Understanding and promoting sustainability is one of the key concerns across research, policy-making and everyday lifestyle choices. At the same time, there is growing acknowledgement that responding to sustainability challenges such as biodiversity loss, climate justice and decarbonisation, among others, is rife with differences about what sustainability transformation means and implies across different settings, including the Baltic. The multifaceted character of the sustainability conundrum highlights a range of interrelated questions. For example, what repercussions the promotion of local solutions may have for long-term sustainability paths at national, regional and global levels? How to value ethical, political, social and scientific views on which problems to prioritise and whose knowledge counts? In response, universities are increasingly partnering with stakeholders in solution-oriented sustainability research projects. We understand sustainability transformations as fundamental to how societal, institutional, and technological domains interact towards just, legitimate and enduring arrangements. This perspective provides opportunities to reflect on the complexities of societal change towards sustainability, including who should be involved in partnering for change, what constitutes positive change in particular contexts, how change could come about as well as who benefits and who loses. We relate to these questions with illustrations from research projects undertaken in the Baltic and beyond.

Despite the challenges of decarbonisation faced by the shipping sector, this topic has rarely been addressed in sustainability transitions studies. This paper questions common views of established firms as agents resisting change and broadens discussions on the role of incumbents and strategic reorientation. Using the dynamic capabilities approach, we provide a deeper understanding of firms’ strategic reorientation over time. Qualitative content analysis is applied to data from interviews, companies’ reports and observations to address questions on how and why incumbent shipping firms in the Baltic Sea region reoriented towards decarbonisation in 2007−2018. We demonstrate that the engagement in decarbonisation has been a gradual process, characterised by a shift from reactive strategies to a mixed portfolio of integrated active and proactive innovation strategies. Although firms experiment with decarbonisation through alternative energy solutions, they simultaneously continue to devote considerable attention to less radical innovations such as increased energy efficiency.

The role of tools and approaches is currently much debated in maritime spatial planning (MSP). Past evaluation has mainly concentrated on decision support tools and the tangible outputs these can provide for MSP, but little attention has so far been been given to the soft or indirect benefits tool use can have in MSP. This paper assesses the potential benefits of tool use in the context of four common integration challenges in MSP. Drawing on case study material from the Baltic Sea region, the paper reviews the potential contribution of five selected tools and approaches to multi-level and transboundary, policy and sector, stakeholder and knowledge integration. Specific end points are defined for each integration challenge, including general desired outcomes of integrated MSP processes as a template for assessment. Our review shows that the selected tools play different roles in moving towards the various end points of MSP integration. There is an important difference between the potential of each tool, or its inherent capacity, and how it is applied, e.g. in a participative or non-participative setting. Another lesson is that some integration benefits can be achieved by the tools alone, while others – often secondary benefits - depend on how the outcomes of tool use are taken up by the subsequent MSP process. Although the nature of a tool does restrict its potential contribution to MSP integration challenges, the secondary “soft” benefits that can be achieved through certain styles of application and good links to the MSP process can add important integration benefits up and beyond the tool itself. The results presented here may also be relevant to other types of spatial planning and conservation management.

Over-fishing and eutrophication (too much nutrients) are among the most severe threats to the ecosystems of the Baltic Sea and the ecosystem services they provide. Despite the well-known fact that effective and sustainable management requires cooperation – among as well as within states – appropriate frameworks that work have not yet been constructed and successfully applied. This report summarises findings from a research project on cooperation for sustainable marine governance of the Baltic Sea carried out between 2013 and 2018. Three aspects of central relevance for the understanding of regional cooperation in environmental governance are distinguished: interests, knowledge and management. It is shown that it is not enough to design cooperative arrangements that make the group of users, stakeholders or states better off than without such an arrangement. It is furthermore required that all actors have individual interests to participate, and that free-riding on others’ contributions can be controlled. When this is not the case, effective abatement of eutrophication is not likely to be forthcoming, even though aggregated benefits from such measures are larger than expected costs.

Knowledge often play important roles in marine environmental governance, not least in relation to so-called epistemic communities, that is, groups of experts that share a common understanding of the environmental problem at hand, and how to address it. It is shown that the coherence of the epistemic group can be a crucial factor influencing its impact. In both abatement of eutrophication and management of fish stocks, these expert groups have been somewhat divided, which has limited their impact.

Modes of management can influence cooperation and outcomes in ways that can be difficult to predict. Although environmental taxes and subsidies are powerful policy instruments in contemporary governance, they must be carefully crafted to fit into exiting norms and contexts to be effective. It is shown that monetary incentives targeting farmers’ use of fertilisers tend not to be effective when they are at odds with deeply held norms on what constitute a “good farmer”. 

The EU MSP Directive is an example of a so-called new generation directive, which gives Member States room foradaptation to national contexts. The main objective in this article is to identify and analyse potential obstacles toeffective and efficient planning caused by the diversity among national MSP frameworks that the Directive'sbroad regulatory boundaries have led to. It is shown that planning approaches can differ substantially betweenneighbouring countries, which can make it challenging to coordinate across national borders. Divergence betweennational MSP frameworks can also emerge from how political, jurisdictional and, administrative systemsand traditions are organised in different Member States. It is shown that neighbouring countries can divergesubstantially in how the ecological, economic and social dimensions of sustainability are balanced, which canmake transnational coordination challenging. Furthermore, it is shown that stakeholder consultations differamong Member States in terms of, for example, who were invited, how the consultations were undertaken, andthe role they play in relation to political decision-making. Because of these, and other differences in how MSPframeworks are being developed in the Member States, it is suggested that regional integration should bepromoted with discretion. From this perspective, it seems reasonable to embrace diversity, while simultaneouslypromoting the adaptive management of coordination problems at lower levels, when, or if, they emerge or canbe foreseen. Thus, increased integration of national MSP frameworks should be viewed as an instrument toreduce concrete efficiency losses, rather than as an intrinsic good.

The EU Maritime Spatial Planning Directive (MSP Directive) from 2014 is an example of a so-called new generation directive, which gives Member States room for adaptation to national contexts. Because of this larger room for adaptation, transposition becomes a process of designing domestic policy frameworks that fulfil the broad requirements of the Directive, rather than a simple and linear implementation procedure. However, allowing Member States to design marine spatial planning frameworks that fit domestic contexts, have thus far meant that regional coherence suffers. Although the pivotal role of transnational coordination is emphasised in the Directive, it does not stipulate how to set up such coordination, and the Member States have not yet been able to achieve much of self-organising in this area.A closer look is in this report taken on four policy-dimensions that are emphasised in the MSP Directive: Planning approach, Organisation, Sustainability, and Stakeholder inclusion. Based on in-depth case studies carried out in the BALTSPACE research project on MSP frameworks in Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Sweden, examples of coordination and coherency challenges are described and discussed for each dimension.It is shown that planning approaches can differ substantially between neighbouring countries, which can make it challenging to coordinate across country borders. Even though they share the same (EU) regulatory pressures, Latvia and Lithuania, for example, are developing national MSP frameworks based on quite different conceptual foundations. Whereas Latvia has taken the Ecosystem Approach as a point of departure for constructing a new MSP framework, Lithuania has instead chosen to adapt existing functional zoning approaches to management of maritime areas. Such diversity may be possible to explain because of differing domestic contexts, but may nevertheless lead to coordination problems when coordination is needed.Divergence between national MSP frameworks can also emerge from different political, jurisdictional and, administrative systems and traditions, that is, in societal organisation. In an example based on case studies undertaken in Denmark and Sweden, it is shown that degree of societal centralisation and distribution of political power can be related to differences in how environmental protection and blue growth are prioritised. However, it is difficult to tell whether diverging prioritisations have led to differences on organisation, or of it is the other way around, that differences in organisation have led to diverging prioritisations.It is stated in the MSP Directive that the overarching objective is to promote sustainable development. The focus on sustainable development can be said to reflect the Directive’s new generation characteristics. The concept of sustainable development is broad and imprecise, which facilitates political agreement. However, when more precise details must be addressed, disagreements may surface that make implementation challenging. In cases where neighbouring countries diverge substantially on how ecological, economic and social sustainable ought to be balanced, finding agreements on how to coordinate policies and practices, when needed, can be difficult. Based on case studies in Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, and Sweden, it is, for example, argued that adoption of functional zoning or the Ecosystem Approach may not say much about how ecological, economic, and social dimensions are prioritised in different countries.Stakeholder consultations of some kind have historically been undertaken in all Baltic Sea countries. However, how such consultations have been undertaken, who have been invited, and the role the consultations play in relation to political decision-making differ, as shown in examples from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Poland. Because the MSP Directive is silent on how to design stakeholder consultations – it only says that they should be held – there is no political pressure on regional coordination. It is not clear from our data if these differences cause efficiency losses due to coordination deficits, but a reasonable assumption is that when, for example, marine natural resources are shared between two or more countries, jointly designed and undertaken consultations on specific transboundary issues potentially can promote transparency, understanding, and coordination.In conclusion, it is suggested that while regional coherency is often called for as a means to reduce inefficiencies, it might not be a good idea to integrate without discretion. Considering that the MSP Directive allows domestic context to matter when Member States design national MSP frameworks and that adaptation to domestic context is likely to reduce implantation gaps and increase the legitimacy of marine spatial planning, a more reasonable objective can be to embrace domestic diversity, while simultaneously adaptively promoting possibilities to solve coordination problems at lower levels, if they emerge or can be foreseen. From this perspective, increased coherence is a tool to reduce efficiency losses, rather than an intrinsic good.

Despite the increasing attention given to marine spatial planning and the widely acknowledged need for transnational policy coordination, regional coherence has not yet improved a great deal in the Baltic Sea region. Therefore, the main objectives in this article are: (a) to map existing governance structures at all levels that influence how domestic marine spatial planning policy strategies are formed, (b) to identify specific challenges to improved regional cooperation and coordination, and (c) to discuss possible remedies. Based on data from in-depth case studies carried out in the BONUS BALTSPACE research project, it is shown that, despite the shared goal of sustainability and efficient resource use in relevant EU Directives, action plans and other policy instruments, domestic plans are emerging in diverse ways, mainly reflecting varying domestic administrative structures, sectoral interests, political prioritisations, and handling of potentially conflicting policy objectives. A fruitful distinction can be made between, on the one hand, regulatory institutions and structures above the state level where decision-making mechanisms are typically grounded in consensual regimes and, on the other hand, bilateral, issue-specific collaboration, typically between adjacent countries. It is argued that, to improve overall marine spatial planning governance, these two governance components need to be brought together to improve consistency between regional alignment and to enhance opportunities for countries to collaborate at lower levels. Issue-specific transnational working groups or workshops can be one way to identify and act upon such potential synergies.

This report is part of the BONUS BALTSPACE project and is focused on challenges for policy and sector integration in Baltic Sea marine spatial planning (MSP). The main objectives have been to identify concrete coordination problems, to analyse why they have emerged and to discuss possible remedies. It is based on selected aspects extracted from case studies carried out in this project related to the development of regional MSP approaches in Denmark, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Sweden and on an additional case study on the HELCOM-VASAB Working Group on MSP. To facilitate the analysis of vertical policy interactions between institutions at different levels as well as of horizontal interactions over sector and country borders, an analytical framework was constructed. This framework consists of two main components; (a) institution-driven coordination where institutions such as global treaties, the EU, regional organisations, and state authorities provide boundaries for decisions taken at lower levels and (b) benefit-driven coordination capturing horizontal coordination across sector and country borders.