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| 1 |
ID:
101455
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| Publication |
2010.
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| Summary/Abstract |
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.
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| 2 |
ID:
125606
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| Publication |
2013.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Community energy has been proposed as a new policy tool to help achieve the transition to a low-carbon energy system, but the evidence base for this strategy is partial and fragmented. We therefore present new empirical evidence from the first independent UK-wide survey of community energy projects. Our survey investigates the objectives, origins and development of these groups across the UK, their activities and their networking activities as a sector. We also examine the strengths and weaknesses of these groups, along with the opportunities and threats presented by wider socioeconomic and political contexts, in order to improve understanding of the sector's potential and the challenges it faces. We highlight several key issues concerning the further development of the sector. First, this highly diverse sector is not reducible to a single entity; its multiple objectives need joined-up thinking among government departments. Second, its civil society basis is fundamental to its success at engaging local communities, and makes the sector quite distinct from the large energy companies these community groups are aiming to work alongside. There are inherent tensions and vulnerabilities in such a model, and limits to how much these groups can achieve on their own: consistent policy support is essential.
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