There are international activities and on-going initiatives, particularly at the European level, to define what Positive Energy Districts should be, as the driving concept for the urban transition to a sustainable future. The first objective of the paper is to contribute to the on-going and lively debate about the definition of the notion of Sustainable Plus Energy Neighbourhood (SPEN), which highlights the multiple dimensions when talking about sustainability in districts moving beyond the traditional and strict building energy assessment. Based on a holistic methodology which ensures the consideration of the multidimensional nature and goals of SPEN, the paper outlines an evaluation framework. The evaluation framework defines the key performance indicators distributed in five categories that consider energy and power performance, GHG emissions, indoor environmental quality, smartness, flexibility, life cycle costs and social sustainability. This framework is designed to be implemented during integrated design processes aiming to select design options for a neighbourhood as well within during the operational phase for monitoring its performance. Further work will include the implementation and validation of the framework in four real-life positive energy neighbourhoods in different climate zones of Europe as part of syn.ikia H2020 project.

The Positive Energy District (PED) concept is a localized city and district level response to the challenges of greenhouse gas emission reduction and energy transition. With the Strategic Energy Transition (SET) Plan aiming to establish 100 PEDs by 2025 in Europe, a number of PED projects are emerging in the EU member states. While the energy transition is mainly focusing on technical innovations, social innovation is crucial to guarantee the uptake and deployment of PEDs in the built environment. We set the spotlight on Norway, which, to date, has three PED projects encompassing 12 PED demo sites in planning and early implementation stages, from which we extract approaches for social innovations and discuss how these learnings can contribute to further PED planning and implementation. We describe the respective approaches and learnings for social innovation of the three PED projects, ZEN, +CityxChange and syn.ikia, in a multiple case study approach. Through the comparison of these projects, we start to identify social innovation approaches with different scopes regarding citizen involvement, stakeholder interaction and capacity building. These insights are also expected to contribute to further planning and design of PED projects within local and regional networks (PEDs in Nordic countries) and contribute to international PED concept development.

Purpose: – The purpose of this paper is to systematically review the relationship and networking strategy tools in the IMP literature. It proposes six dimensions for characterizing such tools: approach to tool development, level (and layer) of analysis, perspective of interaction, activities of network strategizing, external or internal orientation and use for “strategizing on” vs “strategizing in” relationships and networks. Design/methodology/approach: – The paper uses a manual qualitative content analysis approach and an inductive approach, well suited for extracting relationship and networking strategy tools due to their implicit and dispersed nature. Findings: – The paper presents an IMP toolbox comprising a wide variety of relationship and networking strategy tools emphasizing interconnectedness, interdependence and limited managerial autonomy, as well as an analysis of how identified tools are positioned along each of the six proposed dimensions. Research limitations/implications: – This paper contributes a conceptual framework with a vocabulary to content analyze and discuss relationship and networking strategy tools in IMP research. Practical implications: – The IMP toolbox may be a useful point of departure for managers who feel a need for developing and using a mix of tools for strategizing in business relationships and networks. Originality/value: – The paper instills a strategy tool lens in the IMP literature and foregrounds strategizing concepts and techniques that were previously difficult to attend to for both researchers and practitioners.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the strategic management concept of “strategy tools” (STs) can be reinterpreted from an industrial network perspective. It considers how STs are used to influence the substance of relationships and how firms engage in strategic action by using such tools. Design/methodology/approach: Using case study research involving three focal firms, the paper scrutinizes use of selected STs to examine how they are used to systematically relate to others and create benefits and affect development paths in business relationships. Findings: STs can be viewed as an integrated part of a networking pattern of mobilizing resources, linking activities and relating actors. Seen in this manner, use of STs can be interaction-facilitating or interaction-creating. Research limitations/implications: In an interactive approach, STs must be seen in relation to others as they are used in strategic (co-)action to engage and involve others. In this view, tools are strategic when used to affect the long-term development of important business relationships. Practical implications: Practitioners should acknowledge that the use of a ST to handle counterparts is emerging, and valuable only in relation to specific others. Because the value of STs is unknowable until it is revealed how they can affect the substance of a specific relationship, there is no best-practice or one-size-fits-all approach. Originality/value: This paper illuminates the phenomenon of “strategy tools” by considering it from both sides of the business exchange interface.

One contributor’s name was missing in the original version of the authorship of the paper