Phedeas’s PhD research focuses on how the economic crisis influences grassroots civil action for sustainability. It aims to investigate the impacts and effects of the downturn on complementary currency networks and the associated practices of the actors involved. PhD (2012-2015) supervised by Gill Seyfang and Tom Hargreaves at the University of East Anglia Overview: Discussions about … Continue reading »
The multilevel perspective and social practice theory have emerged as competing approaches for understanding the complexity of sociotechnical change. The relationship between these two different camps has, on occasions, been antagonistic, but we argue that they are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, through empirical analysis of two different case studies of sustainability innovation, we show that … Continue reading »
A new working paper presents results of our survey of community energy projects in the UK. 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. Continue reading »
A new working paper presents a niche analysis of community currencies for sustainability. Over the last decade, the nascent field of Sustainability Transitions has sought to explain the conditions under which technological innovations can diffuse and disrupt existing socio-technical systems through the successful scaling up of experimental ‘niches’. Building on this pioneering work, recent … Continue reading »
The challenges of sustainable development (and climate change and peak oil, in particular) demand system-wide transformations in sociotechnical systems of provision. An academic literature around coevolutionary innovation for sustainability has recently emerged as an attempt to understand the dynamics and directions of such sociotechnical transformations, which are termed ‘sustainability transitions’. This literature has previously focused … Continue reading »
“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 »
A new working paper presents results of the first global scoping study of community currencies for sustainability. As a response to the unsustainability of current global financial systems, parallel sustainable monetary systems are being developed by civil society groups and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), informed by ecological economics perspectives on development, value, economic scale and growth. … Continue reading »
Abstract. The author critically evaluates the impact and potential of a community currencyöor local money systemöknown as the `local exchange trading scheme’ (LETS), to contribute to sustainable local development (SLD). Two distinct and contrasting models for sustainable development are described: a mainstream approach, focused on local regeneration [termed here the `local economic development' (LED) approach]; … 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 »
