Exploring the Challenge for Sustainable Development in the Energy Sector: Sociomaterial View of two British and Nigerian cases

The global pressure on green environment has been a major issue to attaining future Sustainable Development (SD). In this study, the researchers explore the recent challenges of SD in the power sectors in the UK (as a European North country) and in Nigeria (as an African South country). These two contexts have witnessed unstable epileptic power supply despite the trillions of dollars invested in the sector. To avoid solving the sustainability problem and causing other economic, social, or environmental problems, a thread of scholarly work attempted to develop a systemic approach of SD. Aiming to offer an appreciative systemic lens of SD (Thatchenkery et.al, 2010), we adopted the sociomaterily concept to shed the light on the intimacy between the social/organisational context and the resource-based/material context of SD. Sociomaterilaity emphasizes on the ongoing interaction between technology and the economic, social, and environmental pillars of sustainability. This systemic view of SD avoids the defects of other dominant views such as complexity theory (Sabau, 2010), neoclassical economics/ free market approaches (Heikkurinen & Bonnedahl, 2013), and ecological economics (Lele, 1991).