The decision to relocate Indonesia’s capital city from Jakarta to East Kalimantan is driven by a range of factors, including the need to decentralize economic activity and address Jakarta’s environmental issues. The New Capital City (IKN) is being developed as a sustainable urban center with the goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2045. Law No. 3 of 2022 mandates that IKN will rely on 100 percent renewable electricity by 2045, underscoring the Indonesian government’s commitment to sustainability in the city. However, achieving this ambitious target presents significant challenges, particularly in terms of energy demand, renewable energy availability, and coordination across multiple sectors.
This research focuses on addressing these challenges by exploring the most cost-effective renewable energy sources for IKN and the necessary policies and actions to support their development and implementation. The backcasting approach was employed, which involves defining the desired future and working backward to determine the necessary steps to achieve it. Energy modeling, carried out using Calliope software, was used to simulate the future electricity system of the entire Kalimantan Island, including IKN, and to identify the least-cost combination of renewable energy sources to meet projected demand.
The study assumes that IKN’s peak electricity demand by 2045 will reach 792 MW. The least-cost vision suggests that this demand can be met primarily through solar PV and hydropower, with installed capacities of 890 MW and 792 MW, respectively. This combination results in the lowest Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE), calculated at 4.57 cents per kWh. Another vision explored in this study involves diversifying the energy mix by incorporating other renewable energy sources, such as floating solar PV, biomass, and battery storage. As reliance on hydropower and solar PV is reduced, the LCOE rises progressively, reaching 5.35 cents per kWh when the capacities of these two key sources are reduced by 50 percent.
While the technical feasibility of these renewable energy scenarios is promising, the political and economic barriers present the most significant challenges to their implementation. Politically, uncertainty in regulations, inconsistencies in policy frameworks, and the continuation of fossil fuel subsidies create hurdles. Economically, the lack of long-term financing options and limited resources available to developers and the national utility (PLN) present obstacles to renewable energy growth. Additionally, from a technological perspective, the current grid infrastructure in Kalimantan is not fully equipped to handle the intermittent nature of renewable sources like solar PV.
To address these challenges, several key actions and policies changes must be put in place. One crucial solution is the immediate introduction of a comprehensive new renewable energy law designed to attract investors by providing a stable and favorable regulatory environment. Financial strategies, such as government-backed loan guarantees and concessional financing from international organizations, are also crucial for making renewable projects economically viable. In addition, promoting public engagement and encouraging behavior changes, such as energy efficiency and conservation, can reduce peak demand and lower overall investment costs.
This study contributes to the body of research by providing a comprehensive strategy for renewable energy development in IKN. By combining energy modeling with a PESTEL analysis of drivers and barriers, it offers a comprehensive framework for understanding the challenges and opportunities in transitioning to 100 percent renewable electricity in IKN. Furthermore, this research lays the groundwork for future studies that can build upon its findings to explore specific sectoral actions in more detail.

The global wicked problem of environmental sustainability issues forces us to work on understanding the collective and complex nature of our current systems. Large businesses and organizations are known to play a crucial role in influencing environmental sustainability, with their impact on the environment being significant and multifaceted. The ever-increasing environmental concerns have put large companies under scrutiny from different stakeholder groups like regulators, consumers, employees, investors, activists and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Consequently, corporate environmental sustainability and performance have become a strategic priority. However, the corporate environmental landscape has evolved into a complex system of interdependencies due to dynamically changing regulations and stakeholder expectations. Furthermore, corporate environmental performance (CEP) is a multidimensional construct influenced by a complex interplay of internal organizational factors as well as external business environment factors. As a result, companies often struggle to make effective decisions to enhance CEP, leading to a gap between ambition and effective action toward corporate environmental sustainability.

The existing literature presented a critical gap in understanding the interactive and holistic effects of the most critical factors influencing CEP. Building on the knowledge gap and the identified problems, the primary objective of this study was to support large companies in the Netherlands in improving their CEP by analyzing and identifying the interplay of the most critical factors within technological factors, organizational culture, corporate governance, and external stakeholder pressures that significantly impact CEP. Hence, the following central research question was formulated: How can large companies utilize the interplay of technological factors, organizational culture, corporate governance, and external stakeholder pressures to enhance corporate environmental performance?

The study adopted an inductive, semi-quantitative research design, utilizing the fuzzy cognitive mapping (FCM) approach. Initially, a literature review was conducted to conceptualize CEP and identify factors associated with it. Then, data was collected through 10 semi-structured interviews with experts from various stakeholder groups, including large companies, consultants, academia, and research organizations. Furthermore, qualitative content analysis of the interview transcripts was performed to identify the factors influencing CEP and the relationships among them, leading to the development of individual FCMs. These individual FCMs were subsequently combined into an aggregated FCM. Then, a structural analysis of the aggregated FCM was conducted to determine the nature and importance of the factors identified. The aggregated FCM was further condensed (simplified) to facilitate more in-depth analysis. Finally, to formulate strategies that might enable large companies to improve their CEP, the findings from the structural analysis were integrated with an analysis of the pathways through which different factors influence CEP. This resulted in three sets of strategies: the first based on high centrality factors, the second on high direct impact factors, and the third on low centrality transmitter concepts.

The results identified 26 critical factors influencing CEP within the broad categories of technological factors, organizational culture, corporate governance and external stakeholder pressures. Furthermore, the developed aggregated FCM demonstrated how these factors interact to influence CEP by highlighting the complex causal interrelationships between the identified factors. Moreover, the study formulated 14 strategies that might enable large companies in the Netherlands to enhance their CEP. The first two sets of strategies defined 12 priority strategies. Furthermore, the third set of strategies provided two guiding strategies to enhance the effect of the variables involved in the priority strategies.

Furthermore, the study establishes that interactions among various factors significantly influence CEP. Hence, it emphasizes that future research should take an integrated and holistic approach when investigating the impact of factors influencing CEP. Moreover, the study encourages companies to formulate strategies that include the interactive effects of different factors to create a more holistic approach to enhancing CEP. By considering the interplay between the identified factors, companies can develop more nuanced and effective strategies that do not merely target individual factors in isolation but rather address the broader system of influences. In addition, the study provides an FCM template that companies can use as a decision-support tool, enabling them to understand the potential outcomes of different strategic choices and allowing them to simulate how changes in one area might affect others. By using the FCM, companies can devise specific strategies by taking into account their unique circumstances, industry, and external environment.

In conclusion, the study highlights the importance of an integrated and holistic approach to improving CEP, considering the complex interplay between internal and external factors. The study contributes to the academic field of corporate sustainability and management by filling a significant knowledge gap concerning the interplay of critical factors influencing CEP. The findings provide insights for companies to enhance corporate environmental sustainability, ultimately contributing to broader global sustainability goals.

The study recommends future research to focus on validating the developed FCM and the strategies to improve CEP. The findings can be validated by integrating quantitative methods such as regression models, organizing workshops with focus groups, and conducting scenario and sensitivity analyses.

The Environment and Planning Act (EPA) is a major legislative policy with the intent to revise the Dutch spatial planning system through decentralisation. However, before its introduction date in January 2024, its implementation had encountered several challenges, including delays, rising media attention, and political tensions. With the politicised climate surrounding EPA, the thesis investigates how politics influences the implementation of EPA.

The study employs a discourse analysis approach, a means to studying public discourse where policy actors engage in discourse within the public sphere to convey their ideas about a given policy to the general public. The main discursive unit is the storyline, which is a shared interpretation of the policy employed by actors in their public claims.
Hence, the overarching research question is as follows:

What does the public discourse surrounding the Environment and Planning Act (EPA) in the Netherlands reveal about its policy implementation?

Data was collected from the public discourse surrounding EPA between its legislative inception in 2011 and its formal introduction in 2024. Four prominent Dutch newspapers—NRC, De Volkskrant, Friesch Dagblad, and Leidsch Dagblad—served as data sources.
The research utilises the Discourse Network Analysis methodology, which combines various content and network analyses to reveal changing descriptive and structured patterns of the public discourse.

First, the content analysis is used to characterise the nature of public discourse and identify critical factors that influence policy implementation. Second, the analysis of the actor and storyline congruence network captures coalition structures and the discursive context, respectively; it is used to explain how and why the public discourse evolves with respect to key events in media and the policy process. Third, a “meso-level” network analysis of actor’s positions within the actor congruence network is used to describe their responses to the shifting public discourse through changes in positions within the network.

Three key findings that correspond to the three analyses are obtained. Firstly, public discourse surrounding EPA is characterised as highly disputative, characterised by varying types of disagreements on different policy issues and limitations in cross-actor engagement. Secondly, the study identifies a challenge in balancing the need for policy adjustments with the urgency of implementing them. This struggle can lead to difficulties in integrating ideas from stakeholders into policy formulation and development, which may hinder the overall progress of policy implementation. Lastly, the research suggests how politics is consequential to the policy implementation of EPA. This phenomenon is captured from the defensives of implementers to emerging political pressure on implementation—their original involvement in a broad range of policy issues has shifted to one that primarily defends their responsibilities. It is believed that implementers' critical role in influencing policy from the bottom-up is diminished.

The thesis contributes significantly to understanding policy implementation, highlighting various factors, challenges, and potential threats affecting EPA's implementation. While these findings may not directly aid EPA, they provide valuable guidance when developing similar complex policies in the Netherlands. Policy recommendations were also proposed to identify broad areas of improvement, such as planning the policy process to integrate ideas more effectively and providing more resources to implementers.

Additionally, the research makes a methodological contribution by demonstrating how discourse network analysis can be applied in implementation research. Various extensions and variations are highlighted, which were found to be useful—namely, the novel use of the storyline congruence network to study the changes in the discursive context within a rapidly evolving political process. Future research could explore the potential of discourse network analysis in studying the politics of policy implementation.

The objective of this study is to assess the extent to which Large Language Models (LLMs) can accurately automate the qualitative coding of policy narratives compared to a manually coded dataset. Narratives are integral to human communication, providing the structure through which individuals interpret facts and shape practices that evolve into formal policies. Analyzing policy narratives is crucial for understanding stakeholder interests, managing conflicts, and enhancing policy effectiveness. While traditional methods of narrative analysis have been manual, the exponential growth of available data has made such approaches impractical. This study explores the feasibility of using LLMs to automate the systematic analysis of policy narratives within the framework of the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF). The findings reveal that while LLMs exhibit good repeatability and perform better in scenarios with fewer categories in the codebook, their overall performance remains inadequate compared to manual coding. Metrics such as accuracy, precision, recall, F1 scores, and Krippendorff's alpha indicate significant limitations in their current ability to perform this task reliably. The significance of this research lies in its potential impact on policy analysis, as successful automation could allow for the analysis of much larger corpora of data, leading to richer insights. However, the study also identifies several limitations, including the time constraints, the number of available coders, and the limited range of LLM models tested. Future research directions include the development of a robust codebook through collaboration among multiple experienced coders, the use of specialized LLMs, and improvements in prompt design through the incorporation of more examples, chain-of-thought reasoning, and breaking down the task into smaller, more manageable parts.

Climate change poses significant challenges to urban areas, necessitating innovative solutions to enhance resilience and sustainability. This research explores the adoption of green roofs by housing associations in Amsterdam, a city highly vulnerable to climate change impacts such as flooding, extreme rainfall, droughts and extreme temperatures. Despite the recognized benefits of green roofs, their implementation remains limited. This study aims to identify the factors influencing housing associations' decisions to install green roofs and evaluate the effectiveness of current policy instruments in promoting this practice. While current policy instruments such as subsidies, Weerproof and coercion are in place, the adoption of green roofs has not been done by housing associations. The overarching research question is: “How do policy instruments for the promotion of green roofs influence the behaviour of housing associations in Amsterdam?”
The research focuses on the case study of housing associations in Amsterdam, combining desk research, interviews with policy officers and interviews with major housing associations. The Behaviour Change Wheel, incorporating the COM-B model and Theoretical Domains Framework, serves as the theoretical framework to analyse behavioural drivers and barriers. This comprehensive framework allows for a deeper understanding of the complexities surrounding the adoption of sustainable behaviours.
This research makes a contribution to the scientific literature through the use of the Behaviour Change Wheel (BCW) as a theoretical framework to analyse the adoption of green roofs by housing associations in Amsterdam. The BCW, typically applied within healthcare and behavioural sciences, is used in this study in a novel way within the context of urban sustainability and climate adaptation. By integrating the COM-B model and the Theoretical Domains Framework, this research provides in-depth insights into the behavioural drivers and barriers of housing associations. This methodological innovation broadens the applicability of the BCW and demonstrates its value for organizational behaviour change, specifically focused on sustainability and climate resilience.
Key findings indicate that while there is openness to the idea of green roofs among housing associations, significant barriers persist. These barriers include high installation costs, structural challenges, and a lack of knowledge about green roofs within housing associations. Current policies, such as subsidies and environmental guidelines, have not fully addressed these obstacles, particularly for existing buildings. For example, the subsidy availability has been inconsistent, which undermines the motivation for housing associations to commit to green roof projects. Additionally, while guidelines such as the “Nationale Dakenplan” have been established to promote green roofs, the lack of specific, targeted marketing and communication for housing associations limits their impact.
Reflective motivation is a primary barrier, with housing associations focusing on immediate and pressing needs like improving energy efficiency and addressing poor energy labels. This prioritization often leaves little room for green roofs, which are perceived as less critical. Financial constraints exacerbate this issue, as the high upfront costs of green roofs are often seen as prohibitive without sufficient subsidies or financial incentives. Moreover, housing associations often view the benefits of green roofs—such as increased biodiversity, urban heat island mitigation, and improved stormwater management—as less directly impactful on their primary goal of providing affordable housing.
The research highlights several intervention functions to overcome these barriers. These include enabling policies that integrate green roofs into energy label improvements, regional obligations for green roof implementation, targeted marketing campaigns, a stormwater runoff fee to create a business model for green roofs, and the promotion of comprehensive roof handbooks. Each of these interventions targets specific aspects of the COM-B model—capability, opportunity, and motivation—to encourage housing associations to incorporate green roofs more broadly.
By implementing these improvements, policy instruments can more effectively promote the adoption of green roofs, contributing to a more sustainable urban environment in Amsterdam. Further research should focus on validating these interventions in other cities to confirm their broader applicability. Additionally, evaluating the long-term impacts of these policies will provide insights into their effectiveness and inform future policy development.
Overall, the integration of comprehensive, targeted interventions can drive the widespread adoption of green roofs, enhancing urban resilience and sustainability in the face of climate change. This research provides a foundational understanding of the factors influencing green roof adoption and offers practical recommendations for policy enhancement to achieve a greener, more resilient urban landscape. 

This master's thesis explores the role of policy innovation of policies, programs, and policy instruments within the domain of heat transition in the built environment in the Netherlands, focusing specifically on the role of municipalities in navigating this complex transition towards a natural gas-free future by 2050, as mandated by the National Climate Agreement (2019).

Introduction
The research starts by outlining the ambitious goal of the Dutch government to significantly reduce CO2 emissions by 2050, emphasizing the critical target of reducing natural gas usage in the built environment in the Netherlands. The introduction highlights the urgent need for innovative policy approaches to accelerate the heat transition, especially in light of geopolitical factors such as the crisis in Ukraine, which underscore the urgency of energy independence.

Theory
Starting with a literature review regarding the different conceptual defnitions of (policy) innovation and the framework provided by Schaffrin et al. (2015), the study delves into the concept of policy innovation, exploring its significance in the context of the heat transition in the built environment. The research identifies the multifaceted nature of innovation, encompassing the novelty of policies, their adoption, and eventual impact. The theoretical foundation emphasizes the importance of analyzing policy output to gauge the extent of innovation within municipalities' strategies for the heat transition.

Methodology
An exploratory study design using qualitative research methods is outlined, focusing on a case study analysis of Transition Vision Heat (TVH) documents from ten of the most populous municipalities in the Netherlands. The research adapts and modifies Schaffrin et al.'s (2015) framework to assess policy output and innovation to fit the context of the heat transition in the built environment in the Netherlands, employing Atlas.ti software for document analysis. The methodology section discusses the selection criteria, data collection, and analysis processes, highlighting the study's systematic approach to evaluating policy documents.

Results
The results section presents a detailed analysis of policy output across eight categories, revealing a spectrum of innovation levels among the analyzed municipalities. Amsterdam is noted for its high scores in integration, target groups, and alternative technologies, showcasing a proactive approach to the heat transition. Furthermore, TVHs were scored using the modified framework of Schaffrin et al (2015). This research identifies significant differences in policy integration, stakeholder involvement, and the specificity of alternative solutions across municipalities. Despite these differences, commonalities include a shared commitment to updating the TVH every five years and aiming for a gas-free environment by 2050.

Conclusion
The thesis concludes that while Dutch municipalities exhibit a range of innovative strategies in their approach to the heat transition, there is room for improvement, particularly in setting concrete targets and detailed implementation procedures. The study advocates for municipalities to take a more directive role in leading the heat transition, emphasizing the need for tailored and innovative solutions that reflect local contexts. The research suggests that a comprehensive, collaborative, and context-specific approach is essential for successfully navigating the complexities of the heat transition toward a sustainable, natural gas-free built environment in the Netherlands.

Discussion
The discussion emphasizes the scientific added value of adapting Schaffrin et al.'s (2015) framework to the context of the heat transition in the built environment, underlining the importance of scope on alternate technology solutions and the target groups involved. Limitations such as the subjective nature of measuring policy innovation and the representativeness of the sample size are acknowledged. The section also suggests the need for future research to include broader samples and expert validation to enhance the framework's reliability. Furthermore, the role of local initiatives and the inclusion of residents' opinions and viewpoints in TVHs are emphasized as crucial for developing tailored, context-specific policy solutions. The involvement of residents (e.g., in the form of communities) can contribute to a more appropriate approach that contributes to the advancement of the heat transition in the built environment in the Netherlands.

The agricultural sector in India is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, in part due to the widespread use of diesel-powered irrigation pumps. In response, the Indian government launched the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Urja Suraksha evam Utthaan Mahabhiyan (PM KUSUM) scheme in 2019 to promote the adoption of solar energy for agricultural irrigation. Component B of the scheme, which aims at replacing diesel pumps with standalone solar pumps, has shown varying policy performance across states. This thesis explores the factors contributing to these disparities, focusing on socio-economic, agricultural, energy, and institutional domains that influence policy outcomes.

Using a mixed-methods approach, the study combines Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) with thematic analysis of expert interviews. The QCA identifies key causal pathways to both positive and negative adoption outcomes, highlighting patterns that explain the differing regional performances. Additionally, the thematic analysis examined the roles of institutional capacity, stakeholder coordination, and resource availability, providing nuanced insights into the factors shaping implementation.

The findings indicated that irrigation demand, influenced by factors such as unreliable electricity access or reliance on diesel pumps, interacted with regional conditions to shape policy outcomes. Broader enabling factors, including institutional support, resource availability, and political or economic considerations, played a significant role in facilitating the adoption of solar water pumps under the policy. These insights contribute to a deeper understanding of the energy-agriculture nexus and offer a foundation for improving solar energy adoption in agriculture by developing a better understanding of the factors influencing policy performance.

Greenwashing can be defined as the mismatch between companies’ positive green communications and their activities that are counterproductive to the fight against climate change. Greenwashing companies can undermine the success of climate policies by hiding their climate footprints and prevent policymakers from realizing the need for further regulations. Thus, the identification of greenwashing should be done timely: this research sets out to find a semi-automated approach that can find evidence of greenwashing. The study of greenwashing is limited to the mismatch between companies’ communications on official websites and their lobbying activities in the European Union. Some steps of the design research approach were used namely the design development, demonstration, and evaluation (via a small-case evaluation) phases. The created approach measures companies’ communication levels of commitment to climate change using a GPT-based sentence classifier and then compares it to their levels of lobbying on climate change using keyword-based filtering on the EU Transparency Register, the official lobbying source for the EU. The proposed method is semi-automated at this stage and can inform a greenwashing appraisal, but it has issues with the accuracy of its analysis. This research partially fills the gaps in the greenwashing literature and advances the research in the use of GPT for classification purposes and in the field of climate lobbying in the EU. This research can teach the implementation of new EU regulations that aim at banning greenwashing: the more detailed the definitions of greenwashing that are used, the easier to find greenwashing automatically, and, therefore, the faster the enforcement of the ban can be.

The energy transition is a fundamental shift in the world’s energy landscape, aimed at reducing carbon emissions and transitioning to a more sustainable, low-carbon energy system. This transition is closely aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement, the landmark international treaty adopted in 2015, which seeks to limit global warming, with an aspirational target of limiting it to 1.5 degrees celsius. The European Union has been a key player in both the development of the Paris Agreement and its implementation, demonstrating its commitment to combating climate change. To achieve this target, the European Union is pursuing various strategies, including the decarbonization of its energy sector. In order to stay in line with the goals, drastic actions are being carried out without entirely assessing the long term outcomes. Energy transitions are often accompanied by changes in the distribution of benefits and harms, and if these changes are not managed equitably, they may increase existing inequalities and create new forms of injustice.
The government of the Netherlands has taken several measures to achieve climate neutrality, one crucial task being the replacement of natural gas in its heating network. The heating sector so far has been reliant on shale gas for the past few decades, and the government now wants to implement new alternatives that are more sustainable. To anticipate the most favorable options, governmental bodies and local authorities are utilizing tools to assist them in their decision-making processes, especially energy system models.
Energy system modelling is a process of developing and analyzing models that represent the components and processes of energy systems. These models help to simulate the operation and behavior of energy systems under different scenarios and conditions, and to evaluate the impacts of policy decisions and technology choices. However, energy system models often neglect the social dimensions which are essential components of energy justice. This study aims to present a critical analysis of the representation of energy justice in energy system models through a case study and identifies the challenges of integrating energy justice considerations into energy system modelling. Thus the
following main research question was formulated:
To what extent have energy justice principles been represented in Energy modelling employed in the Dutch Heating Transition?
To set up the study, it was essential to establish the concept of energy justice and explore what kind of modelling approaches were being deployed. A literature review on this topic helped to understand the concepts, and select an energy justice framework that would serve as the base for this study (Sovacool & Dworkin, 2015). The framework provided a set of justice principles that were selected to assess the modelling use cases. This thesis explores the integration of energy justice principles within energy system modelling through an analysis of two distinct use case approaches in the municipality level, in the districts of Amersfoort and Drechtsteden in the Netherlands. These two use cases were chosen since they both had a large, diverse population, they had implemented a Heat Transition Vision and they made use of an energy model in their decision making process. The study aims to understand how energy justice considerations are manifested in the models and transition visions that were drafted, the challenges and opportunities they present, and their implications for equitable and sustainable energy transitions.
The study then included a document analysis to collect information, where a total of eleven reports were scrutinized to find how justice principles were defined in the models and heat visions. This was followed by semi structured interviews with eight participants from varied backgrounds, to gather their perspectives on how justice principles were interpreted and the challenges they faced. The data collected was categorically grouped in themes, focusing on affordability, transparency, resistance and sustainability. The results of this study reveal that both use cases incorporate elements of energy justice in an indirect manner. Affordability is addressed through mechanisms like tax credits and
investment allowances. Transparency is facilitated through engagement platforms and collaborative sessions, promoting stakeholder involvement. While resistance in the form of economic barriers is recognized, social aspects of resistance receive less attention. Sustainability is evident through considerations of energy-saving potential and monitoring carbon emissions.
While energy justice principles are not explicitly defined in the models, various attributes and mechanisms correspond to these principles. However, challenges and limitations include diverse interpretations of energy justice, tensions between prioritizing technical and social dimensions, and the quantification of ethical concepts. The difficulty in selecting the right modelling approach and the right source of information also leads to uncertainty and complexity.
This study contributes to the understanding of energy justice by providing empirical insights into its integration within energy system modeling. The findings highlight the complexities and possibilities of this integration, offering lessons for policymakers, researchers, and model developers. Recommendations for future research include exploring the impacts of energy justice measures in other sectors of the transition and also utilizing other frameworks to assess energy justice.

Passenger traffic by car is regarded as one of the main contributors to energy consumption and emission in the transport sector. Car dependency and limited shifts to more carbon-friendly alternative travel modes in industrialised countries play a major role in maintaining unsustainable mobility systems, despite governments' increased attention and effort in enhancing multimodal travel behaviour. In other words, having a diverse mode usage as a travel user. Compared to travellers who only use the car, multimodal travellers are likely easier to shift to more sustainable and health-enhancing modes, such as the bicycle and public transport, when applying policies. However, how (multi)modal travel patterns developed over time and the determinants of being multimodal are not often researched in combination with measuring multimodality and showing corresponding travel patterns. A Latent Class Cluster Analysis is performed once for 2010-2017 using cross-sectional data from the Dutch National Travel Survey (OViN) to measure multimodality whilst capturing distinct travel user groups per year, based on the frequency of travel mode use. Socio-demographic, mobility resource and built-environment variables are included as potential determinants of belonging to a specific group. The main results are that overall mobility patterns of the captured travel user classes were hardly subject to change. Moreover, only the smallest two out of five identified classes have travel behaviour with a higher degree of multimodality. Besides, the likely strong effect of owning mobility resources or not (e.g., a licensure, household car, company car, or household bicycle) on being likely in a car-dependent or a multimodal travel user group is shown. Most remarkably, our findings add to the existing knowledge by revealing that company car ownership plays a significant role in being a car-dependent travel user. Based on our results, identified policy directions include, but are not limited to, affecting mode choices of employees (owning a company car) via employer-based programs to incentivise them to use the bicycle or public transportation. Nevertheless, the knowledge about several travel user classes comprising multimodal travel patterns can be extended in several areas, most notably, by including attitudinal factors which could be tracked longitudinally on the individual level, such as perceptions about willingness to use travel modes, to acquire a more profound view about what strives people to behave in a certain way over a more extended period.

Carbon dioxide can be used during concrete production, which leads to stronger concrete as well as a sequestration method for CO2. While these technologies are developed quite far, they are currently not being used within society nor is there any systemic overview of the system and a reason why these technologies are not used. This thesis performs a Technological Innovation System analysis to investigate the Dutch concrete system and find barriers to the transition from conventional to carbon-cured concrete. The three located barriers are knowledge exchange, guidance of the search and the formation of markets. Intervention tools are presented to decrease the barriers and stimulate the technology within the system to enable further growth.

Policy making and the decision-making process has developed over the past decades to include more (scientific) evidence to support policy construction, such as the Cost-benefit Analysis or Environmental Impact Analysis. However, depending on the perspective of the policymaker as well as the evaluator, successful policies outcomes may be different for varying stakeholders. This can then potentially lead to conflict during the decision-making process for future policies, on which metrics were deemed successful. Through case studies, in which the advocacy coalition framework will be applied, the role of CBAs and EIAs is explored on the decision-making process for public policy. How the procedural policy tools affected advocacy coalitions’ beliefs and strategies for/against policies is analysed. The ex-ante evaluations without legislative support for incorporation for policymaking seemed to have little effect on policy- or core belief-changes of stakeholders, even when confronted with negative outcomes. With enough opportunities created by coalitions to discredit outcomes not in line with their beliefs. Furthermore, the multi-level decision-making seems to be dominated by the national level government, who hold and maintain formal authority while preventing opportunities for intervention without legislative support. Instead, procedural policy tools that have more legislative support, have more influence on the policy implementation and decision-making process. Procedural policy tools seem to be more informative and symbolic, with outcomes more used for debates without nuances rather than to explore and improve new policy options. Hence, limiting the formal role of the policy tools to explore policy alternatives. The late timing of tools’ use in the decision-making process and exclusion of regional stakeholders in the appraisals exacerbated negative experiences for regional stakeholders. Leading to increased distrust between advocacy coalitions, preventing compromises from being found while creating more conflict among stakeholders. Furthermore, procedural policy tools were very resource dependent, limiting regional actors’ ability to perform analyses due to limited resources. Making them highly dependent national governments, fuelling the distrust and conflict based on the earlier mentioned exclusion and lacking transparency. Creating information (and resource) inequalities which can be exploited during the decision-making process. Suggestions for improvement and conflict reduction are the introduction of formal third-party supervisory committees for procedural policy tools and mandatory (regional) stakeholder-inclusion and methodology’ transparency measures.

At a time when India experiences rapidly rising living standards, while facing increasing sustainability challenges, decoupling economic growth from the increase in energy consumption is a critical challenge. Energy efficiency solutions in the residential sector have an important role, as these can significantly curb energy consumption. To steer future adoption towards energy-efficient appliances, it is imperative to understand the drivers and barriers behind consumer choices.

The objective of this study is to understand the drivers and barriers behind the adoption of energy-efficient appliances in Indian households. These insights can be used to accelerate the adoption of these appliances and help India transition to a greener and more sustainable future. This study leverages an explanatory mixed methods approach in which a quantitative logistic regression model is followed by a qualitative analysis consisting of semi-structured expert interviews. This methodology is suitable for this research as it performs a robust empirical analysis of data through a regression. At the same time, the methodology allows deepening the understanding of observed patterns and contextualizes findings through expert insights. This synergy combines quantitative rigour with qualitative depth, providing a holistic understanding of factors influencing energy-efficient appliance adoption.

The initial phase consisted of a critical literature review, showing a limited academic focus on understanding the drivers behind energy-efficient appliance adoption in the Indian household sector. Variables relevant to adoption patterns were developed in this section, based on an overview of the academic research. In addition, the policy environment was conceptualized to create an overview of the policy domain and understand the effect of various Indian policies on energy-efficient consumer choices. This overview aided the understanding of the breadth and impact of policy measures. The quantitative element of the mixed methods approach is a logistic regression model in R, leveraging the IRES survey and the AEEE energy-efficiency index datasets. To corroborate and contextualize the quantitative findings, a qualitative phase was developed, consisting of 10 semi-structured expert interviews in India with policymakers, researchers, industry leaders, and lobby organizations. Insights from the qualitative phase were systematically extracted using a thematic analysis. Lastly, an integration step was taken to combine the findings from both research phases and offer a comprehensive and nuanced understanding of drivers and barriers behind the adoption of energy-efficient lighting and fans.
This quantitative analysis revealed key drivers behind the adoption of LED lighting and energy-efficient ceiling fans such as a clear relationship between household income and the adoption of energy-efficient appliances, with higher income levels correlating strongly with increased adoption likelihood. Awareness, particularly regarding star labeling and environmental benefits, along with higher education levels and living conditions, such as grid connections and climate zones also positively influences energy-efficient appliance adoption. Urbanization significantly impacts the adoption of energy-efficient ceiling fans, while its effect on LED lighting adoption, though present, is not statistically significant. State-level policy impacts appear more nuanced, highlighting the need for further qualitative exploration to understand underlying regional influences. In the thematic analysis following from the expert-interviews, patterns around evolving themes were developed, revealing the dynamics behind the observed relationships between variables...

In order to understand the impact of new infrastructure projects, appraisal tools are used to estimate the impact it will have on society. Infrastructure is a key part of society, enabling and disabling society to work and live, playing a vital part in everyone’s lives. Former studies by Annema, Frenken, et al. (2017), Niek Mouter (2017b) and Eliasson and Lundberg (2012) have researched how appraisal tools and especially CBA are used by decision-makers to get to a decision. Other research by Van Wee (2012) has shown the ethical problems which arise when using CBA as an appraisal tool. However, there has not been any research on the impact appraisal tools have on the process and outcome of infrastructure projects. This thesis will provide insights in the impact of appraisal tools on social and process equitability. By using a framework by D. Levinson (2002), case studies, interviews and policy documents, the incorporation of social and process equity factors can be depicted per country. Results show that the Dutch appraisal tools do not incorporate a wide array of dimensions and stratifications, which are depicted in literature. This lack of information results in social inequitable decision-making as well as inequitable outcomes due to negligence of not incorporating more dimensions. Two reasons can be found for this Dutch approach, namely the funding reason which results in solution-oriented design, and the general Dutch mindset of seeing and treating everyone as equal, resulting in inequitable outcomes due to not taking differences into account. The Dutch process equity is boosted by its near-perfect transparency in terms of accessibility of documents, but hurt by the lack of participation and the lack of impact when participation is present. The United Kingdom on the other hand has an elaborate appraisal process which analyses a much wider variety of dimensions and stratifications. However, due to a solution-oriented process design, the alternatives for a project have already been shot down when the social impact information is available to a decision-maker. Another reason which hurts the social equitability in the United Kingdom is the fact that it is necessary to have a high value-for-money project to receive funding, resulting in ignoring of social impact analyses due to this economic focus. In terms of process equity, the United Kingdom has a solid consultation process which is used consistently. However, a lack of transparency in the process with regard to decisions made and the availability of (policy) documents results in poor process equity overall. This thesis shows that social and process equity cannot be improved by simply adding tools which gather social impact information to the appraisal process. Political play, the drift for efficiency and cultural differences per country makes it difficult to create a single strategy to improve equity in appraisal processes. However, by improving transparency, focusing on getting a problem-oriented design and using a third party as a validation for the incorporation of equity factors, it is possible to improve the inclusion of equity factors in appraisal processes. This thesis can be used as a basis for analysing and understanding appraisal processes in other countries.

The global wicked problem of climate change forces us to policymaking, implementation, and climate action. In a hopeful attempt to reach the ambitious Paris Agreement goals, science indicates that collaborative action and science-based targets are required. Consequently, the political arena recognizes the importance of actors beyond national governments for collaborative climate action. These non-state and subnational actors could have a great impact on global emissions reductions, but current targets and pledges are often subject to a lack of transparency and greenwashing practices. In addition, current commitments and actions are often too modest in ambition to close the emission gap. As a response, a plethora of International Cooperative Initiatives (ICIs) has arisen. This research focuses on the promising and important role of corporates in non-state climate action, by assessing corporate determinants for participation in the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). To date, the SBTi is the most prominent ICI in the corporate landscape with more than 1,500 companies that are committed to science-based targets. Due to its popularity and rapid growth of the initiative, the SBTi evidently contributes to global emission reductions.

With their step-wise process to science-based target commitment, development, and validation, the SBTi promises to prevent ”the worst effects of climate change”. To track the progression of this hopeful promise, a handful of studies have been conducted on the SBTi’s emission mitigation. However, the literature on the SBTi has remained inextensive. Furthermore, why corporates participate in the initiative was unaddressed. This thesis work is pioneering in the sense that it creates a novel, important, and relevant contribution to fulfilling this knowledge gap, by identifying determining factors for participation in the SBTi. Thereby, assessing associations be- tween firm characteristics and SBTi participation, in addition to whether and how these firm characteristics and several motives, reasons, and drivers cause a corporate to participate.

To this end, we have constructed a mixed-method study with a sequential explanatory design that entailed econometric statistical analysis and interviews. The group of corporates selected for the study was the Fortune 500 of the year 2015, which marks the start of the SBTi. We conclude that this research design is a good fit for the type of study which aims to find relations between firm characteristics, motives, reasons, drivers, and SBTi membership, or climate action in general. Mostly because our approach allowed for a more comprehensive picture of relevant factors to participate in the SBTi, compared to extant literature that is often lacking on detailed information due to exploratory designs that assess association rather than causation. We, therefore, want to shed light on the added value of semi-structured interviews in this work and potential future work, despite some of our main limitations of data availability, relatively small sample sizes, and selection bias.

We found that determining factors for corporates to participate in the SBTi relate to the concepts of Legitimacy, Market Success, Social Insurance and Organizational Culture. The latter added an angle that did not seem covered by the concepts derived from previous studies, while this concept became one of the most influential but controversial in management and organization studies. Our findings show that the pressure of stakeholders such as investors, competitors, the U.S. government, employees, end-consumers, and purchasers is an important determinant for corporates to participate; whereby we have shown that joining the SBTi is unexpectedly mainly driven by purchasers rather than end-consumers in the U.S. at this point. In addition, competitive pressures cause a company to join since corporates want to maintain their front-running position, find peer benchmarking important, and are experiencing peer pressure within their sector. Furthermore, a corporate’s perception of internal and external leadership is important in deciding to join the SBTi. In particular, a firm’s strategy and CEO determine whether the corporate wants to be a leader by joining the SBTi or not. On top of that, we found that the presence of a sustainability committee increases the likeliness of a firm becoming a SBTi member since it connects sustainability expertise in the organization that is needed to feed top management so that sustainability decisions can be made.

Interestingly, contrary to our expectations, our results show that corporates in the energy sector are not the most likely to join the SBTi. Albeit those companies are facing impressive stakeholder pressures, they often choose to lobby against future policies rather than set science-based targets. Moreover, we expect conservative corporate culture and the maturity of a sustainability program to influence the decision to join the SBTi. To specify, we believe that conservative corporates, possibly with a mature sustainability program, tend to stick to their system-centric targets and management processes rather than participating in the SBTi.

Overall, our pioneering research outcomes contribute to the inextensive body of academic literature on the SBTi, and it enriches the extant literature on ICIs participation, voluntary initiative participation, and corporate climate action in general. Moreover, the implications of this research are important to policymakers, government, as well as corporates, and the SBTi, in terms of responding to the determinants for SBTi participation. Especially because it is expected that the number of SBTi members will exponentially grow soon, thereby further enhancing the initiative’s prominent character. In addition, we argue that SBTi membership is and will not be a form of corporate greenwashing. We also think that SBTi members will environmentally and financially perform better in the long term, due to continuously aligned targets with science, and growing pressure and recognition of the SBTi by stakeholders.

Our study implies that the SBTi will most likely see a pattern of early adopters, the frontrunners; and late adopters, the followers or the firms that experience difficulties with emission identification. However, one should also be aware that there will be a group of outliers, identified as the corporates that will not voluntarily participate in this initiative, or corporate climate action in general. Yet, it requires global collaboration of the entire corporate landscape to close the emission gap. Therefore, our findings are valuable in the sense that they can aid different stakeholders to develop more effective strategies for encouraging businesses to develop a sustainability agenda. Thereby, understanding what motivates corporates to take climate action is important for policymakers, since the effectiveness of policies also depends in large part on how firms will respond to them.

To reach the tipping point in which companies cannot deny joining the SBTi, we recommend the SBTi to focus on targeting new sectors, firms with conservative corporate cultures, and mature sustainability programs. As well as responding to this expected growth within their own organization and establishing a network of experts and corporates which aids in scope 3 identification. In turn, we advise corporates to join forces that support emission identification and disclosure in comprehensible language. Furthermore, our results encourage corporates to establish an organizational structure that enhances collaborative action and sustainable decision-making, for instance with a sustainability committee and dedicated leadership. Additionally, purchasing companies should use their power to trigger a cascade of science-based targets amongst the supply chain. Moreover, corporates should always lobby for science-based climate policies, even when forms of voluntary climate action are already present. It is thereby up to the government to engage with corporate communities that promote climate policy formation, formulate policies on compulsory emission identification, and join forces with the SBTi to promote the advantages of standardized science-based targets by understanding what truly drives corporates to take voluntary climate action. Following our work, there is abundant room for formulating more detailed policies, investigating additional external pressures that affect corporates to join, and zooming in on each individual sector to account for existing sector differences.