The thorny road towards green path development: the case of bioplastics in Lower Austria

This article contributes to a better understanding of how heterogeneous innovation system actors shape green industrial path development. Previous research has identified various forces of stability that reside within place-specific and non-local innovation system structures and advanced our understanding of the role of change agency in rearranging these structures to facilitate green transitions. Failures to reconfigure innovation systems have received limited attention so far. Drawing on recent insights into the role of maintenance agency, we cast light on how powerful actors undertake strategic interventions to prevent rearrangements of innovation systems from happening. Our empirical analysis of the emerging bioplastics path in the region of Lower Austria reveals how resistive incumbents from the fossil-based plastics industry, academia and support organisations preserve historically grown system configurations that favour the old unsustainable industry and create barriers to the consolidation of the bioplastics path.