Scaling the impact of sustainability initiatives: a typology of amplification processes

Abstract

Amplifying the impact of sustainability initiatives to foster transformations in urban and rural contexts, has received increasing attention in resilience, social innovation, and sustainability transitions research. We review the literature on amplification frameworks and propose an integrative typology of eight processes, which aim to increase the impact of such initiatives. The eight amplification processes are: stabilizing, speeding up, growing, replicating, transferring, spreading, scaling up, and scaling deep. We aggregated these processes into three categories: amplifying within, amplifying out, and amplifying beyond. This integrative typology aims to stimulate the debate on impact amplification from urban and rural sustainability initiatives across research areas to support sustainability transformations. We propose going beyond an understanding of amplification, which focuses only on the increase of numbers of sustainability initiatives, by considering how these initiatives create transformative change.

Sustainability entrepreneurship to address large distances in international food supply

“…For (large‐scale) sustainability transformation, that is, to increase the impact of sustainability initiatives, (bounded) scaling or amplification processes are necessary (Lam et al, ). Broadening the impact of the presented practices, for example, sailboat transportation, would need to go hand in hand with reduced consumption and sufficiency (Young & Tilley, ) as well as technological development, for example, cargo sailboats with higher volume and additional solar power for maneuvering or cooling systems.…”

The business of rapid transition

“…The common characteristics of rapid transitions, according to Grubler et al (2016), include where a new and well established technology simply substitutes for an old one (such as with clean cookstoves, or FlexFuel cars, for example), where substitute technologies have been previously used in other markets, benefitting from the experience of early adopters, where the scales, either national or sub-national, are relatively small, and finally where the technologies offer high and clear benefits for adopters such as health (cookstoves), flexibility (Flexfuels) cost and convenience, as well as benefitting from well-designed public policies. Other recent scholarship uses the language of amplification to develop a typology of eight processes which aim to increase the impact of initiatives for transformation: stabilizing, speeding up, growing, replicating, transferring, spreading, scaling up, and scaling deep (Lam et al, 2020). Although applied to urban transformations, it potentially provides a useful entry point for thinking about the role of business.…”

A leverage points perspective on social networks to understand sustainability transformations: evidence from Southern Transylvania

“…Amplification processes are relevant for sustainability transformations because they describe the diverse actions that local actors can deploy to purposively increase the transformative impact of sustainability initiatives (Lam et al 2020b). The study of these different actions (i.e., amplification processes) can provide new insights on the role of sustainability initiatives and their impact during the preparation phase of transformations.…”

“…Lately, the question of how sustainability initiatives can amplify their impact has received increased interest (Moore et al 2015;Bennett et al 2016). Lam et al (2020b) discuss the diverse actions that initiatives can deploy to purposively increase their transformative impact as 'amplification processes'. For example, initiatives can have more impact by increasing the number of initiatives to reach more people and places (e.g., an initiative opens a new office in another region) (Moore et al 2015;Lam et al 2020b).…”

“…Lam et al (2020b) discuss the diverse actions that initiatives can deploy to purposively increase their transformative impact as 'amplification processes'. For example, initiatives can have more impact by increasing the number of initiatives to reach more people and places (e.g., an initiative opens a new office in another region) (Moore et al 2015;Lam et al 2020b). Understanding amplification processes is relevant for sustainability transformations because it can provide new insights on the building of proto-regimes and changes on the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels (Pereira et al 2018).…”