Transport In New Zealand: A Call For Sustainable Transitions

This thesis explores the potential for sustainable transitions in the transportation industry in New Zealand, from the perspective of organisations leading the way in sustainability through the development or adoption of eco-innovations such as biofuel, electric vehicles and vehicle sharing systems. Sustainability is an increasingly important consideration with most industries beginning to take measures to reduce their impact on the environment. Where most industries are working to decrease emissions, the transportation industry has not managed to stabilise emissions and is, in fact, increasing. The transportation industry relies heavily on fossil fuels and the technological infrastructure required to support a change in energy source is currently lacking. Furthermore, the current way we use transportation is engrained in society, meaning decreasing emissions is a behavioural challenge as well as technological. Insight into transitions is taken from transition theory, including the multilevel perspective, strategic management theory, and innovation theory, specifically eco-innovation. These theories were used to consider the overall question of this thesis; ‘how does change occur?’ Qualitative interviews were undertaken with 24 participants that were involved with organisations using and developing eco-innovations. The interviews allowed for deep insight into the internal environment of the organisations and the surrounding external environment. The data was analysed using two frameworks, Energy Cultures for the internal environment and PESTEL for the external. This thesis found that the internal environment of organisations was favourable to the success of eco-innovations. The study included eleven different technologies and the organisation’s corresponding business models. The norms for organisations studied included future and change orientation, sustainability, and passion for the technology; all of which acted as a driver for the potential of eco-innovations to create a transition. Despite internal drivers, the external environment imposed many barriers that were preventing the potential for eco-innovations to move to the socio-technical regime and create a transition to more sustainable practices. Prominent barriers included a lack of government support and a lack of public demand for eco-innovations. These barriers translated to the multilevel perspective as an overall lack of landscape pressure, an under-developed niche and an overall absence of conditions that literature suggests are needed to create a transition. Scenario analysis was then used to enable a future perspective on transitions. The scenarios were developed from participant suggestions on what could occur. These scenarios changed the barriers and drivers in the external environment and created a much more favourable situation for eco-innovations. This led to the overall suggestion that in order to provide the ability for niche development, landscape pressure, and favourable conditions for ecoinnovations; government funding is needed for organisations developing eco-innovations. Funding would lead to the most favourable transition pathway for sustainability in transportation and New Zealand organisations. It is the most likely scenario to cause systemic change to more sustainable practices and technological development which would see New Zealand organisations profiting from a change to more sustainable practices