• Energy Research

Abstract The concept of energy services is used in different contexts and scientific fields mainly to emphasize that it is the services provided by energy rather than energy carriers that people demand and that generate well-being. While the value of the concept is widely acknowledged, there are remarkable differences in how energy services are conceptualized. This article proposes the ‘Energy Service Cascade’ (ESC) as a conceptual framework aimed at clarifying and bridging different approaches. The ESC is inspired by Haines-Young’s and Potschin’s (2011) ‘Ecosystem Service Cascade’, which distinguishes: a) structures, b) functions, c) services, d) benefits and e) values. When used to systematize the debates around energy services, we argue that these differentiations reflect a) energy conversion chains comprising natural structures, human-made capital and labor; b) physical functions performed by energy chains; c) services humans demand to foster well-being; d) the actual contributions to human well-being (health, life satisfaction, …); e) individual preferences and attitudes that create willingness to pay, encourage business models, etc. ‘Values’ influence how services and benefits are perceived and affect ‘structures’ through various mechanisms (investment decisions, environmental and economic policy, …). To showcase the usefulness of the ESC as conceptual framework, we provide a review of literature to reveal the differing scopes of four main contexts in which energy services are being studied. We call them ‘energy chain context’, ‘energy demand context’, ‘well-being context’ and ‘entrepreneurial context’. Given the diversity of how energy services are interpreted and the various scopes and research aims, a full harmonization of concepts seems out of reach. Nevertheless, a more unified understanding of what is considered as ‘service’ and differentiation from ‘functions’ and ‘benefits’, as provided by the ESC, could be a first step towards more systematic terminology and may support interaction between the different discourses.

From a scientific perspective, in particular following the Working Group on the Anthropocene of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (WGA-ISC), the major challenge for determining the Anthropocene and its start is the search for a “golden spike”. The WGA-ISC agreed on nuclear fallout from disasters. For a full understanding of the Anthropocene, it however seems necessary to go further than that. We obtain a much broader understanding of the challenges that the new era represents for humanity if we take into account the so-called civilian use of nuclear energy and in particular the challenges posed by nuclear waste ‐ long timescales and scientific uncertainties.

Fundamental changes in the societal use of biophysical resources are required for a sustainability transformation. Current socioeconomic metabolism research traces flows of energy, materials or substances to capture resource use: input of raw materials or energy, their fate in production and consumption, and the discharge of wastes and emissions. This approach has yielded important insights into eco-efficiency and long-term drivers of resource use. But socio-metabolic research has not yet fully incorporated material stocks or their services, hence not completely exploiting the analytic power of the metabolism concept. This commentary argues for a material stock–flow–service nexus approach focused on the analysis of interrelations between material and energy flows, socioeconomic material stocks (“in-use stocks of materials”) and the services provided by specific stock/flow combinations. Analyzing the interrelations between stocks, flows and services will allow researchers to develop highly innovative indicators of eco-efficiency and open new research directions that will help to better understand biophysical foundations of transformations towards sustainability.

Transformation has become a major topic of sustainability research. This opens up new perspectives, but at the same time, runs the danger to convert into a new critical orthodoxy which narrows down analytical perspectives. Most research is committed towards a political-strategic approach towards transformation. This focus, however, clashes with ongoing transformation processes towards un-sustainability. The paper presents cornerstones of an integrative approach to social-ecological transformations (SET), which builds upon empirical work and conceptual considerations from Social Ecology and Political Ecology. We argue that a critical understanding of the challenges for societal transformations can be advanced by focusing on the interdependencies between societies and the natural environment. This starting point provides a more realistic understanding of the societal and biophysical constraints of sustainability transformations by emphasising the crisis-driven and contested character of the appropriation of nature and the power relations involved. Moreover, it pursues a transdisciplinary mode of research, decisive for adequately understanding any strategy for transformations towards sustainability. Such a conceptual approach of SET is supposed to better integrate the analytical, normative and political-strategic dimension of transformation research. We use the examples of global land use patterns, neo-extractivism in Latin America and the global water crisis to clarify our approach.