Actionable knowledge for sustainability at the water-land nexus: An inquiry into governance and social learning in two river basins in Luxembourg

Doctoral thesis (2020)

The thesis offers in-depth empirical insights into diverse factors that foster or hinder collective capacities of actors to address sustainability challenges at the water-land nexus. It focuses on how ... [more ▼]

The thesis offers in-depth empirical insights into diverse factors that foster or hinder collective capacities of actors to address sustainability challenges at the water-land nexus. It focuses on how relations, knowledge, and practices in diverse organisations and professions engaged in governance and social learning processes in the Syr and Upper Sûre river basins in Luxembourg have changed following the entering into force of the EU Water Framework Directive in 2000. Finding that contradictions in water and land systems grow while spaces for self-organisation and meaning-making shrink, the thesis raises fundamental questions concerning both dominant supply- and productivity-oriented paradigms and managerial approaches to sustainability. New governance approaches are needed to foster social learning and actionable knowledge, embracing interrelations between ecological and social dimensions of sustainability. [less ▲]

A pluralistic and integrated approach to action-oriented knowledge for sustainability

in Nature Sustainability (2020)

Sustainability science needs more systematic approaches for mobilizing knowledge in support of interventions that may bring about transformative change. In this Perspective, we contend that action ... [more ▼]

Sustainability science needs more systematic approaches for mobilizing knowledge in support of interventions that may bring about transformative change. In this Perspective, we contend that action-oriented knowledge for sustainability emerges when working in integrated ways with the many kinds of knowledge involved in the shared design, enactment and realization of change. The pluralistic and integrated approach we present rejects technocratic solutions to complex sustainability challenges and foregrounds individual and social learning. We argue that research institutions devoted to sustainability should focus more on creating the conditions for experimenting with multiple kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing to foster sustainability-oriented learning. [less ▲]

Democratising renewable energy provision into the grid in Luxembourg

Dissertation and these (2016)

Renewable energy has become a cornerstone in strategies for sustainable development, as a substitute for fossil fuels and thus a pre-condition for the transition into a low-carbon era. Under the EU2020 ... [more ▼]

Renewable energy has become a cornerstone in strategies for sustainable development, as a substitute for fossil fuels and thus a pre-condition for the transition into a low-carbon era. Under the EU2020 policy framework, Luxembourg has committed to increase the share of electricity generated from renewable energy sources to 11 % by 2020. To reach this objective, a social and technological transition is needed. A potential key factor in the success of this transition would be the democratisation of the provision of energy into the Luxembourg grid. The peer group report investigates the role that energy cooperatives play in this regard. It compares two renewable energy cooperatives: EquiEnerCoop in Junglinster and TM EnerCoop in Esch-sur-Alzette, identifying strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, taking a point of departure in the concept of prosumerism (self-consumption), it makes recommendations on expanding cooperative activities to the direct selling of electricity to members to increase local value creation. Finally, the report recommends the setting-up of public incentive schemes for the installation of solar panels and prosumer units in apartment blocks. [less ▲]