Sustainability transitions research is increasingly engaged with the complexities of justice and equitability. In housing, policy lock-ins and infrastructural inequalities expose people to volatile energy markets, energy poverty and climate impacts. These problems have often been dealt with reactively, without resolving their underlying systemic and structural causes. We examine household energy vulnerabilities, their exposure and sensitivity to certain risks, and what their adaptive capacity is in navigating those. Based on qualitative case studies of social housing in Canada and housing cooperatives in Finland, we show that interconnected exposures and sensitivities to risks are contextual. This can lead to energy vulnerability, further triggered by changes in policies, energy markets and the environment. In Canada, neglected housing maintenance causes exposure, while in Finland, policy utilizing bottom-up action does not always strengthen household agency, especially for vulnerable households. We call for more empirical studies on household energy vulnerability in different contexts.
https://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.png00Niina Pykäläinenhttps://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.pngNiina Pykäläinen2024-09-01 14:49:002025-05-19 14:54:34Lukkarinen, J. P., Das, RR., Laakso, S. & Martiskainen, M. (2024). Using energy vulnerability framework to understand household agency in sustainability transitions: Experiences from Canada and Finland.
Experimentation is a key theme in the sustainability transition literature, where cities are recognized as key intermediaries in experimentation. Whilst attention has focused on the role of the cities as intermediary actors, the ways in which municipalities engage in and support experimentation is less known. In a collective case study of four Finnish municipalities, we draw on the transformative innovation policy literature to investigate the experimental policy engagements and the types of transformative outcomes the municipalities aim to influence. The municipalities engaged in socio-technical experimentation, both as regime-based intermediaries and as innovators experimenting with internal processes and tools. Their attention was focused on building and expanding niches, with unlocking regimes seen to be something beyond their scope. We can observe an experimental culture beginning to emerge at the local governance level. Whilst projectification in the public sector has enabled this emergence, it also influences the form and continuity of experimentation.
https://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.png00Niina Pykäläinenhttps://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.pngNiina Pykäläinen2024-08-29 13:13:392024-08-29 13:13:39Lazarevic, D., Mokkila, S., Kivimaa, P., Lukkarinen, J. & Toppinen, A. (2024). Municipal experimental policy engagements in the built environment.
Interaction between actors in sustainability transition is fundamental for generating knowledge about what constitutes a just, equitable and sustainable society. This paper focuses on the Finnish housing and construction sector as a socio-technical system, which currently accounts for about 40% of energy consumption and 35% of greenhouse gas emissions. A qualitative interview study with 18 organizations and a larger network study involving 35 actors were conducted to address the research questions: How do actors constitute a network and define climate-wise housing and construction? What specific focus areas can be identified around climate action? What issues support or inhibit climate-wise housing and construction? Although the network appeared relatively dense and inclusive, misalignment emerged upon closer examination. The actors were uniformly engaged in energy-related topics, but differed in their emphasis level on household choices, low-carbon materials, and the circular economy. Supporting and inhibiting factors were identified within three broad categories: alignment of goals, network characteristics, and transformation propensity. The findings suggest that climate action is gaining ground in housing and construction, but there is evidence of institutional inertia, a demand for accelerating support for intermediation, and a need to harness organizational resources and individual capabilities to create sustainability transitions.
https://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.png00Niina Pykäläinenhttps://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.pngNiina Pykäläinen2024-08-29 13:07:152024-08-29 13:07:16Kanninen, V., Ryöppy, S., Lähtinen, K. & Toppinen, A. (2024). Actor perceptions and network characteristics around climate-wise housing and construction in Finland.
Finland shows strong support for reducing its climate footprint originating from the built environment as part of the national carbon neutrality goal by 2035. Two prime examples are increasing wood use in construction and favoring building renovation to alleviate emissions from the use of virgin construction materials. However, the open question remains whether citizens also support these decarbonization pathways. By using national-level data from a randomly sampled citizen survey in Finland (n = 1448), we model citizen preferences to these two decarbonization pathways. The results suggest that a preference to renovate rather than to build anew is shown by respondents of the female gender; over 55 years of age; with a lower household equivalent income; and possessing housing property investment. Wood material is positively favored by respondents with higher age; a lower household equivalent income; living in smaller population centers in the countryside; and owning forestland. Interestingly, the effect of climate agency was negative in both models. This can be interpreted in the wood material case as reflecting conflicting views of negative environmental effects from forest harvesting to produce renewable building materials. In the renovation model case, we argue that the climatic impact of renovations remain weakly understood by citizens in Finland, given that the media and national regulations emphasize operational emissions. These results benefit both policy makers and municipal-level decision making in understanding of acceptability of wood material use and building retrofits among the general public.
https://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.png00Niina Pykäläinenhttps://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.pngNiina Pykäläinen2024-08-29 13:01:482024-08-29 13:02:48Ruokamo, E., Franzini, F., Lähtinen, K. & Toppinen, A. (2024). To renovate or build with wood? Results from Finnish citizen survey data.
Local land-use governance is critical for enhancing sustainable housing, which is a topical issue in implementing UN Sustainable Development Goals. Yet, information is lacking on how the use of land-use policy instruments and fulfilment of goals connect with each other. To fill this void, this study addresses local operationalization of sustainable housing aims, and their effects on the use of local land-use policy instruments in Finnish municipalities with legislative power to promote local sustainability through their own actions. The material of the study is based on online survey data collected in 2021 from land-use planners working in Finnish municipalities. According to our results based on quantitative analysis implemented with multi-variate methods, themes to promote sustainable housing in the Finnish municipalities are the Citizen focus enhanced by formal, and the Construction focus enhanced by informal approaches. Thus, despite the similar regulatory possibilities for their simultaneous promotion, local land-use governance instruments seem to be used in Finland to enhance either social or environmental sustainability. The phenomenon may exist also in other countries calling for more information on simultaneous promotion of different sustainability aspects in housing, e.g. by uptake of mixes of informal and formal land-use planning instruments in local decision-making.
https://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.png00Niina Pykäläinenhttps://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.pngNiina Pykäläinen2024-08-29 12:54:162024-08-29 12:54:17Lähtinen, K., Kanninen, V., Bäcklund, P., Häyrinen, L., Koskivaara, A. & Malm, N. (2024). Land-use policy instruments for sustainable housing: insights from municipality planners in Finland.
Wood-based construction (WBC) is considered important for climate change mitigation, as buildings provide long-term carbon storage and contribute to sustainable urban solutions. Research shows that a lack of coordination among policy actors hinders the more rapid development of WBC in many contexts. Gaining a better understanding of the characteristics of local WBC-related policy networks is critical for speeding up WBC development. We conducted an exploratory case study on one WBC forerunner city, Joensuu, Finland. The results from our quantitative social network analysis show that the WBC policy network of Joensuu is moderately dense and mostly consists of research and business organizations. However, the local hub, Business Joensuu, holds a central position in the network despite being an intermediary non-profit business and a regional development organization. Information and knowledge sharing are the most common resources distributed among the actors, which implicitly suggests that the network is primarily contributing to research and innovation around WBC. Considering the diverse policy goal priority, statements related to WBC, actors are mostly interested in climate change mitigation measured by reducing carbon emissions from construction materials, followed by creating new employment opportunities. From the policy perspective, our findings concerning the WBC policy network of Joensuu showcase the importance of national and international policies in the local diffusion of WBC and the key role of collaborative actors.
https://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.png00Niina Pykäläinenhttps://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.pngNiina Pykäläinen2024-04-22 12:00:002024-05-06 11:17:37Rahman, M. R., Wallin, I., Toivonen R. & Toppinen, A. (2024). Local policy networks in support of wood-based construction: A case study from Joensuu, Finland.
This paper examines the discourses on mobile others as objects of massification or likened to natural forces. By creating a dialogue between theories of crowds/masses and popular geopolitics, we examine how a local media frames the actual, imagined and absent border crossings of refugees and tourists when a voluminous mobile group disappears in tandem with an emerging unease about a new mobile group. We focus on the freesheet Imatralainen, published in a South Karelian Finnish-Russian bordertown that has been a tourist destination since the late eighteenth century but where invisible geopolitical tension is part of everyday life. Our discourse analysis shows that from the Crimean crisis to the migrant ‘crisis’ (2014–2016), local media have frequently portrayed Russian tourists and non-European migrants via a natural force rhetoric while viewing both refugees and tourists as potential resources or burdens. The mobility of others can represent itself as an external threat, and it can be taken as a perspectival threatscape that opens space for geopolitical issues amplified or transformed through the idea of masses and crowds into potential local issues. The article contributes to tourism geographies and the geopolitics of mobilities literature by evaluating the potential of classical crowd theories for understanding how threatscapes relating to the refugee-tourist nexus are made and manipulated by linguistic collectivisation, silencing and dehumanisation. We argue that more attention should be given to the role of the local in shaping the popular geopolitics of mobilities that construct, sustain and fabricate discourses of ‘otherness’ and massification.
https://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.png00Niina Pykäläinenhttps://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.pngNiina Pykäläinen2024-03-13 14:35:002025-05-19 14:36:37Vainikka, V., Vainikka, J. T., & Prokkola, E. K. (2025). Geopolitics of mobile masses: refugee and tourist metaphors in Finnish-Russian bordertown media.
In this study, we explore how expertise and responsibility are discursively intertwined in professional media. Based on quotations from building and real-estate industry professionals in news texts concerning sustainable building and housing, we identified three responsibility-related discourses: responsibility as a strategic professional vision, responsibility as techno-material expertise, and responsibility as a communal and societal orientation. These discourses of responsible expertise are important for voicing professional perspectives and emphasizing corporate social responsibility (CSR). In the sustainability transition, industry professionals are balancing between organizational and industry-level motives, between utility perspectives for “us” and “others,” and between managing impressions of doing good for the industry and for citizens or society at large. Through and with journalism, these professionals disseminate both individual and organizational expertise to the public in order to “make the industry and the whole society better and more sustainable.”
https://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.png00Niina Pykäläinenhttps://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.pngNiina Pykäläinen2024-03-13 12:00:002024-03-14 15:32:20Kääntä, L., Koskela, M., Syrjälä, H. & Salmela, E. (2024). “We Need to Build Carbon-Neutral Houses” – Discourses of Responsible Expertise in Finnish Professional Media.
This study examines which topics climate-wise housing is connected to in public speech. Climate-wise housing stands for housing choices that take social, ecological and economic perspectives into account. The data of the study consists of a variety of journalistic texts and online discussions collected in a larger research project. Content analysis is used as a method, and the findings are discussed applying Habermas’ concepts of system and lifeworld. The results show that in the journalistic media, the system-level starting point is strong and the individuals’ point of view comes to the fore only in certain types of stories. Economics and technology in particular are important ways of understanding climate-wise housing. In online discussions, the starting point is citizens’ own lifeworld, which is connected to their everyday experiences. However, the topics of the discussions are also connected to the system through the presence of the (market) economy, which leads to seeing citizens in the role of consumers. As a whole, our analysis shows that climate-wise living becomes a part of citizens’ everyday life both through the system, for example as a result of political decisions, and through grassroot level choices. From both starting points, efforts can be made towards more climate-wise living.
https://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.png00Niina Pykäläinenhttps://decarbonhome.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DecarbonHome_light.pngNiina Pykäläinen2023-12-21 12:00:002024-05-06 11:09:54Koskela, M., Salmela, E., Kääntä, L. & Syrjälä, H. (2023). Ilmastoviisaan asumisen teemat ja kontekstit – Kun systeemimaailma kohtaa elämismaailman julkisessa keskustelussa.
Consumers’ daily activities at their homes have an impact on the climate emissions of housing. We approach living as home practices. We study how consumers understand climate-wise housing and what kind of home practices they consider climate-wise. The concept of climate wisdom has not been previously defined in the scientific debate. We approach the concept through the practice of knowing, which means that wisdom is a practical activity based on knowing. The practice of knowing is a dispersed practice, while home practices are integrated practices, of which the practice of knowing can be a part. These practices can share climate wisdom with each other as an element of a general understanding. Consequently, knowledge of climate wisdom can be realized as climate-wise home practices. We analyzed consumers’ understanding of climate-wise housing from the interviews (n=30) by using thematic content analysis and practice theory reading. According to the study, climate-wise housing is understood broadly, but convergently. Climate-wise housing includes various knowledge-based everyday doings and solutions, which concern the choice of energy source, reduction of many types of consumption, recycling, waste sorting and sharing. Consumers have shared understandings of what is climate-wise, and climate wisdom can be seen as part of a practice of knowing. However, the understanding of climate wisdom does not necessarily appear as climate-wise actions implemented in everyday life.
Tiivistelmä
Kuluttajien arkisella toiminnalla kodeissa on vaikutusta asumisen ilmastopäästöihin. Lähestymme asumista kodin käytänteinä. Tutkimme sitä, miten kuluttajat ymmärtävät ilmastoviisaan asumisen ja millaiset kodin käytänteet ovat heidän mielestään ilmastoviisaita. Ilmastoviisaus-käsitettä ei ole aiemmin tieteellisessä keskustelussa määritelty. Lähestymme käsitettä tietämisen käytänteen kautta, jolloin viisaus on tietämiseen perustuvaa käytännön toimintaa. Tietämisen käytänne on hajautunut käytänne, kun taas kodin käytänteet yhdistäviä käytänteitä, joiden osa tietämisen käytänne voi olla. Nämä käytänteet voivat jakaa keskenään yleisen ymmärryksen elementin ilmastoviisaudesta, jolloin tietäminen ilmastoviisaudesta voi toteutua ilmastoviisaina kodin käytänteinä. Analysoimme kuluttajien ymmärryksiä ilmastoviisaasta asumisesta haastatteluaineistosta (n=30) temaattisen sisällönanalyysin ja käytäntöteoreettisen luennan avulla. Tulokset osoittavat, että ilmastoviisas asuminen käsitetään laajasti, mutta yhtenäisesti. Ilmastoviisas asuminen on tietämiseen perustuvia erilaisia arjen tekoja ja ratkaisuja, jotka koskevat energialähteen valintaa, monenlaisen kulutuksen vähentämistä, kierrättämistä, jätteiden lajittelua ja jakamista. Kuluttajilla on jaetut ymmärrykset siitä, mikä on ilmastoviisasta ja ilmastoviisaus voidaan nähdä osana tietämisen käytänteitä. Ymmärrys ilmastoviisaudesta ei kuitenkaan välttämättä näy arjessa toteutettuina ilmastoviisaina tekoina.
