IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i3p859-d312450.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reviewing the Smart City Vienna Framework Strategy’s Potential as an Eco-Social Policy in the Context of Quality of Work and Socio-Ecological Transformation

Author

Listed:
  • Jana Brandl

    (Institute for Advanced Studies, 1080 Vienna, Austria)

  • Irina Zielinska

    (Institute for Advanced Studies, 1080 Vienna, Austria)

Abstract

In the face of an increasing awareness of environmental issues and the urgent need to tackle them without shifting the burden onto the most vulnerable social groups, calls for a socio-economic transformation are growing louder. However, there is no consensus on what transformative strategies should look like. Within the German-language literature one can broadly distinguish two transformative paradigms: the green economy paradigm, arguing for soft political steering mechanisms and technological innovations in order to green the current economic system and the degrowth paradigm, drawing the current growth-oriented economic system into question. In both approaches a tendency to marginalize issues of quality of work prevails. We argue that work is not only an integral part of one’s income, but also of one’s identity and psychosocial wellbeing as well as of social peace and cohesion and that it should therefore be at the heart of socio-ecological transformative strategies. We apply these theoretical considerations to the analysis of the Smart City Vienna Framework Strategy (SCWR), which is promoted as a holistic sustainability strategy paper. Additionally, we conducted expert workshops and interviews in order to analyze how stakeholders within the sectors with the highest CO 2 emissions in Vienna perceive the SCWR in relation to work. We found that the SCWR does not live up to its potential as an eco-social policy as it remains tightly rooted within the green economy paradigm and does not account for the ecological dimension of work. The stakeholders’ perspectives on the SCWR vary according to the degree to which they are embedded within the green economy paradigm as well as their position within the economic system. However, generally the SCWR is not perceived as an eco-social policy and no connection is made between environmental issues and quality of work. We argue that transformative degrowth strategies could greatly benefit from making this connection explicit.

Suggested Citation

  • Jana Brandl & Irina Zielinska, 2020. "Reviewing the Smart City Vienna Framework Strategy’s Potential as an Eco-Social Policy in the Context of Quality of Work and Socio-Ecological Transformation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-17, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:3:p:859-:d:312450
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/3/859/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/3/859/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Buch-Hansen, Hubert & Koch, Max, 2019. "Degrowth through income and wealth caps?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 264-271.
    2. Luca Coscieme & Paul Sutton & Lars F. Mortensen & Ida Kubiszewski & Robert Costanza & Katherine Trebeck & Federico M. Pulselli & Biagio F. Giannetti & Lorenzo Fioramonti, 2019. "Overcoming the Myths of Mainstream Economics to Enable a New Wellbeing Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-17, August.
    3. Ian Gough, 2017. "Heat, Greed and Human Need," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 16991.
    4. Juliet B. Schor, 2005. "Sustainable Consumption and Worktime Reduction," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 9(1‐2), pages 37-50, January.
    5. Kallis, Giorgos, 2011. "In defence of degrowth," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 873-880, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maria Petmesidou & Ana M. Guillén, 2022. "Europe’s green, digital and demographic transition: a social policy research perspective," Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, , vol. 28(3), pages 317-332, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Katharina Bohnenberger, 2020. "Money, Vouchers, Public Infrastructures? A Framework for Sustainable Welfare Benefits," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-30, January.
    2. Buch-Hansen, Hubert & Nesterova, Iana, 2021. "Towards a science of deep transformations: Initiating a dialogue between degrowth and critical realism," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 190(C).
    3. Wächter, Petra, 2013. "Aspekte einer nachhaltigen Energiezukunft (ITA-manu:script 13-03)," ITA manu:scripts 13_03, Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA).
    4. Andreas Novy & Nathan Barlow & Julia Fankhauser, 2022. "Transformative Innovation," SRE-Disc sre-disc-2022_01, Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    5. Lukács, Bence & Antal, Miklós, 2023. "The practical feasibility of working time reduction: Do we have sufficient data?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 204(PA).
    6. Nessa Winston, 2022. "Sustainable community development: Integrating social and environmental sustainability for sustainable housing and communities," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 191-202, February.
    7. Smetschka, Barbara & Wiedenhofer, Dominik & Egger, Claudine & Haselsteiner, Edeltraud & Moran, Daniel & Gaube, Veronika, 2019. "Time Matters: The Carbon Footprint of Everyday Activities in Austria," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 1-1.
    8. Koch, Max, 2022. "State-civil society relations in Gramsci, Poulantzas and Bourdieu: Strategic implications for the degrowth movement," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    9. Richard Bärnthaler & Andreas Novy & Leonhard Plank, 2021. "The Foundational Economy as a Cornerstone for a Social–Ecological Transformation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-19, September.
    10. Cieplinski, André & D'Alessandro, Simone & Guarnieri, Pietro, 2021. "Environmental impacts of productivity-led working time reduction," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    11. Nessa Winston, 2021. "Sustainable community development: Integrating social and environmental sustainability for sustainable housing and communities," Working Papers 202106, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    12. Althouse, Jeffrey & Guarini, Giulio & Gabriel Porcile, Jose, 2020. "Ecological macroeconomics in the open economy: Sustainability, unequal exchange and policy coordination in a center-periphery model," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    13. Mastini, Riccardo & Kallis, Giorgos & Hickel, Jason, 2021. "A Green New Deal without growth?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 179(C).
    14. King, Lewis C. & van den Bergh, Jeroen C.J.M., 2017. "Worktime Reduction as a Solution to Climate Change: Five Scenarios Compared for the UK," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 124-134.
    15. Miklós Antal & Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, 2014. "Macroeconomics, Financial Crisis and the Environment: Strategies for a Sustainability Transition. WWWforEurope Policy Paper No. 10," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 47013, February.
    16. Stratford, Beth, 2020. "The Threat of Rent Extraction in a Resource-constrained Future," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    17. Fioramonti, Lorenzo & Coscieme, Luca & Costanza, Robert & Kubiszewski, Ida & Trebeck, Katherine & Wallis, Stewart & Roberts, Debra & Mortensen, Lars F. & Pickett, Kate E. & Wilkinson, Richard & Ragnar, 2022. "Wellbeing economy: An effective paradigm to mainstream post-growth policies?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    18. Miklós Antal & Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh, 2014. "Macroeconomics, Financial Crisis and the Environment. Strategies for a Sustainability Transition," WIFO Working Papers 464, WIFO.
    19. Heikkinen, Tiina, 2018. "An Equilibrium Framework for the Analysis of a Degrowth Society With Asymmetric Agents, Sharing and Basic Income," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 43-53.
    20. Malmaeus, J. Mikael & Alfredsson, Eva C., 2017. "Potential Consequences on the Economy of Low or No Growth - Short and Long Term Perspectives," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 57-64.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:3:p:859-:d:312450. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.