“Community food projects are not about food, and community energy projects are not about energy” was one of the conclusions from an international workshop of experts on ‘grassroots innovations’. These are initiatives which aim to promote sustainable development from the bottom up, and commonly have broad objectives including community-building and social inclusion, as well as … Continue reading »
Purpose – Sustainable consumption is increasingly on the policy menu, and local organic food has been widely advocated as a practical tool to make changes to conventional production and consumption systems. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of community-based initiatives at achieving sustainable consumption objectives. Design/methodology/approach – A new multi-criteria evaluation … Continue reading »
Supermarkets such as Asda (owned by Wal-Mart) have responded to the growth in direct marketing and alternative agri-food networks by promoting local produce ranges, and increasingly sourcing organic produce from the UK. Thus consumers now have a choice of outlets for local and organic produce. This paper examines the implications of that choice for direct … Continue reading »
Sustainable consumption is gaining in currency as a new environmental policy objective. This paper presents new research findings from a mixed-method empirical study of a local organic food network to interrogate the theories of both sustainable consumption and ecological citizenship. It describes a mainstream policy model of sustainable consumption, and contrasts this with an alternative … Continue reading »
Grassroots Innovations for Sustainable Development Conference, UCL London, 10th June, 2005 The UK government’s new Sustainable Development Strategy, Securing the Future, places greener innovation and local action at its foundation. Yet these two themes are considered apart: greener innovation is presumed to be an industrial concern, whilst local action is identified with the community dimension of sustainable … Continue reading »
