Cross-case learning for urban transformations towards sustainability

Abstract To support the efforts of urban experimentation spaces, such as testbeds and living labs, in accelerating societal transformations towards urban sustainability, an exchange of experiences and knowledge across local and regional initiatives is vital to enable the rescaling and broader adoption of sustainability innovations and processes. This perspectives paper explores a framework for cross-case learning, conceptualized as a transformative, participatory process, going beyond replicating best practices. Rather, this framework emphasizes reflexivity, contextual sensitivity, and the co-production of knowledge. We explore a four-stage iterative framework, consisting of exploration, generalization, abstract conceptualization, and repurposing/rescaling. This facilitates the translation of experiences across socio-cultural and geographic boundaries, aiming for transformations of practices. In this context, this perspectives paper investigates selected drivers of sustainability transformations, specifically narratives, metrics, structures, and innovation. These shape how sustainability efforts are envisioned, measured, organized, and implemented. The paper concludes that urban experimentation spaces can play a crucial role for the development and exploration of sustainability innovations, providing space for collaboration, flexibility, opportunity and imagination. Cross-case learning from such spaces may thus be important for accelerating urban sustainability, requiring communicative-reflexive-affective approaches to adapt and scale innovations across diverse settings.