Problem

The idea that many of the existing sustainability challenges are the consequences of the designs of modern production systems is receiving increasing attention in academia and civil society, as is the idea that addressing these challenges requires major system transformation. The latter has sparked academic interest in studying past system transformations to gain insights that could expedite and ensure the success of transforming existing ones. The Socio-Technical Transitions Framework (STTF) has become popular for analyzing transformations aimed at addressing sustainability challenges. However, because it was originally designed to study technological transitions, it does not fully account for the complexity of sustainability, in general, and of transformations toward sustainability, in particular. Ignoring this complexity can limit the contribution of studies based on STTF and lead to misleading conclusions.

Project

Our work addresses this issue by developing a modified version of STTF that accounts for this sustainability-related complexity. Our work also contributes to the study of transformations by applying the modified Framework to the analysis of transformations in California’s energy system from the Indigenous era to the present.