Lowell Tozer
Biographic Data
| ID | 680745 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lowell Tozer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lowell |
| FAMILY NAME | Tozer |
| SIGNATURE | TOZER L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5417-3885 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 92 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1952 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2027 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Toward a Canadian agenda for sustainability transition research
Sustainability transitions research has expanded well beyond its original empirical settings, yet questions remain about how transition perspectives can be meaningfully translated across political economies with distinctive configurations of institutional, geographic, environmental, and historical characteristics. In Canada, these questions are especially salient, as political-economic particularities both complicate the application of transition…
Just transition in place
Just transition (JT) has emerged as a key framework for navigating the overlapping imperatives of sustainability, justice, and political viability. Yet, as the concept has travelled across movements, institutions, and scales of governance, its meanings have multiplied, while urban and suburban spaces remain comparatively peripheral to dominant JT imaginaries. This article develops a multilevel place-based policy-discourse analysis for studying JT…
Community energy justice
The transition to zero‐carbon sustainable energy systems is critical and must take an equity-oriented approach to avoid exacerbating societal injustices. We explore the concept of “community” and its potential as a viable and effective tool for studying, understanding, and fostering justice and equity in energy transitions. This paper outlines community energy justice as an area of scholarship emerging through convergence around three key concept…
The use of green bonds in financing energy retrofits in buildings
Mobilizing infrastructure investments for urban climate action in Africa
This article explores the importance of national governments and national-local relationships for scaling up local climate action to achieve global goals. From the Sustainable Development Goals to the New Urban Agenda to the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the achievement of global sustainability goals will depend on deep changes to national infrastructure and urban systems. Through an analysis of climate action planning and investments in exempl…
Achieving deep-energy retrofits for households in energy poverty
Climate change and energy poverty are two sustainability challenges that can be addressed through deep-energy retrofits for homes. This systematic review identifies which factors influence the achievement of energy retrofits for households vulnerable to energy poverty. It covers both energy-poor households and the landlords or building owners of energy-poor households. The results identify a range of influential factors across several themes: fin…
What’s behind the barriers? Uncovering structural conditions working against urban nature-based solutions
Nature-based solutions (NBS) are a promising and innovative approach to address multiple sustainability challenges faced by cities. Yet, NBS are not integrated into mainstream urban development practices. Based on a qualitative comparative case study of Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, this study shows how barriers to mainstreaming urban NBS are shaped by the structural conditions in urban infrastructure r…
Transnational Governance and the Urban Politics of Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change
Multiple visions for how urbanism can respond to the climate crisis and foster sustainability have emerged on the international agenda, including the ecocity, low-carbon city, smart city, and resilient city. These competing visions have been joined by one deploying “nature-based solutions.” We examine how nature-based solutions are emerging as a linchpin holding together the nature and climate agendas and what this means for where and by whom nat…
Policy mixes for mainstreaming urban nature-based solutions
Nature-based solutions (NBS) are multifunctional and cost-effective innovations delivering urban sustainability, but they are not yet mainstream in urban development. This can be explained by persistent structural conditions in the urban infrastructure regime, resulting in barriers such as lack of collaborative governance, inadequate knowledge and limited funding availability. In this paper we argue that (supra)national governments could play an …
Mainstreaming sustainable innovation
Catalyzing sustainability pathways
Border troubles
Traditional interventions to "bring nature into the city" were often motivated by a concern to create forms of public space which would provide a public good. Despite such well-intentioned motivations, these public forms of urban nature have always been to some extent bounded, serving some in favor of others, authorizing particular uses and forms of behavior as more or less legitimate, and policing the boundaries of who is/not included in such sp…
Nature for Resilience? The Politics of Governing Urban Nature
Transcending initial efforts to make cities ‘climate smart’ by focusing on the potential of new technologies and infrastructural interventions, various actors are increasingly interested in deploying nature to help achieve urban resilience. In this context, rather than taking resilience as a given property of particular systems or entities, it is important to examine why, how, with what implications, and for whom resilience is being enacted. We e…
Technical pathways to deep decarbonization in cities
As the urgency for climate action heightens, local governments and stakeholders are developing pathways towards deep decarbonization at the local level and committing to community-wide greenhouse gas reductions of 80–100% by 2050 or earlier. Urban areas are the largest place-based source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 71%–76% of global emissions. Local governments have direct and indirect control of over a significant proportion of e…
Whose city? Whose nature? Towards inclusive nature-based solution governance
The urban material politics of decarbonization in Stockholm, London and San Francisco
Urban configurations of carbon neutrality
This paper examines configurations of carbon neutrality in the building and energy sector as expressed in the urban governance documents of the members of the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA). ‘Carbon neutrality’ is a mutable idea, which makes it unclear what kinds of future urban systems are imagined. As self-identified pioneers of deep decarbonization, the CNCA members are constructing ideas about what carbon neutral means and how urban sy…
Discourses of carbon neutrality and imaginaries of urban futures
A Century of Progress, 1833-1933
Whose city? Whose nature? Towards inclusive nature-based solution governance
The urban material politics of decarbonization in Stockholm, London and San Francisco
Discourses of carbon neutrality and imaginaries of urban futures
Catalyzing sustainability pathways
Policy mixes for mainstreaming urban nature-based solutions
Nature-based solutions (NBS) are multifunctional and cost-effective innovations delivering urban sustainability, but they are not yet mainstream in urban development. This can be explained by persistent structural conditions in the urban infrastructure regime, resulting in barriers such as lack of collaborative governance, inadequate knowledge and limited funding availability. In this paper we argue that (supra)national governments could play an …
Transnational Governance and the Urban Politics of Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change
Multiple visions for how urbanism can respond to the climate crisis and foster sustainability have emerged on the international agenda, including the ecocity, low-carbon city, smart city, and resilient city. These competing visions have been joined by one deploying “nature-based solutions.” We examine how nature-based solutions are emerging as a linchpin holding together the nature and climate agendas and what this means for where and by whom nat…
Mainstreaming sustainable innovation
Nature for Resilience? The Politics of Governing Urban Nature
Transcending initial efforts to make cities ‘climate smart’ by focusing on the potential of new technologies and infrastructural interventions, various actors are increasingly interested in deploying nature to help achieve urban resilience. In this context, rather than taking resilience as a given property of particular systems or entities, it is important to examine why, how, with what implications, and for whom resilience is being enacted. We e…
Border troubles
Traditional interventions to "bring nature into the city" were often motivated by a concern to create forms of public space which would provide a public good. Despite such well-intentioned motivations, these public forms of urban nature have always been to some extent bounded, serving some in favor of others, authorizing particular uses and forms of behavior as more or less legitimate, and policing the boundaries of who is/not included in such sp…
Technical pathways to deep decarbonization in cities
As the urgency for climate action heightens, local governments and stakeholders are developing pathways towards deep decarbonization at the local level and committing to community-wide greenhouse gas reductions of 80–100% by 2050 or earlier. Urban areas are the largest place-based source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 71%–76% of global emissions. Local governments have direct and indirect control of over a significant proportion of e…
Urban configurations of carbon neutrality
This paper examines configurations of carbon neutrality in the building and energy sector as expressed in the urban governance documents of the members of the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA). ‘Carbon neutrality’ is a mutable idea, which makes it unclear what kinds of future urban systems are imagined. As self-identified pioneers of deep decarbonization, the CNCA members are constructing ideas about what carbon neutral means and how urban sy…
The use of green bonds in financing energy retrofits in buildings
Achieving deep-energy retrofits for households in energy poverty
Climate change and energy poverty are two sustainability challenges that can be addressed through deep-energy retrofits for homes. This systematic review identifies which factors influence the achievement of energy retrofits for households vulnerable to energy poverty. It covers both energy-poor households and the landlords or building owners of energy-poor households. The results identify a range of influential factors across several themes: fin…
A Century of Progress, 1833-1933
Discourses of carbon neutrality and imaginaries of urban futures
Urban configurations of carbon neutrality
This paper examines configurations of carbon neutrality in the building and energy sector as expressed in the urban governance documents of the members of the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance (CNCA). ‘Carbon neutrality’ is a mutable idea, which makes it unclear what kinds of future urban systems are imagined. As self-identified pioneers of deep decarbonization, the CNCA members are constructing ideas about what carbon neutral means and how urban sy…
The urban material politics of decarbonization in Stockholm, London and San Francisco
Whose city? Whose nature? Towards inclusive nature-based solution governance
Technical pathways to deep decarbonization in cities
As the urgency for climate action heightens, local governments and stakeholders are developing pathways towards deep decarbonization at the local level and committing to community-wide greenhouse gas reductions of 80–100% by 2050 or earlier. Urban areas are the largest place-based source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for 71%–76% of global emissions. Local governments have direct and indirect control of over a significant proportion of e…
What’s behind the barriers? Uncovering structural conditions working against urban nature-based solutions
Nature-based solutions (NBS) are a promising and innovative approach to address multiple sustainability challenges faced by cities. Yet, NBS are not integrated into mainstream urban development practices. Based on a qualitative comparative case study of Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, this study shows how barriers to mainstreaming urban NBS are shaped by the structural conditions in urban infrastructure r…
Transnational Governance and the Urban Politics of Nature-Based Solutions for Climate Change
Multiple visions for how urbanism can respond to the climate crisis and foster sustainability have emerged on the international agenda, including the ecocity, low-carbon city, smart city, and resilient city. These competing visions have been joined by one deploying “nature-based solutions.” We examine how nature-based solutions are emerging as a linchpin holding together the nature and climate agendas and what this means for where and by whom nat…
Policy mixes for mainstreaming urban nature-based solutions
Nature-based solutions (NBS) are multifunctional and cost-effective innovations delivering urban sustainability, but they are not yet mainstream in urban development. This can be explained by persistent structural conditions in the urban infrastructure regime, resulting in barriers such as lack of collaborative governance, inadequate knowledge and limited funding availability. In this paper we argue that (supra)national governments could play an …
Mainstreaming sustainable innovation
Catalyzing sustainability pathways
Border troubles
Traditional interventions to "bring nature into the city" were often motivated by a concern to create forms of public space which would provide a public good. Despite such well-intentioned motivations, these public forms of urban nature have always been to some extent bounded, serving some in favor of others, authorizing particular uses and forms of behavior as more or less legitimate, and policing the boundaries of who is/not included in such sp…
Nature for Resilience? The Politics of Governing Urban Nature
Transcending initial efforts to make cities ‘climate smart’ by focusing on the potential of new technologies and infrastructural interventions, various actors are increasingly interested in deploying nature to help achieve urban resilience. In this context, rather than taking resilience as a given property of particular systems or entities, it is important to examine why, how, with what implications, and for whom resilience is being enacted. We e…
Mobilizing infrastructure investments for urban climate action in Africa
This article explores the importance of national governments and national-local relationships for scaling up local climate action to achieve global goals. From the Sustainable Development Goals to the New Urban Agenda to the Paris Climate Change Agreement, the achievement of global sustainability goals will depend on deep changes to national infrastructure and urban systems. Through an analysis of climate action planning and investments in exempl…
Achieving deep-energy retrofits for households in energy poverty
Climate change and energy poverty are two sustainability challenges that can be addressed through deep-energy retrofits for homes. This systematic review identifies which factors influence the achievement of energy retrofits for households vulnerable to energy poverty. It covers both energy-poor households and the landlords or building owners of energy-poor households. The results identify a range of influential factors across several themes: fin…
The use of green bonds in financing energy retrofits in buildings
Community energy justice
The transition to zero‐carbon sustainable energy systems is critical and must take an equity-oriented approach to avoid exacerbating societal injustices. We explore the concept of “community” and its potential as a viable and effective tool for studying, understanding, and fostering justice and equity in energy transitions. This paper outlines community energy justice as an area of scholarship emerging through convergence around three key concept…
Just transition in place
Just transition (JT) has emerged as a key framework for navigating the overlapping imperatives of sustainability, justice, and political viability. Yet, as the concept has travelled across movements, institutions, and scales of governance, its meanings have multiplied, while urban and suburban spaces remain comparatively peripheral to dominant JT imaginaries. This article develops a multilevel place-based policy-discourse analysis for studying JT…
Toward a Canadian agenda for sustainability transition research
Sustainability transitions research has expanded well beyond its original empirical settings, yet questions remain about how transition perspectives can be meaningfully translated across political economies with distinctive configurations of institutional, geographic, environmental, and historical characteristics. In Canada, these questions are especially salient, as political-economic particularities both complicate the application of transition…
Sustainability and Climate Change Governance (14 works) · Political science (13 works) · Business (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Land Use and Ecosystem Services (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Corporate governance (7 works) · Geography (7 works) · Law (7 works)