In our recent online WEF innovation workshop titled “Collaborating for Change: Unpacking the WEF Nexus through Landscape and Regime Lenses”, we introduced participants to the core principles of socio-technical systems theory and explored its relevance to sustainable transformation. This framework is essential for understanding complex, interconnected sectors like water, energy, and food. By examining the relationships within and across these systems, we gain insights into the challenges and opportunities for driving meaningful change.
The session began with an overview of the three layers within socio-technical systems:
- Macro Level (Landscape): This includes large-scale forces like climate change and geopolitical shifts that indirectly impact the system. Changes at this level often create pressure for adaptation within established systems.
- Meso Level (Regimes): These are the stable structures, policies, and behaviors that reinforce the current way of doing things. For example, a fossil-fuel-based energy grid involves interconnected industries, regulations, and cultural norms that resist rapid change.
- Micro Level (Niches): This is where innovations—often from startups, research labs, or emerging markets—begin to take root. Over time, some of these innovations grow to influence and even disrupt established regimes.
To illustrate how new technologies encounter resistance from entrenched regimes, we looked at the example of early solar power and wind turbines. Despite being technologically viable as early as the 1950s, these innovations faced systemic barriers to adoption due to the fossil-fuel-centered infrastructure.
Our interactive breakout sessions allowed participants to apply socio-technical theory to map and analyze the interdependencies within the water-energy-food nexus. These exercises emphasized that sustainable transformation isn’t just about technological change but also requires understanding and addressing socio-cultural, institutional, and economic factors.
The goal is to equip change-makers with frameworks like these to navigate and shape the future of critical sectors sustainably. By embracing a holistic approach, we can better identify leverage points for initiating and sustaining systemic change.