The ‘niche’ is a central concept in sustainability transitions. However, its mobilisation in analytical practice raises two concerns. The first stems from socio-technical determinism vis-à-vis technological flexibility and the risk that technologies become a priori linked to societal functions. The second actualises when emerging niches become framed, from the outset, in terms of their positive potential for socio-technical system change; making it difficult to ask normative questions about the dimensions that should count for transitions. Using the concept of economisation, we analyse the diversity of niche configurations that all make use of the same technological core to generate economic value. We examine Finnish biogas production, a potentially disruptive technology, without making any a priori assumptions about relevant regime interactions and forms of niche protection. We show that economisation affects the resources recovered and the outputs that remain mere externalities: indicating that some niche configurations are not as sustainable as others.

“利基市场”是可持续性转型的核心概念。但是，它在分析实践中的动员引起了两个关注。首先源于相对于技术灵活性的社会技术决定论以及技术成为与社会功能联系起来的先验风险。第二种情况是，新兴的利基市场从一开始就根据其对社会技术系统变化的积极潜力加以界定；使得很难就应该涉及的维度提出规范性问题计算过渡。使用节约的概念，我们分析了利基配置的多样性，这些利基配置都利用相同的技术核心来产生经济价值。我们研究了芬兰沼气的生产，这是一种潜在的破坏性技术，没有对相关制度之间的相互作用和特殊环境保护形式做出任何先验假设。我们表明，节约会影响回收的资源和仅是外部性的产出：表明某些生态位配置不如其他生态位可持续。