The 'valuation milieu': Toward a territorial approach to sustainability transitions

During the last decade research in Transition Studies has highlighted the complex and multidimensional dynamics involved in the transformation towards new socio-technical regimes of sustainable development. However, existing analysis have often neglected the territorial dimension of such transformations. To deal more explicitly with this dimension, this article proposes the concept of 'milieu valuateur'. Through a case analysis in the field of energy in the Swiss municipality of Neuchatel, this article illustrates how the reterritorialization of productive capacities at a city scale enables to reconstruct a higher value through demonstration