Collaboration for Sustainable Development: Interrelating Practice and Challenges

Paper in proceeding, 2018

As achieving environmental sustainability is a complex problem, it isoften recognized that no organization can accomplish this systemic change by itself, thus multi-actor collaboration is needed. Also regarding the specific issue of increased energy efficiency, previous research has highlighted the need for  collaboration and knowledge exchange. However, we know from the literature, that despite all good intentions, establishing multi-actor collaboration can  be bothcomplicated and difficult in practice. In this paper, we present a qualitative study of an emerging collaboration aiming for increased energy efficiency within the shipping industry. The overall aim of the study is to gain a more profound understanding of the organizing of multi-actor collaboration aiming at creating prerequisites for innovation related to sustainable development. Through an ethnographic-inspired approach, we are guided by the research question: How do practices and experienced challenges influence the development of emerging collaboration?