TY - JOUR
T1 - Low-carbon promises and realities
T2 - Lessons from three socio-technical experiments in Shanghai
AU - den Hartog, Harry
AU - Sengers, Frans
AU - Xu, Ye
AU - Xie, Linjun
AU - Jiang, Ping
AU - de Jong, W.M.
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - China's ongoing transition to a modern urban-centered economy is accompanied by ambitions of sustained economic growth as well as promises of environmentally sustainable futures for its cities. In this paper we critically assess how these two ideas are combined and translated into realities on the ground by examining three low-carbon development projects in Shanghai: Anting New Town, Dongtan Eco-City, and Hongqiao CBD's low-carbon transportation hub. By mobilizing insights from the academic field of Sustainability Transitions – specifically on expectations, experimentation and innovation journeys – we show how the original plans derailed and why until now there has been limited success in living up to the promises of sustainability. To realize the promises more fully in future projects we identify three broad lessons for the actors involved: they should nurture a set of parallel pathways, foster a more experimentalist mindset, and learn to embrace uncertainty.
AB - China's ongoing transition to a modern urban-centered economy is accompanied by ambitions of sustained economic growth as well as promises of environmentally sustainable futures for its cities. In this paper we critically assess how these two ideas are combined and translated into realities on the ground by examining three low-carbon development projects in Shanghai: Anting New Town, Dongtan Eco-City, and Hongqiao CBD's low-carbon transportation hub. By mobilizing insights from the academic field of Sustainability Transitions – specifically on expectations, experimentation and innovation journeys – we show how the original plans derailed and why until now there has been limited success in living up to the promises of sustainability. To realize the promises more fully in future projects we identify three broad lessons for the actors involved: they should nurture a set of parallel pathways, foster a more experimentalist mindset, and learn to embrace uncertainty.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85042362605&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.003
DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.02.003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85042362605
SN - 0959-6526
VL - 181
SP - 692
EP - 702
JO - Journal of Cleaner Production
JF - Journal of Cleaner Production
ER -