Geography of grassroots innovations in the Dublin Bay Biosphere Reserve

Abstract

This article studies the geography of grassroots innovations against the background of plastic pollution and the Dublin Bay Biosphere Reserve. Grassroots innovations are networks of people and organisations that generate novel solutions to sustainability- related problems. Typically, they are responses to local deficits and therefore primarily use local resources and actors. However, this local embeddedness also limits them and makes their survival difficult. The article assumes that model regions like Biosphere Reserves can help to overcome local shortcomings and link isolated innovations. The mixed-methods approach of guided interviews and social network analysis showed that GRI are affected not only by the local area but by their social, territorial, and network embeddedness transcending boundaries. Using the different types of embeddedness, we were able to show that GRIs are locally and globally connected to GRI movements, creating translocal networks that foster more transformative actions and practices.