Constructing grassroots innovations for sustainability

One of the cleavages within sustainable development is division between grassroots environmental action, often deemed good on participation terms, and green innovation, usually centred on technologies in firms and deemed good for ecological modernisation. This special section is dedicated to an obvious and missing connection: grassroots innovation for sustainability. Grassroots innovations typically involve networks of activists and organisations generating novel bottom-up solutions for sustainable development; solutions that respond to the local situation and the interests and values of the communities involved (Seyfang and Smith, 2007). What they share is commitment on the part of those involved towards openness and inclusion in the processes of innovation and the outputs of innovation. Research is still needed that considers whether and how grassroots innovators network with one another; the extent to which movements for grassroots innovation approaches exist and how they operate; whether and how innovations diffuse through processes of replication, scaling-up, and translation into institutions; and whether or not these developments constitute alternative pathways for sustainability. The empirical contributions in this special section consider the dilemmas of going to scale, the challenges of moving from innovation to institutionalisation, and the risks of capture and instrumentality when grassroots innovations encounter more powerful political economies of conventional innovation systems (see also Smith et al., 2013). A recurring theme is diversity in innovation for sustainability; which might be served best by resisting pressures to mainstream, yet simultaneously generates accusations of marginality. In highlighting these themes and introducing the special section, we use a particular example, the Brighton Earthship, and which all contributing authors visited as part of a research workshop on grassroots innovation held at Sussex University in May 2012 and that led to the papers here

Growing green money? Mapping community currencies for sustainable development

Parallel sustainable monetary systems are being developed by civil society groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), informed by ecological economics perspectives on development, value, economic scale and growth, and responding to the unsustainability of current global financial systems. These parallel systems of exchange (or community currencies) are designed to promote sustainable development by localising economic development, building social capital and substituting for material consumption, valuing work which is marginalised in conventional labour markets, and challenging the growth-based monetary system. However, this international movement towards community-based ecological economic practices, is under-researched. This paper presents new empirical evidence from the first international study of the scope and character of community currencies. It identifies the diversity, scale, geography and development trajectory of these initiatives, discusses the implications of these findings for efforts to achieve sustainable development, and identifies future research needs, to help harness the sustainability potential of these initiatives. © 2012 Elsevier B.V

Community innovation for sustainable energy

As in other countries, there is a growing public, policy and business interest in the UK in the roles and potential of community-led initiatives for sustainable energy consumption and production. Such initiatives include green lifestyle-based activities to reduce energy consumption (e.g. Transition Towns, and Carbon Reduction Action Groups), more traditional behaviour change initiatives such as neighbourhood insulation projects and energy-saving campaigns, as well as renewable energy generation projects such as community-owned windfarms and biofuel projects. Case studies of specific projects identify a variety of rationales amongst participants, whilst policy interest suggests a more instrumental concern for facilitating additional, larger-scale sustainable energy transitions. Amongst participant rationales are ideas that bottom-up, community-based projects deliver energy savings and behaviour changes that top-down policy instruments cannot achieve, due to the greater local knowledge and engagement they embody, the sense of common ownership and empowerment, and the social capital and trust that is generated among local actors. These resources provide organisational and values-based 'grassroots innovations' which experiment with new consumption practices based on alternative 'new economics' values. However, previous research shows 'grassroots innovations' face a series of critical challenges requiring support to overcome, in order to achieve their potential benefits more widely. This includes developing 'niche' networks for mobilising reforms both to highly centralised energy institutions and infrastructures, as well as deeply ingrained social practices of 'normal' energy consumption and everyday life. What makes this experience fascinating for the purposes of the SCORAI workshop is the way these community-based initiatives are trying to develop new energy-related consumption practices with a view to the socio-technical transition to local, renewable or lower carbon energy systems. Understandably, many projects remain practically focused on securing early successes and resourcing their long-term survival. However, the institutional and infrastructure reforms that will help in this endeavour require strategies for addressing the wider (national and international) political economy of consumption which adopts an ecological modernisation approach to sustainability. In surveying the community energy scene in the UK, our paper pays particular attention to this last issue

A grassroots sustainable energy niche? Reflections on community energy case studies

System changing innovations for sustainability transitions are proposed to emerge in radical innovative niches. ‘Strategic Niche Management’ theory predicts that niche level actors and networks will aggregate learning from local projects, distilling and disseminating best practice. This should lower the bar for new projects to form and establish, thereby encouraging the innovation to diffuse through replication. Within this literature, grassroots innovations emerging from civil society are an under researched site of sociotechnical innovation for sustainable energy transitions. We consider the emerging community energy sector in the UK, in order to empirically test this model. Community energy is a diverse grassroots led sector including both demand and supply side initiatives for sustainable energy such as community owned renewable energy generation, village hall refurbishments, behaviour change initiatives and energy efficiency projects. Our analysis draws on in depth qualitative case study research with twelve local projects, and a study of how intermediary organisations aim to support local projects and encourage replication. This rich data allows us to examine the extent and nature of interactions between projects and intermediary actors in order to evaluate the utility of niche theories in the civil society context. In particular, we investigate which types of knowledge, support and resources were needed by our case study projects to become established and thrive, and compare and contrast this with those offered by the emerging community energy niche. Our findings indicate that while networking and intermediary organisations can effectively collate and spread some types of learning and information necessary for replication, this is not sufficient: tacit knowledge, trust and confidence are essential to these projects’ success, but are more difficult to abstract and translate to new settings. We draw out the implications of our findings for niche theory, for community energy and other grassroots practitioners aiming to build robust influential niches, and for policymakers eager to harness civil society’s innovative potential for sustainability

A grassroots sustainable energy niche? Reflections on community energy in the UK

System-changing innovations for sustainability transitions are pro- posed to emerge in radical innovative niches. ‘Strategic Niche Management’ theory predicts that niche-level actors and networks will aggregate learning from local projects, disseminating best practice, and encouraging innovation diffusion. Grassroots inno- vations emerging from civil society are under-researched, and so we investigate the UK community energy sector to empirically test this model. Our analysis draws on qualitative case study research with local projects, and a study of how intermediary organisa- tions support local projects. We examine the extent and nature of interactions and resource flows between projects and intermediary actors in order to evaluate the utility of niche theories in the civil society context. While networking and intermediary organisations can effectively spread some types of learning necessary for diffu- sion, this is not sufficient: tacit knowledge, trust and confidence are essential to these projects’ success, but are more difficult to abstract and translate to new settings. We discuss the implications of our findings for niche theory, for community energy and other grass- roots practitioners aiming to build robust influential niches, and for policymakers

What Influences the Diffusion of Grassroots Innovations for Sustainability? Investigating Community Currency Niches

Community action for sustainability is a promising site of socio-technical innovation. Here we test the applicability of co-evolutionary niche theories of innovation diffusion (Strategic Niche Management, SNM) to the context of ‘grassroots innovations’. We present new empirical findings from an international study of 12 community currency niches (such as LETS, time banks, local currencies). These are parallel systems of exchange, designed to operate alongside mainstream money, meeting additional sustainability needs. Our findings confirm SNM predictions that niche-level activity correlates with diffusion success, but we highlight additional or confounding factors, and how niche theories might be adapted to better fit civil-society innovations. In so doing, we develop a model of grassroots innovation niche diffusion which builds on existing work and tailors it to this specific context. The paper concludes with a series of theoretically-informed recommendations for practitioners and policymakers to support the development and potential of grassroots innovations

Community action for sustainable housing: Building a low-carbon future

This paper presents a new analytical framework of 'grassroots innovations' which views community-led initiatives for sustainable development as strategic green niches with the potential for wider transformation of mainstream society. This framework is applied to a low-carbon, low-impact, community-based sustainable housing initiative in the USA that pioneers straw bale housing techniques within a strong community-building ethos. The project is evaluated according to New Economics criteria of sustainable consumption, and is found to be successful at localising the construction supply chain, reducing ecological footprints, community-building, enabling collective action and building new institutions and systems of provision around housebuilding. However, viewing it as a strategic niche with aim to influence wider society, it is clear that it faces significant challenges in diffusing its ideas and practices beyond the niche. Its model is not necessarily suitable for scaling up or widespread replication; however, the scope for niche lessons to be adopted by mainstream builders is greater, given a supportive policy environment. Recognising the innovative nature of green niches at the policy level could lead to new approaches to governance of bottom-up community action for sustainable development

Desperately seeking niches: Grassroots innovations and niche development in the community currency field

The sustainability transitions literature seeks to explain the conditions under which technological innovations can diffuse and disrupt existing socio-technical systems through the successful scaling up of experimental ‘niches’; but recent research on ‘grassroots innovations’ argues that civil society is a promising but under-researched site of innovation for sustainability, albeit one with very different characteristics to the market-based innovation normally considered in the literature. This paper aims to address that research gap by exploring the relevance of niche development theories in a civil society context. To do this, we examine a growing grassroots innovation – the international field of community currencies – which comprises a range of new socio-technical configurations of systems of exchange which have emerged from civil society over the last 30 years, intended to provide more environmentally and socially sustainable forms of money and finance. We draw on new empirical research from an international study of these initiatives comprising primary and secondary data and documentary sources, elite interviews and participant observation in the field. We describe the global diffusion of community currencies, and then conduct a niche analysis to evaluate the utility of niche theories for explaining the development of the community currency movement. We find that some niche-building processes identified in the existing literature are relevant in a grassroots context: the importance of building networks, managing expectations and the significance of external ‘landscape’ pressures, particularly at the level of national-type. However, our findings suggest that existing theories do not fully capture the complexity of this type of innovation: we find a diverse field addressing a range of societal systems (money, welfare, education, health, consumerism), and showing increasing fragmentation (as opposed to consolidation and standardisation); furthermore, there is little evidence of formalised learning taking place but this has not hampered movement growth. We conclude that grassroots innovations develop and diffuse in quite different ways to conventional innovations, and that niche theories require adaptation to the civil society context

Theoretical Theatre: harnessing the power of comedy to teach social science theory

Role playing is increasingly used in European Studies and political science, to foster students’ understanding of social science theories. Generally, role playing is only done by students. Not so in Theoretical Theatre, a teaching innovation which puts the onus on teachers to act. In our performances, teachers embody competing theories and enact dramatic scenarios in front of, and in collaboration with, their student audience. We explain how we developed Theoretical Theatre and contextualise it in the pedagogical literature of games and simulations, and of Drama In Education. We reflect on our experience of performing across four modules since 2012, and on our students’ feedback, to discuss three key themes emerging from our practice: making theory more interesting and engaging, easier to understand and apply; and changing classroom dynamics and engagement. We outline the challenges and opportunities in sustaining this teaching method and transferring it to other settings and disciplines

A sustainable consumption teaching review: from building competencies to transformative learning

Sustainable consumption (SC) is a growing area of research, practice and policy-making that has been gaining momentum in teaching programs among higher education institutions. Understanding how, in what way, and what we consume, in relation to environmental integrity and intra/inter-generational equity, is a complex question, all the more so when tied up with questions of social change, justice and citizenship. To understand and address (un)sustainable consumption, different disciplines and related methodologies are often brought together, ranging from sociology, economics and psychology, to political science, history and environmental engineering. Combining and indeed transcending disciplinary approaches is necessary, and what better place to explore these approaches than in the classroom? In this article, a review of sustainable consumption teaching is presented in relation to learning competencies, with discussions around emerging topics related to this theme, as well as promising approaches towards transdisciplinary learning. Examples of how action-oriented, learner-cantered and transformative approaches can be put into practice are also provided. In the conclusion, emerging trends are discussed, along with challenges and opportunities for teaching sustainable consumption in the future