Upscaling from the grassroots: potential aggregate carbon reduction from community-based initiatives in Europe

A critical view on the role of scale and instrumental imaginaries within community sustainability transitions research

“…Partly these scalar issues are infused with the specific orientation, or focus of the activity. Where the focus is an outwards‐orientated, end‐justified, targeted transformation, this tends towards projects favouring a will to grow, to have a greater impact on a wider level (Martellozzo et al, 2019). This impact‐effecting change‐the‐world perspective is also more easily instrumentalisable.…”

Rethinking the sustainable development goals: Learning with and from community‐led initiatives

“…CLIs such as food cooperatives and renewable energy communities show significant realised reductions in beneficiaries' lifestyle-associated greenhouse gas emissions in several areas, including food consumption, transport, energy consumption, waste production and disposal (Landholm et al, 2019). The aggregate potential emissions reductions, in scenarios assuming high levels of public engagement in CLIs, exceed 2020 targets in most EU countries and would represent significant contributions to 2030 to 2050 targets (Martellozzo et al, 2019) SDG15-Life on land Many CLIs are adopting and promoting agroecological and agroforestry-based methods of food production rooted in local cultural and environmental conditions and able to mitigate climate change, increase biodiversity, increase soil quality and generate other socio-ecological benefits (Doernberg et al, 2022;Wartman et al, 2018). Permaculture and other CLIs reinvigorate traditional forms of customary land management and show strong complementarity with more conventional conservation methods like protected areas (Chakroun & Droz, 2020) SDG16-Peace, justice and strong institutions…”

“…Although focussed on realised and potential reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, the study noted considerable and diverse further environmental and social benefits arising from CLI activity, highlighting the holistic nature of this activity and ability to support progress on multiple SDGs simultaneously, in complementary or synergistic fashion (Celata & Sanna, 2019). Extrapolation from these data indicated the potential aggregate contributions of CLIs to meeting progressive emissions reduction targets to be considerable, under a scenario of high levels of activity and public participation, though inadequate by itself without structural changes and the active participation of government and business (Martellozzo et al, 2019). Although data maintained by some national and international CLI networks indicate the numbers, diversity and levels of activity of CLIs to be considerable, the absence of any systematic records or analysis makes their actual numbers and impacts difficult to ascertain (Penha‐Lopes & Henfrey, 2019).…”

Sustainability transitions to low-carbon societies: insights from European community-based initiatives

“…In the next article (Martellozzo et al 2019), the focus of assessing the environmental impacts of community-based initiatives switches to their potential to contribute to climate change mitigation at a broader scale. The authors take a systematic approach to assess what would happen if the activities of CBIs could be appropriately scaled up, what the implications would be for societal engagement in sustainable activities, and the effects this could have on meeting national and international climate change mitigation targets such as those set by the EU strategy for 2020 and 2030.…”