Sustainability experiment led by city government
Lessons from Shenzhen’s waste management
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19486459 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Shengnan Wang (0000-0002-2897-9260, Australian National University), Bernhard Truffer (0000-0002-8635-0911, Utrecht University), Xuemei Bai (0000-0001-6556-8041, Australian National University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 60 |
| Pages | 101136 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2210-4224 • E-ISSN: 2210-4232 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.eist.2026.101136 |
| OpenAlex | W7153265605 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 57 |
Urban waste management has become a key area for collaborative experimental interventions in China. These experiments are often led by city governments, yet little is known about their internal processes and dynamics. This study examines Shenzhen’s “Dandelion Plan,” a city-led sustainability experiment that later became a national model for urban waste governance. Using socio-technical configuration analysis, interviews, and focus groups, this study traces the experiment’s progression, actor roles, challenges, and strategies that shaped its trajectory. Findings show that: 1) diverse of actors, including civil society, businesses, and lower-level governments are mobilized; 2) the city government identifies, engages, and empowers these actors in complementary ways; and 3) actors adjust strategies across stages to anchor, transpose, and amplify outcomes. The case may offer broader insights into how city governments can foster innovation through leadership, coordination, and civic engagement in highly centralized governance contexts
Cleaner production · Sustainability · Sustainability science · Sustainable development · Urban Sustainability · Waste recycling · Municipal Solid Waste Management · Recycled Aggregate Concrete Performance · Sustainable Industrial Ecology
What a Waste
Sustainability transitions in the making
Local and global dynamics in technological development
The role of partnerships in ‘realising’ urban sustainability in Rotterdam's City Ports Area, The Netherlands
Experimental governance
Scaling the impact of sustainability initiatives
The role of intermediaries in low carbon transitions – Empowering innovations to unlock district heating in the UK
Experimenting for sustainability transitions
Impacts of urban living labs on sustainability transitions
Scaling Out, Scaling Up, Scaling Deep
A proposed theoretical framework for actors in transformative change
Linking Urbanization and the Environment
Experiments and evidence in sustainability science
Importance of Actors and Agency in Sustainability Transitions
Government-affiliated intermediary organisations as actors in system-level transitions
What is protective space? Reconsidering niches in transitions to sustainability
The evolving roles of actors in sustainability experiments
Pathways towards successful urban community waste management
The changing role of the state
Urban living labs
Sustainability experiments in Asia
Urban sustainability experiments in Asia
From Local Experiments to National Policy
Grassroots innovations in community energy
Shenzhen – A typical benchmark of Chinese rapid urbanization miracle
Local Government and the Governing of Climate Change in Germany and the UK
Government by experiment? Global cities and the governing of climate change
Partnership building? Government-led NGO participation in China’s grassroots waste governance
Co-governance or meta-bureaucracy? Perspectives of local governance ‘partnership’ in England and Scotland
Governing the Hollow State
Inter-regional diffusion of policy innovation in China
Space and scale in socio-technical transitions
How global regimes diffuse in space – Explaining a missed transition in San Diego's water sector
The Role of Global Actors in Sustainability Transitions – Tracing the Emergence of a Novel Infrastructure Paradigm in the Sanitation Sector
Learning for transitions
Co-producing urban sustainability transitions knowledge with community, policy and science
Grassroots innovations for sustainable development
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |