Five Dimensions for Sustainable System Transition

Transition and transformation require us to do things in new ways, but also to shift thoughts and behaviours. Sometimes this means transforming entire systems. There are various methods, tools, and approaches for this.

Adopting a system perspective means looking at the system as a whole from different viewpoints. The starting point for system innovation is that to solve/meet complex problems/challenges, the entire system needs to change. To successfully transition/transform systems, several parts, both technical and social, need to be addressed as they interact to maintain a certain function.

What we aim to achieve with a system perspective is to identify root causes and dependencies to work on removing obstacles and highlighting opportunities. How does the system fit together? To understand the system around a societal challenge, we need to be able to pinpoint what is included and who is affected. This involves exploring the system’s more technical parts such as infrastructure and dominant technology, but also the human and social parts of the system such as culture and norms, laws and regulations, relationships, and behaviours.

We need to understand how the technical and social parts are interconnected. The parts and their interactions are sometimes referred to as a socio-technical system. One way to examine a system is to consider different dimensions:

  • Technology, products, and processes
  • Business models
  • Infrastructure, production systems
  • Laws and regulations
  • Culture and values

To achieve an effective and sustainable system transition/transformation, these dimensions need to be addressed to a certain point.

Example: The system for car transport 

As an example, we can apply the model to the system for car transport. This system consists of both technical parts such as the vehicle and support technologies in the form of petrol pumps, charging stations, and other infrastructure like roads. But also social parts such as values around owning a certain type of car or brand, regulations and other control measures like speed limits, reduction obligations, benefit values, or business models for car workshops and car dealers. System transition requires shifts in many of the social and technical parts to pave the way for new logic and new interactions.

  • Inspiration from Miedzinski, 2017 and Schot & Kanger, 2018