Moving towards a society with significantly lower plastic packaging consumption
Authors: Hjalte Gregersen & Halfdan Justesen
Moving towards a society with significantly lower plastic packaging consumption requires working with change on a higher level. Transition Management is a governance framework for sustainable transitions (Loorbach, 2010). Much like the Multi-Level Perspective presented in part one, the governance framework work on different levels. Transition management takes the perspective that systems changes occur from internal courses, because of the pressure that is applied to the regime (Smith, Stirling, and Berkhout, 2005). This does not imply that outside actors do not influence the system, but that it is the internal actors who will then drive the transition, nor that work carried out using this framework will be inherently sustainable.
Part one of this series gave an overview of the regime surrounding plastic consumption. To sum up, plastic is a beneficial product, which provides crucial services to the current regime. Specifically, it plays a significant role in the mass markets of the food supply regime, where it enables wares to be transported long distance and storage with a prolonged shelf-life (European Commission, 2018). However, when it hits the biosphere, it becomes apparent that the plastic is not disposable. When plastic waste slips into nature, it is permanent structure becomes problematic, animals are dying, and ecosystems are turned upside down (E. D. Goldberg, 1997). In this third part, the problem of plastic packaging consumption will be approached from a governance perspective, using transition management (Loorbach, 2010).
Transition Management Framework
Strategic Activities — Navigating the landscape & societal structure
Long-term (~ 30 years) strategic activities are centered around creating a strong vision for the transition. These activities should be part of a collaborative process that includes relevant actors; the aim is to discuss and formulate long-term goal and plans. (Loorbach, 2010).
Tactical Activities — Navigating the regime & subsystem
Mid-term (5–15 years) tactical actions include engagement of actors who control the development of the established system, both on regime and landscape level. They typically reflect the vision from the strategic activities and conceptualize them into more tangible actions for the actors and organisations involved (Kemp, 2007). An advantage here can be to make spokespeople of these actors and organisation, who have the agency to makes changes, help them adopt the Strategic vision to fit their own beliefs. The tactical activities also explore the obstacles of the vision, i.e., what institutional, regulatory, normative, cultural, political, and economic circumstances might be brought into play by the regime (Loorbach, 2010).
Operational Activities — Navigating the niche & projects
Short-term (0–5 years) operational activities entail the process and actions carried out in a relatively short time span; they are concerned with implementation and development of concrete concepts on niche level. These activities concentrated on radical innovation takes the shape of testing, experimentation, designing, and exploration of the concept applications (Loorbach, 2010).
Reflexive Activities — Monitoring and adapting the other activities
While plans and goals are great, being able to have a soft focus is essential. The framework makes up for this by introducing reflexive activities, which are about adapting the other activities to fit the evolving circumstances. As activities are carried out, society and the system changes and (Loorbach, 2010). Alternatively, in the words of a military architect
“No plan survives contact with the enemy”- Helmuth von Moltke.
Below is found strategies on each of these strategic approaches, according to the traditional view of the framework the different levels, function independently of each other. However, the following is an exemplification of the framework, to display how to each of the different levels would work on plastic packaging consumption.
A transition strategy using inspiration from TM
Strategy — A vision for circular plastic packaging.
As Sustainable Design Engineers we seek to use Transition Management to form a strategy where we can extend participation by including many actors and stakeholders to embrace the actors’ different values, ensuring a broad enrollment. However, in this case, we have chosen to align our vision with one that is currently being developed on the scene. A central actor on the Danish plastic scene, Plast Industrien, has spearheaded an initiative to create a collaborative vision for circular plastic packaging consumption. The initiative called ‘Forum for circular plastic packaging’ (loosely translated from Danish).
They present in their newest publication a long-term vision that is based on European circular strategy that was released in January 2018. Which in turn draws on Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s “New Plastic Economy: Catalyzing Action 2017” and their principle in circular packaging is to:
“Create an effective after-use plastics economy by improving the economics and uptake of recycling, reuse and controlled biodegradation for targeted applications. This is the cornerstone of the New Plastics Economy and its priority and helps realise the two following ambitions” (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017).
The forum consists of a broad array of relevant actors, including COOP, Danish Nature Preservation Association and Plastic Change, all major players from the regime described in the part one.
The vision presented by the forum can be used to propose and structure concrete, short-termed activities that enable us to “learn by doing” and experiment on a practical level.
Tactic — Enrolling experience actors
In Denmark is there is already a large infrastructure system that lives up to the strategy, the beverage container deposit system (see video below). When a consumer buys a beverage in Denmark, they are charged a small additional deposit fee for the container. They are then able to return said container to the store and regain the fee. This system is backed-up by a massive infrastructure system, including automated return stations is almost every supermarket. The system currently has an approximately 90% return rate (Dansk Retursystem, 2017).
Having a system with this kind of experience is an opportunity that we cannot neglect, our tactic is would, therefore, include to:
- Enrol “Dansk Retursystem” into the shared vision of the strategy, by answering these questions: What do the actors have at stake and what actions can we take to share this vision with them?
- Exploring the barriers to using their system for other containers, by answering this question: How can the current high level of substance control in the beverage containers be circumvented, what needs to change?
Operations — Design “local” practice-based solutions to enrol consumers
There are many ways to approach developing concepts on the operational level. The Danish consumers are tuned into the deposit-practice and have served as a foundation of the suggested operation strategy. Here is presented a set of actions to be taken when developing a new plastic container, that goes into the return system.
- Develop standardized plastic packaging made of PET that is compatible with the deposit system.
- Tests and explore what grocery goods can go into the system, without a big hassle. Starting with dried goods, such as rice, flour, pasta, and oatmeal.
- Adjust the infrastructure of the deposit system to carry the extra load.
Conclusion
While practice theory provided a way to analyse and develop changes our consumption patterns, transition management provides a way to look at the implementation of these changes in socio-technical systems. Transition Management integrates well with the Multi-Level Perspective and can be a useful tool when creating plans for implementation. However, it does not have the same in-depth approach to navigating the different actors as alternative bodies of theory. Alternatively, Arenas of Development could have provided an approach that would have been better suited for the explicitly navigating the different social worlds and arena. The transition management framework provides us with different strategic perspectives on how to approach the same goal and a right way of steering the implementation.
Endnote
This text is the third of a four-part series that is the evaluation of the course Sustainable Transition, of the Masters’ program Sustainable Design at Aalborg University Copenhagen, which both authors attend. In it, the task: “Design a transition strategy using inspiration from AoD or TM.” has been explored.
References
E. D. Goldberg (1997) ‘Plasticizing the Seafloor: An Overview, Environmental Technology’, 18(2), pp. 195–201, doi: 10.1080/09593331808616527
Foodculture.dk, 2016, by Erin-Madsen, Christian: “4 ud af 10 danskere køber ugentligt mad fra datovarehylder” http://www.foodculture.dk/miljoe-og-klima/madspild/2016/4-ud-af-10-danskere-koeber-ugentligt-mad-fra-datovarehylder. Visited: 01.05.2018
Loorbach, D. a (2010) ‘Transition Management for Sustainable Development: A Prescriptive, Complexity-Based Governance Framework’, Governance, 23(1), pp. 161–183. doi: 10.1111/j.1468–0491.2009.01471.x.
René Kemp, Derk Loorbach & Jan Rotmans (2007) ‘Transition management as a model for managing processes of co-evolution towards sustainable development’, The International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology, 14(1), pp. 78–91, doi: 10.1080/13504500709469709
Smith, A., Stirling, A. and Berkhout, F. (2005) ‘The governance of sustainable socio-technical transitions’, Research Policy, 34(10), pp. 1491–1510. doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2005.07.005.
The Independent, 2018, by: Beament, Emily: “Netherlands opens world’s first plastic-free supermarket aisle as UK urged to follow example”.
URL: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/plastic-planet-packaging-free-supermarket-ekoplaza-amsterdam-netherlands-recycling-pollution-a8232101.html. Visited: 01.05.2018
