Building an island of sustainability in a sea of unsustainability? A study of two ecovillages

Ecovillages aim to foster community around sustainable practices and encourage low-impact lifestyles. This article explores the strategies employed by two ecovillages to scale up their practices through physical expansion and the consequence for the maintenance of said practices. The ecovillages under study are Hurdal in Norway and Findhorn in Scotland. The study employed a multi-method approach: document study, participant observation, and interviews with ecovillage residents. The ecovillages applied different strategies to gain access to economic resources for expansion. Hurdal ecovillage sold its land to a private developer while Findhorn chose a different path: raising funds within the community, accessing public funds, and adopting low-cost building designs. The study finds that collaborating with investors and developers results in expensive housing that excludes low-income individuals and attracts well-off house buyers with mainstream values. Both ecovillages dropped introductory courses that aimed to equip new members with the necessary skills for shared practices and establish a common ground. These two consequences led to a weakening of competences for shared practices as private property took precedence. Prioritizing affordable infrastructure and accessing local (community and public) financial resources opens up paths for expansion that can maintain the necessary skills and meaning for community living.publishedVersio

Human Wellbeing and Local-level Sustainability

Doctoral thesis (PhD) – Nord University, 2021publishedVersio

Towards Sustainable Transport Practices in a Coastal Community in Norway: Insights from Human Needs and Social Practice Approaches

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Circular economy – reducing symptoms or radical change?

Author's accepted version (postprint).This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Springer Nature Switzerland AG in Philosophy of Management on 05 April 2019.Available online: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-019-00112-1In this article, we address why our management of the economy, community and business has led to global warming and we discuss the importance of worldviews, ontology, epistemology and axiology in the search for alternative paths of development. We do this by focusing on the concept of Circular Economy. Circular Economy is often presented as a solution to the problems of a globalized economy in the form of over-exploitation of resources, climate change and pollution of the environment. Within the mainstream economics paradigm, the aim is how to increase the effectiveness of resource extraction and utilization in order to maintain growth. We contrast this with the paradigm of Ecological Economics where the goal of the economy is to achieve and secure a higher quality of life. Circular Economy often side steps the deep ontological and epistemological questions we need to answer if we are to address the complex and interrelated environmental, economic and social problems we face today. This can be a limiting factor in the search for creative and long-term solutions. However, within the Circular Economy discourse, we find strands that critically engage with the foundations of mainstream Economics and so, innovative solutions for the society of the future are a possibility. We argue that to bring about a lasting solution to the interconnected social, economic and environmental problems, Circular Economy must engage with the ontological, epistemological and axiological foundations of mainstream economics. To further this argument, we apply Imre Lakatos’ ‘research program’ model to philosophy of science as our framework of analysis and draw lessons for business and communities.acceptedVersio

Building an island of sustainability in a sea of unsustainability? A study of two ecovillages

Ecovillages aim to foster community around sustainable practices and encourage low-impact lifestyles. This article explores the strategies employed by two ecovillages to scale up their practices through physical expansion and the consequence for the maintenance of said practices. The ecovillages under study are Hurdal in Norway and Findhorn in Scotland. The study employed a multi-method approach: document study, participant observation, and interviews with ecovillage residents. The ecovillages applied different strategies to gain access to economic resources for expansion. Hurdal ecovillage sold its land to a private developer while Findhorn chose a different path: raising funds within the community, accessing public funds, and adopting low-cost building designs. The study finds that collaborating with investors and developers results in expensive housing that excludes low-income individuals and attracts well-off house buyers with mainstream values. Both ecovillages dropped introductory courses that aimed to equip new members with the necessary skills for shared practices and establish a common ground. These two consequences led to a weakening of competences for shared practices as private property took precedence. Prioritizing affordable infrastructure and accessing local (community and public) financial resources opens up paths for expansion that can maintain the necessary skills and meaning for community living

Barrierer for klimatilpasning på lokalt og regionalt nivå

På oppdrag fra Miljødirektoratet har CICERO, Vestlandsforskning og Nordlandsforskning gjennomført en studie av barrierer for klimatilpasning på lokalt og regionalt nivå. Studien består av en kunnskapssammenstilling om barrierer for klimatilpasning, fem dialogseminarer med klimatilpasningsaktører fra ulike forvaltningsnivå, og en caseanalyse av Hamar kommune. Rapporten viser at det er en manglende politisk oppslutning rundt klimatilpasning i kommunene, ressurser er fremdeles en hovedbarriere, oversettelsen av kunnskap mellom statlig og lokalt nivå bør forbedres, fokus på sammensatte barrierer blir viktig for framtidige barrierestudier, og at utviklingen på klimatilpasningsfeltet gir behov for nye typer nettverk

Value Chains and Resilient Coastal Communities in the Nordic Atlantic

This report presents new and updated knowledge about Nordic coastal communities and their socio-economic situation. We investigate key structures and value chains in eight coastal communities in Greenland, Iceland, the Faroes, and Norway. The report highlights local variations in the interaction between value chains and local resilience and provides a comparative perspective. The report uncovers new trends and important development characteristics for Nordic coastal communities, with diversification, continued household-based activities and person-specific factors found to be key for success in business life and for resilience at the local level. Our results also call into question some of the challenges and conventional truths facing coastal community development in a period where solutions are being sought for sustainability and the climate challenge