The Multi-Sectoral Interactions of Electrification in Norwegian Coastal Shipping

Existing literature has seldom sought to achieve a holistic perspective of the different inter-industrial dynamics associated with sustainability transitions. This book chapter provides the first empirical application of ‘Multi-sectoral perspective’—a recently proposed framework to conceptualize such dynamics—to a case study: electrification of Norwegian coastal shipping. We ask: how have multi-sectoral interactions affected the electrification of Norwegian maritime sector? Our analysis shows that the framework is useful in providing an overarching and systematized analytical perspective to understand the implications of a diverse set of multi-sectoral interactions for transitions. It enables the basic typology for differentiating between different types of multi-sectoral interactions, namely “horizontal” throughput interactions, “vertical” technology component interactions, and “adjacent” interactions with other value chains. Multi-sectoral perspective thus provides a heuristic that helps analysts and practitioners to analyse and make sense of the multi-sectoral complexities of real-world transition processes.