Transforming places together:transformative community strategies responding to climate change and sustainability challenges.

The simple evidence of global temperature rises, changing rainfall patterns and more frequent or extreme weather events are indisputable and will severely impact communities and society as a whole. Conventional strategies and incremental adaptation are not sufficient to address climate risks and sustainability challenges, therefore scholarly attention has shifted to the concept of transformation. A major driver of deliberate transformative responses are bottom-up processes of communities and citizen collectives, able to take the lead. An increasing and wide variety of grassroots community initiatives is emerging, responding to climate risks and sustainability challenges. These bottom-up processes require agents’ capacities to implement place-based transformative solutions aligned with climate goals in different contexts. Based on a literature review and an analysis of online cases the research provides insights into strategies of community initiatives and how their practices illustrate different dimensions of transformative adaptation. Key conditions for transformative adaptation by communities turn out to be capacity-building, leadership, different forms of scaling, and an inclusive, enabling governance. Community initiatives provide an entry point for new novelties and strategies in support of radical transformative ideas. While these initiatives are place-based, there is the need to diffuse and embed these novelties in wider scales to purposely increase their transformative societal impact

Accommodative public leadership in wind energy development:Enabling citizens initiatives in the Netherlands

This research centers around the question: How can provincial governments take the lead in implementing an adaptive governance approach considering citizen-led wind energy development? A framework for ‘accommodative leadership’ was created - building on the work of Meijerink and Stiller (2013) regarding leadership in climate change adaptation, and the work of Sotarauta (2010) on place leadership. The combination of the two provides a leadership framework which aims to include both governmental actors and local citizens initiatives as potential leaders in wind energy development. Three cases studies in three regions of the Netherlands were assessed. The results show that provinces adopt various leadership styles, referred to as ‘facilitative decentralization’, ‘deliberative innovation’ and ‘authoritative reluctance’. Our conclusion is that there is no roadmap for effective accommodative leadership, as it occurs in many forms. Nonetheless the developed framework can be used by regional governments as an assessment tool to understand the roles and actions which can potentially be taken by this authority to purposefully allocate their leadership capacities, while allowing citizen-led wind energy development

The inner dimension of sustainability transformation: how sense of place and values can support sustainable place‑shaping

Sense of place and values are concepts that have been defined in a multiplicity of ways by a variety of disciplines and seldom approached in combination within studies of place-based sustainability. In recent years, the debate on sustainability, and particularly on sustainability transformation, has started to recognise the central importance of the “inner dimension” in achieving sustainable futures. This brings to the fore individual and cultural immaterial aspects, such as values and sense of place. The aim of this article is to explore the role of sense of place and place values in the context of sustainable place-shaping and propose a framework to operationalise them in research. Three central questions guided and structured our work: (a) how can place-shaping contribute to sustainability transformations? (b) what is the role of the inner dimension of transformation in processes of sustainable place-shaping? (c) how to include the inner dimension—specifically sense of place and its underlying values—into place-shaping practice and discourse? Through the article, we argue that there is scope for a broader understanding of how sense of place contributes to sustainability transformations through place-shaping. The article ends with the introduction of an analytical tool for the study of sense of place and place values as potential drivers of place-based transformation. The conclusion of the article summarises the contribution of the inner dimension of place to place-shaping and, more in general, sustainability transformation

Success, Failure, and Impact of Local Energy Initiatives in The Netherlands

In the last decade, the number of local energy initiatives (LEIs) has increased in western European countries. Although several success factors and barriers in the development of LEIs have been studied by other scholars, there has been limited scholarly interest in the overall impact of LEIs so far. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore their impact by determining their achievement. Additionally, levels of engagement were used to categorise the success factors for and barriers that impede this impact. Initiatives in two provinces in the north of the Netherlands were studied. For the data collection, 84 in-depth interviews were conducted with the initiators of LEIs. In general, it can be concluded that the impact of LEIs is limited. Success factors and barriers in the development of LEIs play out at different levels of engagement: the level of the initiative itself; the community level; and the public–private level. Theoretically, this study provides empirical insights on how to measure the impact of LEIs. Furthermore, the study brings together a variety of factors that influence this impact based on the levels of engagement. Practically, this research offers indications on how to contribute to the further development of LEIs

Ecovillage foodscapes:zooming in and out of sustainable food practices

This article uses foodscapes as a lens to explore the potential of ecovillages’ food practices towards enhancing sustainable food systems. Ecovillages are collective projects where members attempt to integrate sustainability principles into daily community life. In these communities, food acts, not only as an element of social life, but also as a venue through which to interact with mainstream food systems and society. Yet, how food practices at ecovillages contribute to sustainable food systems remains vague. This article proposes foodscapes, as a lens, for exploring the sustainability potential of place-based food practices in ecovillages, while also directing attention to how these practices intersect with networks at broader social and spatial scales. It asks, how can we better understand and draw from sustainable food practices, when considering these as both, place-based and relational? And what is the potential and the role of ecovillage communities to contribute to broader sustainable food system change? Drawing on ethnographic and food mapping methods, the article explores selected food practices at three ecovillage communities in the United States. Using social practice theory for “zooming in” on place-based practices and “zooming out” to examine relational networks, we investigate how these communities create internally sustainable food systems, while externally bridging themselves with broader urban and rural communities. Through viewing ecovillage food practices as place-based and relational, we develop a broader and spatially-focused understanding of food system sustainability

Collective Identity Supporting Sustainability Transformations in Ecovillage Communities

Ecovillages are collective projects that attempt to integrate sustainability principles into daily community life, while also striving to be demonstration projects for mainstream society. As spaces of experimentation, they can provide valuable insights into sustainability transformations. Through shared values and interpersonal connections, ecovillages possess collective identities, which provide a platform for enacting their ideals. However, many ecovillage residents question how to best enhance their role as models, resource centers, and pieces of a greater movement toward sustainability transformations, while simultaneously preserving their unique community and identity. In relation to the above, this paper addresses the questions: What can collective identity in ecovillage communities teach us about the objective and subjective dimensions of sustainability transformations? Furthermore, how can the perspective of collective identity highlight challenges for ecovillages for initiating sustainability transformations? Sustainability transformations encompass objective (behaviors) and subjective (values) dimensions; however, the interactions between these spheres deserve more scholarly attention. Using ethnographic data and in-depth interviews from three ecovillages in the United States, this paper reveals the value in collective identity for underscoring belonging and interpersonal relationships in sustainability transformations. Furthermore, the collective identity perspective exposes paradoxes and frictions between ecovillages and the societal structures and systems they are embedded within

Regeneration at a distance from the state: From radical imaginaries to alternative practices in Dutch farming

Modern industrial agriculture is increasingly confronted with social and environmental problems and contradictions. Glaring problems are widely acknowledged, but have not spurred a major shift towards a sustainable agricultural future. Meanwhile, many individual citizens, farmers and collective initiatives are, themselves, already busy navigating towards solutions. The role of ‘ordinary’ citizens, small-scale farmers, and alternative food networks in building food sovereignty has been widely discussed in the literature, and is acknowledged by scholars as crucial in navigating towards sustainable and agroecological food systems (Anderson et al., 2021; Duncan et al., 2020; Marsden et al., 2018; Vivero-Pol et al., 2019). Despite this potential, the practices of these individuals and groups have not yet been able to gain significant traction as part of building a broader, systemic political alternative in public discourse and policy making (Desmarais et al., 2017; IPES-Food, 2019; Marsden et al., 2018; Van der Ploeg, 2020). Instead, they have persisted in the margins with minimal support or recognition from governments and scientific institutions (Anderson, 2019; Anderson and Bruil, 2021; Vanloqueren and Baret, 2009). Mainstream political debates on the direction of food system change too often overlook these ‘seeds of change’ that are scattered all around them, dormant, and waiting for the right conditions to grow into robust alternatives. Agrarian political economy has long served as an important lens through which the com-plex processes that shape food systems can be understood (Buttel, 2001; Friedmann, 1993; Friedmann and McMichael, 1989). Traditionally, this scholarship has focused primarily on a critical analysis of the ways in which market dynamics and the modern state structure the organisation of agri-food systems (Bernstein, 2017; Tilzey, 2019). As food-system-related crises intensify, some scholars have identified a need to expand political economy scholarship beyond expert analysis to include a role of co-constructing, or ‘co-theorising’ (Carolan, 2013) alternatives, with citizens engaged in political praxis (Duncan et al., 2019; Levkoe et al., 2020). That is, in other words, a more post-structuralist agrarian political economy (and ecol-ogy), grounded in critical dialogue with social movements, civil society organizations, and citizens who are confronting norms and conventions in practice and building alternatives (Leff, 2015). Following from the need to broaden and connect such perspectives, this paper combines a ‘zoomed-out’ political economic analysis of Dutch agriculture with a more ‘zoomed-in’ em-pirical exploration of farmers working to build new food systems from the ground up. The main questions we address are: how do new entrant proto-regenerative farmers (a term which we explain below) in the Netherlands imagine and engage in the construction of regenerative socio-ecological relationships? What strategies do farmers use to carve out spaces of regenera-tion

Citizen Engagement in Spatial Planning, Shaping Places Together

This paper explores the roles and practices of collective citizen engagement in spatial planning. Drawing on a selection of core articles in planning scholarship, it investigates how citizens (re-)shape urban places by responding to perceived flaws in how spatial planning addresses societal challenges. Formal planning interventions are often spatially and socially selective, ineffective, or even non-existent due to a lack of institutional capacities and resources. Consequently, citizens take on roles that they consider as missing, underperformed or ineffective. The paper shows that this results in a variety of practices complementary to, independent from, or opposing formal planning actors and interventions. Five dilemmas citizens face are identified, highlighting the tensions that surface on exclusion, participation, and governmental responsibilities when citizens claim their role in urban governance

Systematic and fast scientific literature review for policy purposes :An exploration of using ASReview software about the effectiveness of policy instruments promoting sustainable agriculture

In the context of Article 3.1 of the compatibility law 2016 (Comptabiliteitswet) (CW 2016), which aims to bring about more scientific underpinning of policy, the House of Representatives in 2019 examined the extent to which policy proposals address the efficiency and effectiveness of the policy instruments to be deployed (Sneller &amp; Snels, 2019). They concluded that while they often address how these instruments should contribute to the objective, they often do not address to what extent.Making such statements about efficiency and effectiveness requires an understanding of scientific evidence. As a result, the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) anticipates that they will receive more frequent questions from the government about what science says about the effectiveness of proposed policies. PBL already has a strong scientific orientation in its work and recognizes the great importance of a request for scientific foundation. But is also foresees that answering this type of question about scientific evidence for policy proposals can be difficult in practice. This is due to the short period in which these questions must generally be answered on the one hand and the time required for (systematic) literature review on the other. Conducting a (systematic) literature search using artificial intelligence (AI) could offer a solution to this problem and that is what this report is about.When using AI, the literature search is supported by a so-called learning algorithm, which learns as the process progresses to better and better assess what is relevant literature for the researcher. However, little experience has been gained with the use of such software in policy-oriented research. PBL therefore asked the UG to investigate how the open-source AI software ASReview could offer a solution in efficiently meeting the demand for scientific insights from the government. At PBL's request, the UG researched three substantive questions around the effectiveness of policy instruments for sustainable agriculture and used these to test the process of the AI supported literature review. In this research, the UG worked with a combination of AI-supported literature screening and sounding boards of academics who fed the search at the beginning and interpreted the results substantively at the end. Such a sounding board enables the distillation of substantive lessons in a relatively short time.The findings are: 1. It is possible to conduct a quick and good systematic literature search by combining AI-supported literature search with a sounding board of scientific experts. The search for scientific insights that could potentially provide substantiation yielded a database of 40.000 potentially relevant papers, from which a diverse set of 100 relevant papers were selected using AI. Using the sounding board of experts, an even smaller set of 12 papers was created from this list that were deemed most urgent for policymakers to study.2. Because the AI software ASReview puts content first and hides reputation of authors and journals during screening, objectivity and breadth is stimulated;3. However, ASReview does present other challenges that, if not taken into account, can compromise the objectivity of research in other ways;i) One of the main risks of using ASReview is what we call ‘trap formation’, especially when there is a short time frame for screening. This means that you end up on a particular 'track' of articles on a particular (sub)topic, which means that other also relevant articles are not found. The broader the query and the less time, the more this poses a risk to the efficiency and reliability of the screening. By using certain settings for the screening, this can be taken into account to a certain extent.ii) The amount of efficiency gains that can be achieved with ASReview depends on the breadth and multidisciplinarity of the research question. The topic of sustainable agriculture has many facets, both in terms of instruments and outcomes. This makes it more difficult for the program to quickly learn what is most relevant, so screening will take more time;iii) AI is not a fully automated process. Use of the program requires skill from the researcher to drive the algorithm and expert knowledge to start the process and expert knowledge to interpret the results.4. The content of this research has resulted in two sets of scientific articles: a Top 100 and a Top 12.5. The first end result of the Systematic Review is a list (Top 100) of relevant articles ranked by their "scientific recognition." Here, because of the requirement for speed in the process, scientific recognition is simply operationalized as a combination of the number of citations of the article per year and the impact factor of the journal (as a measure of the seriousness of the blind review process) in which they were published. While there are caveats to this method of ranking, it does provide a way to make a large amount of knowledge manageable within a relatively short period of time, and in doing so, gives policymakers and researchers a foothold that they can study "the most important first''. 6. The second end result is a selection from the top 100 by the scientific experts: which ones are most important for policy? The six multi-disciplinary scholars each selected three papers that they felt were most important for policymakers and researchers to take to task: combined, this yielded a set of 12 articles. The Top 12 is a manageable set of articles that was selected quickly, and can be studied in content in a short period of time while being largely systematic.7. In conclusion. What does the process tested here offer compared to what we might call "the standard quick search for scientific evidence" of a PBL staff member? This search often consists of manually consulting Google Scholar and/or individually contacting a scientific expert. Compared to manual searches via Scholar, searching the literature with ASReview offers the opportunity to systematically review a vast amount of studies for relevance. After each selection by the researcher, the entire database is reordered. Ultimately, it has been shown, this leads to a greater diversity of studies than a manual search process. Compared to contacting experts individually, the added value of utilizing a group of experts in this study is not only their diversity of expertise, but also that they all reflect on the same scientific dataset and choose from it (quickly and rationally) the most relevant ones for policy. This is a much more systematic process than asking for their scientific views separately.<br/