Abstract
Grassroots innovations for sustainability are attracting increasing policy attention. Drawing upon a wide range of empirical research into community energy in the UK, and taking recent support from national government as a case study, we apply three distinct analytical perspectives: strategic niche management, niche policy advocacy, and critical niches. Whilst the first and second perspectives appear to explain policy influence in grassroots innovation adequately, each also shuts out more transformational possibilities. We therefore argue that, if grassroots innovation is to realise its full potential, then we need to also pursue a third, critical niches perspective, and open up debate about more socially transformative pathways to sustainability.
Highlights
Throughout the history of modern environmentalism, an insistent undercurrent of grassroots activism has experimented with practical proposals for sustainable development
Whilst not all grassroots innovation is committed to principles of sustainable development, this article is interested in an area of activity that does, namely, the recent flourishing of community energy (CE) initiatives in the UK
We ask, How is the grassroots influencing policy, and how is policy attention shaping the development of grassroots innovation? As such, our research takes quite a different approach to existing research into CE in the UK that has tended to study developments at project scale: how projects develop, what consequences they have, and how they might spread
Summary
Throughout the history of modern environmentalism, an insistent undercurrent of grassroots activism has experimented with practical proposals for sustainable development. In areas as wide ranging as renewable energy, agro-ecology, and ecohousing, grassroots initiative has played an important role in the development of sustainable practices (Smith, 2007). Whilst not all grassroots innovation is committed to principles of sustainable development, this article is interested in an area of activity that does, namely, the recent flourishing of community energy (CE) initiatives in the UK. We see this case as emblematic for other instances of policy engagement with grassroots innovation and study it in this article
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