• Energy Research

Examining the 'who' (agents), 'how' (policy instruments) and 'why' (societal legitimacy) of the governance process, this book presents a conceptual framework about the governance of change in socio-technical systems. Bridging the gap between disciplinary fields, expert contributions provide innovative empirical cases of different modes of governing change. The Governance of Socio-Technical Systems offers a stepping-stone towards building a theory of governance of change and presents a new research agenda on the interaction between science, technology and society.

The report sheds some light on the nature of the challenges that agriculture and food systems are facing now and throughout the 21st century, and provides some insights as to what is at stake and what needs to be done. What emerges is that “business as usual” is no longer an option but calls for major transformations in agricultural systems, in rural economies and in how we manage our natural resources.

Social and environmental standards development organizations (SDOs) have been collaborating together within the ISEAL Alliance to construct ‘meta-standards'. These exercises in standards-setting are part of a longer-term process of transitioning innovative approaches to sustainable agriculture from diverse niches such as organic, fair trade and forest stewardship into a regime of certified sustainability. We see a role for the activities of intermediation in socio-technical transitions where we envision intermediation as a process of ‘accompanying change’. Using participant observation during the development of the Assurance Code within the ISEAL Alliance, we reflect upon the usefulness of this concept in understanding multi-stakeholder initiatives. We analyze the field testing activity based on salient issues, methodological approaches, and the relationship between stakeholders’ standards and the ISEAL meta-standards. Through our analysis we reflect upon the dynamic nature of intermediation as a participatory and representative activity. We suggest that this notion of intermediation might be usefully linked to studying sustainability transitions in a more consistent framework that links socio-technical dimensions of standards and socio-political dimensions of knowledge regimes.

Social and environmental standards development organizations (SDOs) have been collaborating together within the ISEAL Alliance to construct ‘meta-standards'. These exercises in standards-setting are part of a longer-term process of transitioning innovative approaches to sustainable agriculture from niches into a regime of certified sustainability. Envisioning transitions as multi-level processes (MLP) has been restricted to industrial transitions and ex-post analysis. Temporally, we are situated within this transition where sustainability remains a fluid and contested concept and the knowledge needed for its governance is uncertain. Socio-technical devices (standards) are important to transitions as an essential source of lock-in, yet we see standards mobilized as strategies of intermediaries (SDOs) who stabilize discourse and coordinate actors. We propose participatory methodology as a means to approach sustainability transitions through the strategies of actors, power struggles and forms of governmentality in a more consistent framework that links socio-technical dimensions of standards and socio-political dimensions of knowledge regimes.

La développement durable, compte tenu de sa nature relativement indéfinie, donnent l'occasion à plusieurs groupes différents de compéter sur comment définir l'agriculture durable. Il y a plusieurs standards privés pour l’agriculture durable, établis par les organisations non gouvernementales, qui occupant différentes niches dans le marché pour les produits agricoles durables. Cette phénomène, qui est bien documenté dans la littérature, est illustratif de l'adoption à grande échelle des standards comme un moyen de gouverner les innovations agro-alimentaires alternatifs et la sécurité alimentaire. Les auteurs observent la collaboration entre les normes de durabilité au sein de l'Alliance ISEAL et ils soutiennent que le Code d'assurance de l’ISEAL fait partie de la construction d'un «régime de normes tripartite» (TSR). Ce dernier est un régime techno-économique de gouvernance basée sur des processus qui constituent régissant les normes. Les auteurs constatent que la construction d'un TSR est important pour la transition de ce système sociotechnique vers un discours dominant dans les débats sur la durabilité de l'agriculture. En outre, ce processus de transition est fondamentalement un processus de performation, et en tant que telle, permet à ces acteurs la possibilité de définir et interpréter la façon dont la valeur de la durabilité devrait être adoptée. Grâce à une analyse des contestations qui font partie du processus d'élaboration du code de l'assurance, les auteurs mettent en évidence les aspects où les acteurs ont exprimé leur préoccupation ainsi que les limites analytiques que nous voyons émerger. Les auteurs concluent que le rendu du code de l'assurance comme une activité technique a des implications pour l'évaluation de la durabilité et à son tour l'efficacité de la «gouvernance par les normes» comme un régime de gouvernance. Sustainability, given its relatively undefined nature, provides an opportunity for several different groups to compete over what type of agriculture should be considered sustainable. A variety of sustainability standards have emerged in the private sectors, driven often by non-governmental organizations, which stake claims on different niches in the market for sustainable food and agriculture products. This is illustrative of the wide-scale adoption of standards as a means by which to govern alternative agri-food innovations and food security, which is well documented in the literature. We observe collaboration amongst sustainability standards within the International Social and Environmental Accreditation and Labelling (ISEAL) Alliance and we argue that ISEAL’s Assurance Code is part of the construction of a ‘tripartite standards regime’ (TSR), which is a techno-economic regime of governance based on processes that constitute governing by standards. We find that the construction of a TSR is important for the transitioning of this socio-technical system into the mainstream of sustainability debates in agriculture. Moreover, this transitioning process is fundamentally a process of performation, and as such, allows those involved actors the possibility of defining and interpreting how the value of sustainability should be enacted. Through an analysis of the contestations that are part of the assurance code development process, we highlight those aspects where the actors have voiced concern as well as the analytical boundaries that we see emerging. We conclude that the rendering of the assurance code as a technical activity has implications for the valuation of sustainability and in turn the effectiveness of ‘governing by standards’ as a governance regime.

International audience

AbstractScholars describe the proliferation of sustainability standards by multi‐stakeholder initiatives as part of an organizational field for sustainability. The aim of this article is to gain a better understanding of the institutionalization process of this global organizational field by focusing on the case of theISEAL Alliance (the global association for sustainability standards). We show howISEALputs specific strategies into place to both reinforce and expand the role and influence of sustainability standards. This institutional entrepreneurship consists primarily of two dimensions: institutionalizing macro‐standards based on a market‐driven and procedural vision of sustainability; and simultaneously legitimating both the tools andISEALthrough internal and external enrolments and entanglements. The characterization ofISEAL's activities in this way brings politics back into the analysis of sustainability standard‐related technical debates and extends our understanding of how the micro‐dynamics within organizational fields are interdependent upon macro‐dynamics outside organizational fields.

Social and environmental standards-development organizations (SDOs) have been collaborating together to construct “meta-standards.” These exercises in standards-setting are part of a longer term process of transitioning innovative approaches to sustainable agriculture from diverse niches such as organic, fair trade, and environmental conservation into a regime of certified sustainability. Using participant observation during the development of an Assurance Code, we examine how actors construct the tools that enable them to influence the broader transition to sustainability. We do this by focusing on intermediation activities by “experts” during the development of a “meta-standard” for assurance. The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, we propose that in order to understand transitions in progress, we should be attentive to how these processes are accompanied by intermediation activities. Second, we argue that intermediate objects (or boundary objects) are important in these processes as they help actors to create actionable knowledge. These intermediation activities and the production of actionable knowledge contribute to the ability of actors to govern markets in the transition toward sustainable agriculture.