Governance frictions at work? Explaining socio-technical transformation in waste-to-energy

Sectors such as waste management can be understood as highly interconnected socio-technical, political, and economic systems characterized by ongoing tensions between stability and change. But what triggers socio-technical sector change and transformation? We state, there are governance frictions at work. This paper contributes to research on socio-technical transformation by examining how different governance regimes interact and generate governance frictions over time. Based on the cross-governance regime friction approach, we conceptualise transformation as a consequence of friction between competing and interacting governance regimes. Governance regimes stand for a specific set of configurations of institutional setting, regulatory framework, and actor orientation and decision-making. Taking the case of waste-to-energy, we identified three existing governance regimes. The reference governance regime of waste management is accompanied by two competing regimes, that are the circular economy and the climate and pollution governance regimes. The governance friction analysis reveals the following: waste management governance requires the continued provision of reliable disposal capacity and operational continuity, circular economy governance seeks to reduce waste flows and progressively limit the role of incineration, while climate and pollution governance increasingly subjects waste-to-energy to decarbonisation imperatives, carbon pricing and technological mitigation requirements. As a result, transformative pressures accumulate within infrastructures, investment cycles, operational routines, and business models. In our view, this conceptual and empirical research is a new approach to tackle the important field of analysing and explaining socio-technical transformation, and deliver fruitful insights on governance strategies and practices to cope with large-scale problems and grand challenges.