ABSTRACT
The 1992 Rio process focused on enabling a sustainable agenda for the twenty-first century under the auspices of the United Nations. It encountered a new multilayered and governance-based regulatory regime, a regime that Martin Jänicke has labelled the Rio model of environmental governance (Jänicke 2006). This regime of voluntary approaches to environmental policy innovations, lesson-drawing and policy diffusion is very much a knowledge-driven effort to stimulate commitment to sustainable development. The regime is characterised by long-term goals, sector integration, stakeholder participation and activated self-regulation. Our main interest in this chapter is the challenges to this type of governance for local transition processes of our consumption patterns, production and mobility towards sustainability.
