The transition development nexus. disentangling growth and transformation agendas in regional sustainability transitions

Abstract The sustainable transformation of socio-technical infrastructure systems such as energy or mobility has become a dominant theme in regional development policy. Regional sustainability transitions enable the integration of local development goals associated with structural change with ubiquitous ‘global challenges’ such as combating climate change. Energy transition, for example, is particularly known for conveniently promoting both sustainable development and (green) growth at the same time. This entanglement blurs economic and social-ecological objectives, begging the question, how transformative alleged regional sustainability transitions really are in practice. In this paper, we conceptualize the ‘transition development nexus’ as a differentiated research perspective to disentangle the often taken-for-granted combination of regional transition agendas and regional growth agendas. We glimpse at exemplary energy transition efforts in rural regions of Austria and Germany, where this combination noticeably appears, and infer a set of questions that we consider key for a differentiated research agenda on transformative regional development.