Chapter 1 Grassroots initiatives in food system transformation

This book examines the role of local food movements, enterprises and networks in the transformation of the currently unsustainable global food system. It explores a series of innovations designed to re-integrate sustainable modes of food production and encourage food sovereignty. It provides detailed insights into a specialised network of social actors collaborating in novel ways and creating new economic arrangements across different geographical locales. In working to devise ‘local solutions to global problems’, the initiatives explored in the book represent a ‘second generation’ food social movement which is less preoccupied with distinctive local qualities than with building socially just food systems aimed at delivering healthy nutrition worldwide. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken in sites across Europe, the USA, and Brazil, the book provides a rich collection of case studies that offer a fresh perspective on the role of grassroots action in the transition to more sustainable food production systems. Addressing a substantive gap in the literature that falls between global analyses of the contemporary food system and highly localised case studies, the book will appeal to those teaching food studies and those conducting research on civic food initiatives or on environmental social movements more generally

Woran scheitert die Verbreitung nachhaltiger Konsummuster?

Die eigene Solaranlage, der Bezug von Ökostrom oder das Kaufen von Fair Trade-Produkten: Es gibt zahlreiche nachhaltige Produkte und Dienstleistungen. Doch weshalb setzen sich diese innnovativen Lösungen nur so langsam durch

Transformative Unternehmen

Die Rolle von Unternehmen bei der großen Transformation in Richtung einer nachhaltigen Gesellschaft ist noch unzureichend beschrieben. Der Beitrag zeigt auf, worin die besonderen Qualitäten transformativer Unternehmen liegen

institutional innovation from the bottom up?

A sustainable economy fulfills societal needs in a fundamentally different way to the current economic system. Improvements to the efficiency of existing technologies or practices appear insufficient for achieving sustainable development within the planetary boundaries. Disruptive, systemic and transformational changes appear necessary in order to replace existing technologies and practices to establish a sustainable economy. Such innovations often start out in niches; however, the scaling up and the ultimate replacement of current socio-technical systems requires governance to allow for the coordination of actors, the reorganization of socio-technical systems and the mobilization and allocation of resources. As governmental institutions are part of the current (non-sustainable) systems and thereby fail to provide coherent, integrated and transformative governance, we explore whether institutional innovation from non-state actors can step in to provide governance of transformation processes. Based on explorative qualitative case studies of networks in the food sector, city planning and reporting tools, we analyze the potential of bottom-up institutional innovations to coordinate actors in transformation processes