Creating space for change towards sustainability at the local level
Europe's economic crisis led to greater public interest in financial matters, and a deprioritisation of environmental issues. Meanwhile, the need for sustainability has only increased as the problems progressively worsen. The EU-funded project 'Individuals in context: Supportive environments for sustainable living' (INCONTEXT) aimed to explore how effective transition towards sustainability could be achieved on the local level. The nine-member partnership first conducted case study analyses of alternative consumption and production initiatives in Belgium, Germany and Austria to identify barriers and drivers towards sustainable development in Europe. In addition, the project initiated transition processes with citizens in three local communities in the Netherlands, Germany and Austria enabling the participants to develop concrete visions for the sustainable future of their community. The project ran for three years to October 2013, and detailed ten key insights as part of its results. Diverse local grassroots initiatives lead social transformation towards sustainability, hence policymakers should try building on their achievements. Secondly, addressing specific issues in local communities is the best way to mobilise people. Moreover, working on a common vision can help focus transition, unleash individual or group capacity for change, and unify diverse groups. Project work confirmed that individual and social factors interact when new behaviours emerge, and that small achievements can be encouraging. Also, finding new ways of organising consumption, production and governance is a collective learning process. Governments can support such initiatives by providing space for them both physically and in a more abstract way, eg. by using discretion when applying rules and regulations, by searching for dialogue and exchange and – in some cases – non-interference can also be helpful to allow bottom-up initiatives to grow. A common factor in otherwise diverse alternative models is that they continually redefine consumer and producer roles. Similarly, lasting change will depend on citizens and policymakers rethinking their respective roles in the decision-making process. Lastly, the consortium found that sustainable development was often too abstract a term for generating constructive debate, though the issues themselves are important to individuals. The result of INCONTEXT's work is improved understanding of what is needed to achieve sustainable development in Europe. The project contributed by developing responses to the challenges, which consisted of outreach programmes.
Keywords
Sustainable consumption and production, Social factors, sustainability transition, grassroots initiatives, partnerships, local level