This paper introduces a method to analyse and explore consistency within policy mixes in order to support the policymaking cycle and applies it to energy and climate change policies in the United Kingdom (UK) biofuels policy context. The first part of the paper introduces a multi-level method to evaluate consistency within policy mixes implemented over a period of time. The first level explores consistency across policy design features in policy mixes. The second level evaluates how stakeholders, and their interactions with policy instruments and each other, can impact consistency within a given context. These interactions influence the implementation of policies and can lead to unintended outcomes that fail to meet the overarching goals. In the second part of the paper, we apply our method to the UK biofuels policy mix, to explore a sector that cuts across the policy areas of transportation, energy, land-use, air, and climate change. Our analysis demonstrates how, by overlooking complex interactions in the design and implementation of policies in the biofuels sector, policy mixes have conflicted with the development of a potential low-carbon technology.@en

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to frame the stakeholder-driven system mapping approach in the context of climate change, building on stakeholder knowledge of system boundaries, key elements and interactions within a system and to introduce a decision support tool for managing and visualising this knowledge into insightful system maps with policy implications. Design/methodology/approach: This methodological framework is based on the concepts of market maps. The process of eliciting and visualising expert knowledge is facilitated by means of a reference implementation in MATLAB, which allows for designing technological innovation systems models in either a structured or a visual format. Findings: System mapping can contribute to evaluating systems for climate change by capturing knowledge of expert groups with regard to the dynamic interrelations between climate policy strategies and other system components, which may promote or hinder the desired transition to low carbon societies. Research limitations/implications: This study explores how system mapping addresses gaps in analytical tools and complements the systems of innovation framework. Knowledge elicitation, however, must be facilitated and build upon a structured framework such as technological innovation systems. Practical implications: This approach can provide policymakers with significant insight into the strengths and weaknesses of current policy frameworks based on tacit knowledge embedded in stakeholders. Social implications: The developed methodological framework aims to include societal groups in the climate policy-making process by acknowledging stakeholders’ role in developing transition pathways. The system map codifies stakeholder input in a structured and transparent manner. Originality/value: This is the first study that clearly defines the system mapping approach in the frame of climate policy and introduces the first dedicated software option for researchers and decision makers to use for implementing this methodology.@en