Papers

• Energy Transition and Entrepreneurship in Southeast Asia Annisa Hartoto University of Zurich

  This contribution examines the evolving role of energy entrepreneurs in driving renewable energy transitions across Southeast Asia, with a focus on Indonesia, Vietnam, and Cambodia. While existing scholarship and policy discourse tend to foreground formal energy entrepreneurs—often characterised as technology providers or market innovators—this paper argues for a broader conceptualisation that centres everyday practices of adaptation, maintenance, and collective learning. Drawing on the newly funded SNSF project OFFGRID: Renewable Energy Futures in Southeast Asia, the paper interrogates how clean energy technologies, particularly small-scale solar systems, are embedded within diverse socio-economic and political contexts across both rural and urban settings.

  Rather than treating energy entrepreneurship as a purely commercial or individualised endeavour, this study highlights the ways in which local communities actively participate in sustaining and reshaping energy infrastructures. In many cases, users of renewable technologies become de facto energy entrepreneurs: acquiring technical skills, organising maintenance networks, and developing informal business models that link livelihood strategies with sustainability goals. This redefinition foregrounds the distributed and relational nature of energy transitions, where innovation emerges not only from formal enterprises but also from grassroots practices.

  The paper further explores the tensions and opportunities associated with these forms of entrepreneurship in contexts marked by inequality, limited state support, and contested resource governance. While community-driven initiatives can enhance access to clean energy and foster locally grounded solutions, they also face significant barriers in terms of financing, scalability, and institutional recognition. By situating energy entrepreneurship within broader debates on environmental justice and alternative development pathways, this contribution underscores the importance of moving beyond technocratic and market-centric narratives.

  Ultimately, the paper calls for a rethinking of renewable energy transitions as socially embedded processes, in which diverse actors—beyond conventional entrepreneurs—play a critical role in shaping sustainable futures.

• Green transition innovation in a changing Southeast Asia Jessica Steinman Erasmus University Rotterdam

  Southeast Asia as a region is dynamic and fast moving, facing urgent environmental challenges. Ranging from climate vulnerability to rapid urbanisation, the crises that the region encounters also serve as a dynamic ground for social enterprises and government or non-governmental agencies that imagine alternative development pathways. However, as “any transition to more sustainable living is neither linear nor purely technical” (Abram, Winthereik, and Yarrow 2019, p.3), the lives of the people impacted by these initiatives are rarely discussed beyond numbers. Many of the times, those programmes, initiatives and business models that aim to provide an ecological and green solution to populations tend to either mask bigger political agenda or at best fail to deliver their promises.
  Fireside chats are informal, conversational discussions focussed on topics that are both of interest to a wider public and experts. Fireside chats are used very frequently not just in policy discussions but also in startup circles to quickly circulate ideas and opinions in an accessible format. This session aims to foster an informal, inclusive atmosphere in which panelists share personal reflections, fieldwork experiences, and critical insights on policy innovations and community-based solutions. How are local entrepreneurs and grassroots organisations driving green transformations beyond state-led agendas? What barriers and opportunities exist for scaling social impact initiatives in contexts of inequality and contested resources? How do emerging models of entrepreneurship intersect with global movements toward environmental justice?
  The session will feature a moderated conversation with 2-3 discussants, drawing on their multidisciplinary experiences. The emphasis on a fireside chat format is intentional: by moving away from formal presentations, the session will create space for candid dialogue and audience engagement, allowing participants to surface new questions and frame future research directions.

• Green transition innovation in a changing Southeast Asia Phuong Nguyen University of Zurich

  Southeast Asia as a region is dynamic and fast moving, facing urgent environmental challenges. Ranging from climate vulnerability to rapid urbanisation, the crises that the region encounters also serve as a dynamic ground for social enterprises and government or non-governmental agencies that imagine alternative development pathways. However, as “any transition to more sustainable living is neither linear nor purely technical” (Abram, Winthereik, and Yarrow 2019, p.3), the lives of the people impacted by these initiatives are rarely discussed beyond numbers. Many of the times, those programmes, initiatives and business models that aim to provide an ecological and green solution to populations tend to either mask bigger political agenda or at best fail to deliver their promises.
  Fireside chats are informal, conversational discussions focussed on topics that are both of interest to a wider public and experts. Fireside chats are used very frequently not just in policy discussions but also in startup circles to quickly circulate ideas and opinions in an accessible format. This session aims to foster an informal, inclusive atmosphere in which panelists share personal reflections, fieldwork experiences, and critical insights on policy innovations and community-based solutions. How are local entrepreneurs and grassroots organisations driving green transformations beyond state-led agendas? What barriers and opportunities exist for scaling social impact initiatives in contexts of inequality and contested resources? How do emerging models of entrepreneurship intersect with global movements toward environmental justice?
  The session will feature a moderated conversation with 2-3 discussants, drawing on their multidisciplinary experiences. The emphasis on a fireside chat format is intentional: by moving away from formal presentations, the session will create space for candid dialogue and audience engagement, allowing participants to surface new questions and frame future research directions.

• From Frontier to Foundation: Uneven Urbanization and the Paradox of the Green Transition in Indonesia’s New Capital Erlis Saputra Universitas Gadjah Mada Janwillem Liebrand Utrecht University Kei Otsuki Utrecht University Rijanta Rijanta Universitas Gadjah Mada Rizki Adriadi Ghiffari Utrecht University

  Indonesia’s development of a new capital city, Ibu Kota Nusantara (IKN), is framed by a state narrative of high-modernism: a “green” and “net-zero” forest city. However, this state-led green transition initiative with centralized renewable energy vision contrast sharply with the material reality of the city’s construction in the frontier zone of Kalimantan Island. Existing scholarship often positions informality as a temporary gap-filler or a mode of resistance. This research challenges that perspective by investigating how the state tacitly relies on informal, carbon-intensive infrastructures as to sustain the IKN construction. This study investigates the material politics of energy in and around IKN in how informal energy supply channels reorganizing to drive the urbanization in a state-led “green” capital. Employing a qualitative case study, data was collected through sequential fieldwork in 2024 and 2025. This research utilized “follow-the-thing” ethnography, tracing the flows of diverted oil fuel to mobility vehicles and construction machineries across administrative boundaries; In-depth interviews, capturing practices of fuel brokers, informal retailers, and local contractors operating these shadow channels. Findings reveal that official supply channels and informal brokerage co-produce the city’s energy provisioning. First, fuel in IKN is supplied not only by formal entities but also by fuel brokers who govern the logistics of the city’s construction, transforming from marginal actors into foundational intermediaries. Second, the “net-zero” policy has restricted the expansion of formal petrol stations that paradoxically forced construction vehicles to depend on the black market for oil fuel. The state tacitly allows this illegality to avoid halting construction. Third, the “Forest City” is actively being built by informal, carbon-intensive infrastructures instead of replacing them. A just energy transition requires recognizing these informal brokers as the de facto transitional actors of the urban frontier, prompting critical dialogue on how green transformations impact communities beyond state-led agendas.

• Jasnea Sarma University of Zurich

Abstract

Keywords

• Southeast Asia
• environmental justice
• grassroots organisations
• green transformations
• sustainable development