm of utilities as public service could give way to a new overarching paradigm or whether each sector was more likely to develop according to its own specific logic. Building on the analysis of the selected sectors as socio-technical regimes [33–36], the project team elaborated the Sustainability Foresight method as a means to explore sustainable sector futures in a participatory way [12]. Foresight methodologies have often been used to map and modify future orientations of actors in science, technology and innovation policy.4 Sustainability Foresight broadens the focus in so far as it puts emphasis on sectoral production and consumption systems as coherent configurations of institutions, technologies, cultural and environmental structures. It opens a view on several possible development paths and includes a participatory multi-criteria mapping of scenarios with regard to their potential for sustainable development. Moreover, it encompasses an elaborated in-depth analysis and strategy development phase after the scenario construction and appraisal. Although Sustainability Foresight was developed specifically for the German utility sector, it is kindred to a number of recently formulated foresight approaches that aim at sustainable system transformations. A prominent example are visioning processes in the context of transition management, which is currently informing the national Dutch sustainability policy [38]. Other approaches with similar aims are adaptive foresight [39], the German Futur process [40], Visions assessment [41], Leitbild assessment [31] several sorts of participatory and constructive technology assessment [42,43] or strategic conversations [44]. The Sustainability Foresight procedure is structured by three phases consisting of five building steps. Fig. 2 gives a graphic representation of the five steps and indicates where the stakeholder workshops took place. a) Exploration of expected transformation dynamics: For each of the selected utility sectors we conducted an analysis of explicit and implicit future visions. Each analysis was followed by an expert workshop with key representatives of different actor groups. Based on the perceived development trends at the landscape, regime and niche level, four overarching scenarios about

2 Actor groups have for simplicity reasons been termed as industry, government and societal actors. Groups could however be much more differentiated if it suits the analysis. 3 The work was supported through the program on socio-ecological research by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (www.sozialoekologische-forschung.org). The project ran under the title “Integrated microsystems of provision. Dynamics, sustainability, and the shaping of transformation processes in network-bound infrastructures” (www.mikrosysteme.org) from 2002 to 2006. We will refer to it as the “microsystems project” in the following. The projects details are reported in [32]. More specific reports are cited throughout the present paper. 4 See for instance the experiences with the UK technology Foresight programs [37].

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Fig. 2. Process chart of the Sustainability Foresight project for German utility sectors. WS stands for the nine stakeholder workshops that were carried out throughout the process.

potential future utility regimes were constructed in three participatory scenario workshops. In the scenario workshops, critical innovation fields were identified whose success would be instrumental for certain scenarios to become true. b) Sustainability assessment: The four scenarios were assessed with regard to their challenges and opportunities related to sustainability criteria. The evaluation criteria were elicited from a set of stakeholder groups, since it is not possible to determine sustainability criteria objectively. Stakeholders were carefully selected in order to represent the whole range of different value positions. The assessment of how the different scenarios ‘perform’ with regard to these criteria was conducted by experts from different competence fields. Finally, a discursive assessment of risks and opportunities, areas of consent and conflict lines was carried out within a workshop setting [45]. c) Construction of transformation strategies: Based on the four regime scenarios and the risks and opportunities derived from the sustainability assessment, potential development trajectories for three critical innovation fields were worked out by the project team. Roadmaps for development were then presented in a final workshop to representatives of the utility sectors and experts for the selected technologies in order to derive potential coordinated strategies that could lead to more sustainable utility structures in the long run. Each of the three project phases ran over one year and involved stakeholders from public utilities, private companies, component suppliers, environmental and consumer NGOs, regulators, professional associations, media and academia. Invitation to the workshops was such as to respect predefined quota for the different stakeholder groups in order to get a broad and balanced spectrum of kinds of knowledge, value orientations and perspectives. Workshops were highly structured with prepared inputs from the project team. The core analytical steps were carried out conjointly between project team and participants. In the respective phases, the stakeholders had to select relevant factors of influence in the sectoral transformation process, articulate criteria for sustainable development and identify and elaborate action strategies. Overall about 150 experts were contributing to the project. Among these, about 120 stakeholders participated in the nine workshops (see Fig. 2).5 In the following, we will focus on the phases where the reflexive management of expectations and visions played a central role. For the sake of brevity, we will not elaborate the second phase dealing with “sustainability assessment” further (see [45]). The core of the argument of this paper can be shown without elaborating sustainability risks and opportunities in detail. 4. Reconstructing visions and expectations among actor groups In the course of the past few decades, utility regimes received considerable attention in the public debate. Nuclear energy and the emissions from fossil fuel power plants are examples in case. The contours of more “sustainable” sector structures and required 5 Each workshop ran over two days and encompassed roughly 20 participants. Several individuals were participating in more than one workshop. A couple of participants attended the whole series of workshops.

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transformations have been much less debated. There have been some bold visions such as the “hydrogen economy” [46] or “water recycling”. Also some particular elements of future regimes have been highlighted as hopes for sustainable development but no broadly shared and integrated visions are available that sketch out the implications for the utility service provision as a whole. For instance, smaller units of electricity generation and water treatment might give rise to much more decentralized structures than what has been established over the past century [47]. 4.1. The reconstruction of contextual expectations This analysis led the project team to scan current debates on the future of utility services in Germany. From an analysis of implicit visions and expectations, recurrent topics emerged that could be clustered in three dimensions of change: I. Decentralization: Small scale, decentralized structures are expected to become more widespread. End users will become involved in the control of these devices. Examples are small scale combined heat and power plants that might be installed and operated even at the level of single family dwellings; or membrane based water treatment enabling on site treatment even in individual appliances (like waste water free washing machines); or fuel cell power units, which might be used for mobile, portable and/or stationary applications; or finally, use of local renewable energy sources such as solar, wind or biomass, etc. II. Integration: The boundaries between the utility sectors are increasingly becoming blurred by certain technological developments. Examples are combined heat and power systems that run on gas and thus integrate electricity generation with heating; or water reuse structures which couple water provision and waste water treatment locally; or telecommunication services based on power transmission lines (labeled as powerline technology); or ultimately, new user platforms that integrate all convenience aspects in a house through an user interface such as in some smart building applications. III. Service orientation: A stronger customer orientation of the utility business might take shape. Examples are contracting schemes, which are already well established for large scale users and might be downscaled to smaller user segments; or remote control and operation of appliances for load management and maintenance; or new financial schemes for owning and operating appliances (similar to the renting schemes of photocopiers); or product differentiations like green electricity tariffs; or even combining utility services into integrated service packages, which could be provided by new service firms for instance from the media or building sector. The analysis showed no coherent single vision of future utility services in Germany. However, if the three dimensions were taken to their extremes and in combination, a vision of “integrated microsystems of provision” emerges as an implicit “narrative infrastructure” [6]. Taken together, the associated developments could strongly influence and eventually transform current regime structures. In this sense the discourse topics represent expectations about elements of a potential future utility regime to which many stakeholder groups would subscribe. However, the vision of integrated microsystems of supply was not presented as the most sustainable future but rather as a characterization of implicitly held expectations (for more details see [48]). Based on these hypotheses, about twenty expert interviews were carried out in each of the four sectors. Interviewees were selected in order to represent different societal perspectives, which were identified as relevant for the future developments in Germany: public and private utilities, small local and large internationally operating utilities, component suppliers with an interest in new technologies, NGOs, regulators, ministries, media and academic research. Questions in the interviews related to the individuals' expectations about transformative pressures operating on their respective sector, the potentials for more sustainable system characteristics, and visions about the future of utility sectors, in general. Beyond their individual expectations, interviewees were also asked about dominant expectations prevailing in their own actor group. The results were synthesized in four sector reports that assembled the major driving forces for each sector [33–36]. The interviews were also instrumental for recruiting and preparing participants for the workshops. The sector reports were then presented in four parallel sector workshops to a selection of about twenty participants from each sector. Each sector workshop lasted two days. Experts were asked to comment the respective sector reports, identify and evaluate the major driving factors and to speculate about sustainable future sector structures, as well as couplings between their own and the three other sectors. In the end we distilled a list of about eighty factors that were considered the most important drivers. This list of factors was subsequently used as an input to the scenario construction process which aimed at identifying overarching conditions impacting all four sectors (mostly located at the landscape and regime level, see Fig. 2 second building block). The project team selected forty factors and elaborated draft factor essays for each of them to be elaborated by participants in the process. Factor essays consist of a short description of the meaning of the factor, its current and potential future states. These factors were fed into a three times two days scenario construction process with about twenty experts selected mainly out of the four sector workshops and also representing the different actor perspectives in a balanced way. The three workshops were carried out over a period of six months. The first workshop focused on the identification, specification and selection of the major factors form which scenarios could be constructed. Workshop two elaborated a cross-impact analysis between the selected factors and workshop three was dedicated to the construction of scenarios and the identification of critical innovation fields. In the course of this procedure, four scenarios were elaborated (schematically see Table 2).6

6

For a more elaborate description of the scenarios see [49].

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Table 2 Key elements of the four utility sector scenarios Scenario A

Scenario B

Scenario C

Scenario D

Characterization

“Technological competition in a cooperative society”

“Development along the lines of ‘conservative ecology’”

“No strong departure from current structures”

Technology Market

Decentral technology Low market concentration

Central and decentral technology Low market concentration

Coupling of sectors Regulation and focus of policy

Utility sectors tightly coupled Visions generated in societal discourse become decentrally implemented Competition stimulates technology development State as moderator

Utility sectors separated State regulates utility markets and technology development Active innovation policy (R&D)

“Broadening technology mix by competition of transnational corporations” Central and decentral technology High market concentration (international oligopoly) Utility sectors separated Strong market regulation Innovation policy concentrated on national champions

Central technology High market concentration Utility sectors separated Economic stagnation Weak market regulation No active innovation policy

4.2. Discussion of the reconstruction process Relating back to our conceptual framework, we may interpret the first phase of the Sustainability Foresight process as follows. The scenario exercise may be seen as an active construction process based on elicited and contextualized expectations held by the participating actors. The result may also be seen as a conjoint explication of the implicit vision of integrated microsystems of supply into a shared reference space of more specific expectations. By discussing the individual factors, each actor had to elicit her own expectations and had to reframe them in relation to expectations expressed by other actors. By this systematic discursive exchange, interdependencies among the assumptions could be worked out and differences in reference frames could be identified. The scenarios may therefore be read as mapping out the possibility space for future regime structures corresponding to the expectations of the different actors present in the process. In this sense, the scenario construction process represented a sort of “laboratory setting” for social interaction and learning with partial alignment of expectations. There are a number of indicators that these processes actually took place. Firstly, not all participants accepted the scenarios that resulted out of the cross-impact analysis exercise, initially. They were irritated by the combination of some features, which did contradict their conventional understanding of potential future sector structures. However, by discussing the assumptions that were explicated in the factor essays and the arguments in the cross-impact analysis they started to accept these scenarios as feasible alternatives. Therefore, explication and contextualization of formerly held individual expectations could be observed and new expectations emerged, which were more broadly shared within the group of workshop participants. A further indicator is the response to the evaluative questionnaire filled in at the end of the workshops as well as from the oral feed back of participants. The great majority of participants claimed that they had learned a great deal about expectations of other actors and that they got a better understanding of the different positions on which these expectations were based. Interestingly, they claimed that the process helped also to clarify their own position and to better understand the assumptions on which they actually rested. The result was therefore, a higher level of consensus among the workshop participants regarding the range of future development alternatives. Furthermore, a more elaborate understanding of remaining dissent resulted. Many participants assumed at the beginning that the broad selection of participants would lead to heated debates rooted in different world views and convictions. In the end, they expressed their surprise about how far you could get in developing a shared understanding of potential future context conditions. The reasons for this low level of conflict has certainly to do with procedural characteristics of the workshops (open discussions, well structured inputs, high transparency in the individual working steps) and the rather factual content of the expectations that relate to possible future sector structures. Moreover, there was no requirement to decide for one or the other scenario as more plausible or better than the other, so that divergent views could be accommodated. When relating to the objects of expectations (cf. Table 1), most of the factors which define the scenarios are located at the regime and landscape level. They consider dominant technological, organizational, use and regulatory structures that would exist given a certain outset of stabilizing forces (mostly located at the landscape level). Niches are mentioned as they are assumed to grow out of their current status and make a major contribution in future regime. Therefore, the scenarios essentially describe different potential regime layouts in the medium term future. The distance of these prospective regimes to the currently prevailing regime differs in each scenario. So, we may interpret scenario D as the end-point of an incremental adaptation process of the current regime, when subjected to increasing economic pressure and decreasing environmental standards, while leaving unaltered the core of its technological and organizational paradigms. Scenarios B and C each represent substantial departures from today's utility structures. B differs by the assumption of a strong role for environmental policy in the future. In C industrial policy plays a dominant role fostering large utility firms as national champions in an international market. Scenario A represents the strongest departure from today's regime. It was also the one scenario that very closely fitted the implicit vision of integrated microsystems of supply. Supporting landscape factors for this scenario are a strong political participation and open deliberation and a big leap in performance and price characteristics for decentralized technologies for power generation and water treatment. This radically different technological structure is complemented by new business models that favor small scale, locally oriented provision of utility services, i.e. a decentralization of market structures.

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Table Table 33 Vertical and and horizontal horizontal integrations integrationsof ofthe thelessons lessonsfrom fromthe thethree threeinnovation innovationfields fields

In sum, the scenario construction process delivered coherent sets of explicit and more broadly shared expectations related to potential future utility structures. These are based on individual expectations of participants and became part of a shared repertoire of all participants over the course of the process. In this view, we may say that the whole procedure described in this chapter served to identify, order and share implicit expectations about the future of sector structures, de-construct them into components relating to different levels of utility systems and reconstruct coherent expectations, which all participants could relate to. 5. Developing an agenda for shaping transformation The third phase of the method was focused on outlining the translation of the sector visions into specific actor strategies and agendas. We concluded the scenario workshop series by asking the participants to identify critical innovations fields or niches. Critical innovation fields were defined as those areas of institutional and technological development that would have a strong impact on the overall regime structure and its sustainability profile. In this process, about a dozen innovation fields were listed and evaluated (see [50]). These innovation fields may be identified as socio-technical niches that have a potential to challenge the prevailing regime. Out of this list, the project team selected three innovation fields that were subsequently analyzed in more detail: First, small scale combined heat and power technologies (micro-CHP) as a representative for more decentralized electricity generation technologies that potentially could bring the gas and electricity regime into stronger interaction. Second, smart building was considered by many experts as the most likely force to support the integration of different utility services for the convenience of users. Smart building represented a key development for service orientation and integration of utility services into new business models. Finally, regulation of grid access for generation and treatment technologies was considered a key institutional innovation that would strongly influence pace and scope of diffusion for decentralized technologies and new actor configurations challenging incumbent utility firms. These critical innovation fields served as a starting point from which strategies (and therefore also behavioral expectations) could be derived. The aim of this third project phase was to identify potential innovation paths that would go along with either of the scenarios, to derive supportive or preventive actions by different actor groups that would be desirable in the context of such a transformation trajectory. 5.1. Construction of innovation field agendas Each of the chosen innovation fields encompasses a wide array of potential socio-technical trajectories depending on a number of internal dynamics and context conditions. The scenarios developed in the first project phase described potential future context conditions at the regime and landscape level. These scenarios were specified for each innovation field into embedded micro-level contexts of the innovation fields. These could then be analyzed with regard to implications of business strategies and support policies from different actor groups. In order to arrive at context-sensitive transformation strategies for each of the innovation fields, specific development trajectories had to be derived. Such an analysis was carried out in a formalized innovation system analysis [51]. This analytical structure builds on the multi-level perspective and therefore identifies regime, landscape and niche dynamics that could play a role in the development of the innovation field under consideration. For the three chosen innovation fields of micro-CHP [51], smart

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Table Table 44 Vertical and horizontal integrations of course the lessons the threemap innovation fields Sustainability Foresight as a navigation in thefrom expectations

building [52,53] and network access regulation [54] separate analyses have been carried out. This latter task was carried out in a two-day workshop, which assembled about fifty actors from relevant groups in the utility sector and the three critical innovation fields. Results of this final step of the analysis are reported in [32]. The stakeholders commented the innovation system analysis for their respective field, discussed specific criteria for sustainable development within the fields and derived a set of measures by which the development of the innovation fields could be modulated. Strategic innovation projects supporting the realization of any one of the micro-scenarios were elaborated by the stakeholders. Possible measures were analyzed with respect to expected effects, the timing of specific steps that need to be taken, and the role of specific actors in the process of implementation. Furthermore, participants were asked to evaluate the individual measures against the background of the four context scenarios. The question was formulated as follows: “Given that scenario A (res. B, C or D) unfolds, would you judge the corresponding measure as highly effective, neutral or rather negative?” By this, the measures could be evaluated with respect to their importance and robustness in the context of the different scenarios. Finally, mutual dependencies between the proposed actions were identified. As a result, an agenda with measures for each of the innovation fields was composed, associated with priorities and conditions for successful implementation. 5.2. Composition of an overarching transition agenda In a final part of the strategy workshop the experts of the different innovation fields were brought together in order to identify problems, strategies, expectations and support measures that appeared in more than one of the three fields. Table 3 gives an overview on how agendas for innovation fields combine into broader transition strategies. Clear cells in Table 3 represent measures that refer to the micro-scenarios for the critical innovation fields. When read horizontally, we may derive robust support measures that work under different framework conditions represented by the scenarios. Such an analysis may therefore help to identify robust strategies when aiming at the development a specific innovation field. This resonates well with more conventional scenario planning processes [9]. From a sustainability point of view, however, robust strategies are not necessarily the most desirable ones. In the vertical dimension, we may therefore construct trajectories of system innovations, which encompass technological configurations, user aspects and institutional innovations if a certain scenario is clearly preferred over the others. An integrated management of these coupled innovation processes could for instance be carried out as a strategic niche management exercise aiming at regime transformations [14,55]. This might be especially important for scenarios that represent radical departures from prevailing regime structures. Both approaches combined may sketch out an encompassing strategy for sustainable sector transitions. Referring back to our framework elaborated in chapter two, we can conclude that the analysis of potential trajectories in the selected innovation fields represents a conjoint construction of feasible transformation paths. From this, specific strategies of individual actors could be derived and cross-checked against each other as mutually fitting behavioral expectations. By reflecting these expectations in the context of the workshops, joint fields of activity, potential conflict lines and also new alliances could be identified and misalignments and inconsistencies of mutually dependent strategies could be worked on. Concluding, we may interpret the results of the Sustainability Foresight exercise as a starting point for a process to work towards more sustainable future utility sector structures. The scenarios developed within the first phase represent visions of possible future regime structures and the roadmaps of the three innovation fields sketch out development paths within particular niches of the existing regime which could support changes in regime structures as described in the scenarios. The Sustainability Foresight method thus provides a specific approach to construct visions and contextualized innovation strategies among different stakeholder groups. The particular strength of this approach is to start from societal expectations as they are and systematically

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increase reflexivity as to how they translate into scenarios and embedded strategies. This sensitizes actors for uncertainty and interdependence of their strategies when it comes to shape long-term socio-technical development. Context conditions under which innovation strategies in particular niches could be successful are derived from mapping out collective expectations in particular socio-technical dynamics. 6. Synthesis and outlook In this paper, we have introduced a framework for analyzing processes of expectation formation in foresight processes that address socio-technical system transformations. We have furthermore presented the Sustainability Foresight approach, which aims at constructing plausible transformation scenarios for sectors, evaluating the potential for sustainable development, and deducing embedded innovation strategies in a multi-stakeholder setting. In the concluding chapter, we synthesize the processes of expectation formation, which were taking place throughout the process. Furthermore, we sketch out a larger research agenda for analyzing expectation dynamics in foresight to which this paper could nothing but set the first stepping stones. The three phases of the Sustainability Foresight procedure describe a stepwise journey (see Table 4) through a multidimensional expectation topography which was laid out in Table 1. In one dimension, we have the three analytical levels of sociotechnical systems. The second dimension refers to the constituencies of expectations. This forms a continuum between purely individually held expectations and widely shared and often uncontested collective expectations. As a third dimension, we distinguish contextual and behavioral expectations. In the procedural set-up, we have separated the step of system analysis leading to visions of future regime structures (focusing on contextual expectations) from the appraisal (focusing on evaluation criteria) and strategy formation process (focusing on behavioral expectations). The journey may now be summarized as follows: Starting from more or less implicitly shared expectations on future sectoral development lines (a), interviews served to identify individual and actor group specific expectations about driving forces and upcoming challenges for the sectors (b). The interviewees were carefully selected in order to guarantee a broad and encompassing representation of prevalent assumptions and perspectives. The scenario process helped to reflect these individual and actor group specific expectations in a broader discursive context. The scenarios (c) may therefore be interpreted as synthesizing the set of individual expectations of all participants into coherent potential future regime structures (a′). This is not to say that they correspond directly to any one of the initial expectations of the individual participants; they are rather the product of a social learning process. In this sense, they represent specifications and explications of the implicit visions identified under (a). The scenarios may then be seen as visions of possible transformations that may serve as a reference point for the different actor groups involved in the system transformation process (represented by the light arrow from c to a′).7 In order to deduce strategic implications, critical innovation fields were identified (d). The analysis of three selected innovation fields made it possible to elaborate specific niche trajectories, which would lead towards new regime structures . From this, a set of actor strategies could be derived. Based on this analysis, an overarching transformation agenda was elaborated for each innovation field (e). And finally, some tentative conclusions could be formulated for an overarching transformation agenda considering interdependencies between the sectors (f). As this process was carried out within the confines of a research project, we have however to be aware that the agenda (f) could only be a first tentative step towards an actual agenda (f′), which would need a much more explicit support from the actual interest positions. To summarize, we might say that the conceptual framework allowed mapping out a connection line between the implicit view of sustainable future utility sectors (a) into a potentially more widely shared transition agenda (f′). The lengthy detour (from a to f′) depicted in Table 4 is necessary because, in general, no shared understanding of the system dynamics exists among the involved actors. Accordingly, a high number of potential and actual conflict lines intervene in any attempt to directly work out a sustainability strategy for a sector. Our theoretical framing allows reflecting these processes in a broader context. If successful, this process will yield an elaborate set of arguments for coordinating different strategies and actions of the involved actors. Depending on the composition of participants in the workshops actual conjoint innovation projects could be devised from such an exercise. But even if no concrete conjoint strategies will result, the outcome of the process would at least provide some important signposts about where coordination between different actor groups was possible and where conflicts would have to be expected. In that sense, the Sustainability Foresight method could contribute to the definition of an actor spanning research and innovation program oriented at sustainable transformations. At this point however, the proposed framework is solving nothing but the very first elements of the wider puzzle if one wants to come to terms with expectation dynamics in foresight processes. The proposed framework is helpful for focusing attention to the different levels and qualities of expectations different actors will hold with regard to system transformations. It is, however, not yet very elaborate with regard to the analysis of actual expectation dynamics happening within the foresight workshops. We could only give some rather general evidence about the kind of learning and contextualization processes that happened in the context of the Sustainability Foresight exercise. In order to understand more profoundly what happened, a more elaborate assessment of expectations before and after the exercise would have been needed. Besides learning, also characteristics of power and strategic

7 It is however fair to say that the distance between a and a' may still be relatively important. In order to work as orientating, socially shared visions of sustainable sector futures, conflicting value positions and interests would have to be included into the scenario construction, as well. Our workshops were at best a laboratory-like representation of a wider societal discourse necessary for a broader acceptance. On the other hand, we believe that our scenarios have captured the essence of what is currently expected for sustainable utility sector structures by the relevant interest groups in Germany and that they may at least serve as signposts for more general discursive processes on this issue.

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behavior would have to be taken into account. Depending on the set-up of the foresight process, therefore, the distance between f and f' will be more or less important. In the application to the Sustainability Foresight method to German utility sectors, this distance was still considerable. As expectations, especially regarding their scope of support are a strategic resource for the actors involved, one will never be able to treat them in a fully transparent way. Ploy and deception are part of the game. However, as we could show with our empirical example, we could displace the point of potential conflict and misunderstanding considerably by running the Sustainability Foresight exercise. Or to put it in other words, the distribution of expectations over the fields of Fig. 1 changed quite considerably and led to a better identification of potential cooperative strategies and by this to better support for sustainable transformation processes. 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Bernhard Truffer is head of the social science research department Cirus (innovation research in utility sectors) at the Swiss Federal institute for aquatic science and technology (Eawag) and lecturer in Economic Geography at the University of Berne. Over the past few years he has been working in several research projects and has published recurrently on socio-technical transformation processes in infrastructure sectors. Furthermore, he has conducted several foresight processes related to sustainable infrastructure sectors.

Kornelia Konrad is a senior researcher within the social science research department Cirus (innovation research in utility sectors) at the Swiss Federal institute for aquatic science and technology (Eawag). She has published on expectation dynamics in innovation processes and socio-technical transformation in infrastructure sectors.

Jan-Peter Voß is policy analyst at the Institute for Applied Ecology (Öko-Institut) in Berlin and head of the research group innovation in governance at the Centre for Technology and Society (ZTG) at the Berlin University of Technology (TU Berlin). His work focuses on dynamics of policy and governance, socio-technical change and sustainable development and transdisciplinary forms of knowledge production.