Skip to main content

Lund University Publications

LUND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Building capacity for sustainability transformations through transdisciplinary experimentation : Empirical evidence from a novel methodology deployed in 7 countries

Burch, Sarah ; DiBella, Jose ; Farrelly, Megan ; Lang, Daniel ; Mccormick, Kes LU orcid ; Ness, Barry LU ; Orr, Christopher J. and Wiek, Arnim (2026) In Environmental Science and Policy 179.
Abstract
In 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) established that global greenhouse gas emissions trajectories are not on track to limiting warming to less than 2 ° C above pre-industrial averages (IPCC 2022a). Given that broader progress towards ambitious climate change and sustainability goals remains incremental, a whole-of-society approach, including transformative innovation in the private sector, is required to trigger the necessary changes within deeply unsustainable social and technical systems. This paper develops and illustrates an evidence-based process to enable organizations to foster sustainability transformations beyond a firm’s traditional boundaries. Based on 42 rich qualitative cases studies, a range of... (More)
In 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) established that global greenhouse gas emissions trajectories are not on track to limiting warming to less than 2 ° C above pre-industrial averages (IPCC 2022a). Given that broader progress towards ambitious climate change and sustainability goals remains incremental, a whole-of-society approach, including transformative innovation in the private sector, is required to trigger the necessary changes within deeply unsustainable social and technical systems. This paper develops and illustrates an evidence-based process to enable organizations to foster sustainability transformations beyond a firm’s traditional boundaries. Based on 42 rich qualitative cases studies, a range of transdisciplinary capacity-building events in 7 countries, and 13 co-produced experiments, we develop the logic behind, and empirically test, an iterative process that maps the sustainability pathways of small firms, builds capacity for transformations among them, triggers new experiments, and reflects upon how these actions can and are influencing broader transformations towards sustainability. We find that small businesses have the potential to facilitate sustainability transformations, both within their organizational boundaries, and within the broader ecosystem of which they are a part. We find that transformative sustainability practices are relational (in that they rely on a web of relationships among many ‘ecosystem’ actors rather than a single organization) and may be fundamentally altered by transdisciplinary co-production methodologies. Ultimately, we found an iterative relationship between capacity and experimentation: capacity was built through experimentation, which then revealed potential capacity gaps or needs that could be remedied through iteration. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
; ; ; ; ; ; and
organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Environmental Science and Policy
volume
179
article number
104364
pages
13 pages
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • scopus:105035076828
ISSN
1462-9011
DOI
10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104364
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
da5e2ddf-af5e-4d87-a38d-51c8e2278133
date added to LUP
2026-04-03 07:01:01
date last changed
2026-05-27 15:53:37
@article{da5e2ddf-af5e-4d87-a38d-51c8e2278133,
  abstract     = {{In 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) established that global greenhouse gas emissions trajectories are not on track to limiting warming to less than 2 ° C above pre-industrial averages (IPCC 2022a). Given that broader progress towards ambitious climate change and sustainability goals remains incremental, a whole-of-society approach, including transformative innovation in the private sector, is required to trigger the necessary changes within deeply unsustainable social and technical systems. This paper develops and illustrates an evidence-based process to enable organizations to foster sustainability transformations beyond a firm’s traditional boundaries. Based on 42 rich qualitative cases studies, a range of transdisciplinary capacity-building events in 7 countries, and 13 co-produced experiments, we develop the logic behind, and empirically test, an iterative process that maps the sustainability pathways of small firms, builds capacity for transformations among them, triggers new experiments, and reflects upon how these actions can and are influencing broader transformations towards sustainability. We find that small businesses have the potential to facilitate sustainability transformations, both within their organizational boundaries, and within the broader ecosystem of which they are a part. We find that transformative sustainability practices are relational (in that they rely on a web of relationships among many ‘ecosystem’ actors rather than a single organization) and may be fundamentally altered by transdisciplinary co-production methodologies. Ultimately, we found an iterative relationship between capacity and experimentation: capacity was built through experimentation, which then revealed potential capacity gaps or needs that could be remedied through iteration.}},
  author       = {{Burch, Sarah and DiBella, Jose and Farrelly, Megan and Lang, Daniel and Mccormick, Kes and Ness, Barry and Orr, Christopher J. and Wiek, Arnim}},
  issn         = {{1462-9011}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Environmental Science and Policy}},
  title        = {{Building capacity for sustainability transformations through transdisciplinary experimentation : Empirical evidence from a novel methodology deployed in 7 countries}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104364}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.envsci.2026.104364}},
  volume       = {{179}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}