Exploring the Economic Geographies of Sustainability Transitions: Commentary and Agenda

Christian Binz, Lars Coenen, Koen Frenken, James T. Murphy, Simone Strambach, Michaela Trippl and Bernhard Truffer

Economic Geography, 2025, vol. 101, issue 1, 1-27

Abstract: This commentary provides a short review of the history and current state of transition studies, and explores how a deepened exchange with economic geographers could be fostered at the geography of sustainability transitions interface along three fronts. First, we argue that a combined transitions–economic geography perspective allows elucidating how the coevolution of technologies, institutions, and actor networks creates multiscalar and spatially uneven opportunity spaces for transformative change. Second, it provides a deeper process-based understanding of structural change trajectories, emphasizing the social construction of material and institutional elements and their alignment into socio-technical configurations that work in addressing wicked sustainability problems. Third, it creates novel inroads for conceptualizing—and critically questioning—normative, policy-related concerns around how to achieve more just, resilient, and environmentally sustainable futures. The article concludes with epistemological and strategic considerations on how to further advance geography of transitions perspectives.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/00130095.2024.2445530

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