The role of inter-sectoral dynamics in sustainability transitions: A comment on the transitions research agenda

Building on the chapter Businesses and industries in sustainability transitions in the STRN agenda, this viewpoint calls for more attention to how economic and environmental goals can be aligned to enhance the political legitimacy of transitions. This requires, we suggest, a more integrated understanding of the relationship between industrial transformation and sustainability transitions. We provide a tentative articulation of such a perspective by recombining insights from the fields of Industrial Dynamics and Transition Studies. We point to three issues that can serve as starting points for developing such a perspective and argue why those merit more attention in transition studies. These include: (a) attention to the diversity of sectors and firms involved in, and affected by, transitions through inter-sectoral linkages, (b) how existing knowledge bases influence the direction and scope of transitions, and (c) policy challenges associated with parallel transitions in multiple sectors that constitute economy-wide processes of structural change.