Localism and the Environment

Hess, David J.

doi:10.1111/j.1751-9020.2007.00082.x

Cited by 30 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…However, the results also demonstrate that community renewable energy can potentially catalyse a range of socio-economic and environmental impacts that extend beyond energy into other domains of production and consumption. Exact impacts are highly dependent on organisation mission, managerial choices and continued success, and, confirming the findings of others elsewhere (Hess 2008), community energy organisations do not necessarily generate far-reaching environmental impacts. Nevertheless, community energy projects in the UK are, by virtue of being risky and labour-intensive, often motivated by specific and urgent needs around local public good provision, and 13% of organisations have an explicit environmental mission statement (Article II).…”

Section: Community Energy and Sustainable Energy Developmentsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…There is little consensus over the role of civic energy in facilitating sustainable energy strategies, perhaps indicative for the lack of consensus of the role of localism in sustainable development more broadly (Brown & Purcell, 2005;Hess, 2008;North, 2010). There is also no clear understanding of what factors enable the sequential and sustained implementation of policy frameworks that are critical to civic or community energy development.…”

Section: Specific Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Communitarian approaches to sustainable development: the governance, local impacts and costs of community energy

Berka¹

2018

Diss. For.

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This dissertation explores the governance, local impacts and costs of community-owned renewable energy (CRE). The objective is to understand if and in what context collective local ownership models represent a feasible and effective means to operationalising a more 'sustainable development' in the renewable energy sector and beyond. The articles draw on a range of fields, from energy governance and project economics to impact evaluation. Specific methodologies used are systematic literature review, discourse analysis, historical institutional analysis and risk-extended net present valuation. Unique contributions of this work are a meta-level understanding of the community energy sector in the UK and an understanding of its emergence in context of technological and institutional change. In addition, it provides an explicit assessment of Quality of Evidence problems in this subfield of energy and social science research, placing it firmly in the context of current literature and methods in project economics and impact evaluation. Findings show that ownership patterns in the energy sector are precarious and subject to changing narratives that emerge in response to domestic socio-economic and political dilemma's, exogenous shocks, and emerging economic schools of thought. CRE projects have the potential to generate a variety of positive local impacts that vary depending on the motivation and management of projects and project revenues. Under certain conditions CRE can empower community organisations to address systemic socio-economic problems in the public domain. Finally, in a competitive market setting and where CRE is implemented by newly-established grassroots organisations, projects face a range of risks that commercial projects do not, and that erode their financial viability. As such, the development and expansion of community renewable energy as a substantial proportion of the energy sector requires policy makers to assign it special status and provide policy support on the basis of its local social, economic and environmental benefits. Policy support for community renewable energy requires a willingness to integrate energy and social policy domains.

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Section: Community Energy and Sustainable Energy Developmentsupporting

confidence: 82%

Section: Specific Contributionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communitarian approaches to sustainable development: the governance, local impacts and costs of community energy

Berka¹

2018

Diss. For.

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“…Another set of disadvantages have been pointed out by critics from the left, who have pointed out the danger of romanticizing the local, or naively rushing to localize (Born and Purcell 2006;Hess 2008). Economies that operate at a small geographic scale are not necessarily more just than larger scale economies-feudalism is one variant on localism, after all.…”

Section: Critique From the Leftmentioning

confidence: 97%

The Local Economy Movement: An Alternative to Neoliberalism?

Posey

2011

Forum for Social Economics

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“…Scholars argue that because locally owned firms are embedded within the local community and economic structures they are in a better position to protect workers and communities from negative aspects of the market economy (Flora and Flora 2008; Lyson and Tolbert 2003). For example, these firms can integrate social and environmental goals into their decision making because they do not face pressure from stockholders (Hess 2008). Of key importance is the view that local ownership ensures “local control” by the community, which in turn ensures that the firm serves “local interests” (England and Brown 2003:328; Lyson and Tolbert 2003).…”

Section: Local and Absentee Ownershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community Support of Ethanol Plants: Does Local Ownership Matter?*

2012

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Drawing on data from six communities in Kansas and Iowa, we explore the factors that are related to community members' current levels of overall support for local ethanol plants. What are residents' opinions about the benefits and drawbacks of local ownership of ethanol plants? How does that awareness lead to overall support of plants? Our interest is to understand how perceptions of the negative effects of the plant on the local infrastructure and environment and positive effects on the local economy influence the relationship between local versus absentee ownership and people's overall support of the plant. We use chi‐square to test whether respondents' overall support is associated with the ownership of the plant (local versus absentee), and cumulative logit mixed‐effects models to explore the factors that explain the association between ownership and overall support. Findings suggest that community members are less likely to show high support for locally owned plants, and that the greater perceived negative effects of locally owned plants on the local infrastructure and environment helps explain residents' lower support of locally owned ethanol plants in their communities. We posit several explanations for why this might be the case.

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Localism and the Environment

Cited by 30 publications

References 58 publications

Communitarian approaches to sustainable development: the governance, local impacts and costs of community energy

Communitarian approaches to sustainable development: the governance, local impacts and costs of community energy

The Local Economy Movement: An Alternative to Neoliberalism?

Community Support of Ethanol Plants: Does Local Ownership Matter?*

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