Affecting the sustainability innovation acceptance through systematic mapping and re-employing of actors, the case of a renewable energy project

Despite the publicly recognised need to switch to renewable energy for the sake of sustainability and the existence of a solid technical base for that, the efforts to implement such solutions often fail due to the social and business sector resistance, or an unfavourable regulatory environment. However, history shows that most innovations have to undergo transformations until they are accepted. The paper presents the method for systematically tracking and managing the factors affecting the success of renewable energy projects. The method is based on actor-network theory, which is intended for exploring the history of innovations’ acceptance by mapping the controversies in the networks consisting of human and non-human actors and their relations. It is proposed in the paper that such mapping is an effective tool for assessing the current state of innovative renewable energy projects and bringing them forward to the desired outcome. It is to be reached by systematically tracking the actors in the programme, i.e. the necessary people, technologies and other factors substituting the solution, and the anti-programme, i.e. the human and non-human actors preventing the solution implementation project from success, and attempting to enrol the latter into the programme of the project or neutralise them.