• Energy Research

In the last decade, the number of local energy initiatives (LEIs) has increased in western European countries. Although several success factors and barriers in the development of LEIs have been studied by other scholars, there has been limited scholarly interest in the overall impact of LEIs so far. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore their impact by determining their achievement. Additionally, levels of engagement were used to categorise the success factors for and barriers that impede this impact. Initiatives in two provinces in the north of the Netherlands were studied. For the data collection, 84 in-depth interviews were conducted with the initiators of LEIs. In general, it can be concluded that the impact of LEIs is limited. Success factors and barriers in the development of LEIs play out at different levels of engagement: the level of the initiative itself; the community level; and the public–private level. Theoretically, this study provides empirical insights on how to measure the impact of LEIs. Furthermore, the study brings together a variety of factors that influence this impact based on the levels of engagement. Practically, this research offers indications on how to contribute to the further development of LEIs.

Our starting point in this conceptual paper is the assumption that place-based approaches can contribute to the sustainable development of communities and regions. In order to enhance sustainable development, adaptations to vulnerabilities and unsustainability require a more place-based approach, using local resources, people’s capacities and the distinctiveness of places for sustainable development. Our aim is to understand how processes of sustainable place-shaping are influenced by human values, rooted in culture. Culture is constructed and plays a mediating role between people and their environment, influencing people’s intentions, way of life, sense of place, practices, norms and rules. In its variety, culture is one of the sources as well as an outcome of distinctiveness between places. Transformation to sustainability is not only driven by practices and political structures, but also by beliefs, values, worldviews and paradigms that influence attitudes and actions. The paper shows how values have been interpreted in different ways in various bodies of literature, as abstract principles and in an instrumental way. Values are not self-standing concepts but are intertwined, context-determined, culturally varied and connected to how we see our self and how we perceive our environment. It is argued that development and engagement of participants’ values can build co-creative capacity in place-based development aimed at sustainability. A distinction is made between an economic, intentional and symbolic approach. A value-oriented approach can provide a more in-depth insight into what people appreciate, feel responsible for and are willing to commit to in the context of their place.

The article describes a process of preparing a research design on place-shaping, as outcome of a process of co-design between academic actors and non-academic actors in Brazil, South Africa and The Netherlands, taking place in the context of the project TRANSPLACE. The joint research design addresses varied sustainability issues as well as common challenges across areas of environmental change, in nine specific social-ecological settings in these countries. Key is the identification of innovative place-shaping practices or 'seeds of change', embedded in social-ecological systems and place-based assets. These seeds of change offer insight into how to support a place based approach to development, via the engagement and collaboration of varied actors. The article first reviews the literature on place and transformation. Furthermore the process of co-designing a joint research agenda is described. This process resulted in varied outcomes, such as a joint research agenda, the identification of 'seeds of change', and an overview of sustainability issues, learning challenges and involved stakeholders in the nine research sites. The article shows how engagement and learning in knowledge networks can be supported on different scales, and ends with lessons learned and perceived benefits of having gone through a co-design process.

This paper explores the roles and practices of collective citizen engagement in spatial planning. Drawing on a selection of core articles in planning scholarship, it investigates how citizens (re-)shape urban places by responding to perceived flaws in how spatial planning addresses societal challenges. Formal planning interventions are often spatially and socially selective, ineffective, or even non-existent due to a lack of institutional capacities and resources. Consequently, citizens take on roles that they consider as missing, underperformed or ineffective. The paper shows that this results in a variety of practices complementary to, independent from, or opposing formal planning actors and interventions. Five dilemmas citizens face are identified, highlighting the tensions that surface on exclusion, participation, and governmental responsibilities when citizens claim their role in urban governance.

Abstract Sense of place and values are concepts that have been defined in a multiplicity of ways by a variety of disciplines and seldom approached in combination within studies of place-based sustainability. In recent years, the debate on sustainability, and particularly on sustainability transformation, has started to recognise the central importance of the “inner dimension” in achieving sustainable futures. This brings to the fore individual and cultural immaterial aspects, such as values and sense of place. The aim of this article is to explore the role of sense of place and place values in the context of sustainable place-shaping and propose a framework to operationalise them in research. Three central questions guided and structured our work: (a) how can place-shaping contribute to sustainability transformations? (b) what is the role of the inner dimension of transformation in processes of sustainable place-shaping? (c) how to include the inner dimension—specifically sense of place and its underlying values—into place-shaping practice and discourse? Through the article, we argue that there is scope for a broader understanding of how sense of place contributes to sustainability transformations through place-shaping. The article ends with the introduction of an analytical tool for the study of sense of place and place values as potential drivers of place-based transformation. The conclusion of the article summarises the contribution of the inner dimension of place to place-shaping and, more in general, sustainability transformation.

AbstractThe simple evidence of global temperature rises, changing rainfall patterns and more frequent or extreme weather events are indisputable and will severely impact communities and society as a whole. Conventional strategies and incremental adaptation are not sufficient to address climate risks and sustainability challenges, therefore scholarly attention has shifted to the concept of transformation. A major driver of deliberate transformative responses are bottom-up processes of communities and citizen collectives, able to take the lead. An increasing and wide variety of grassroots community initiatives is emerging, responding to climate risks and sustainability challenges. These bottom-up processes require agents’ capacities to implement place-based transformative solutions aligned with climate goals in different contexts.Based on a literature review and an analysis of online cases the research provides insights into strategies of community initiatives and how their practices illustrate different dimensions of transformative adaptation. Key conditions for transformative adaptation by communities turn out to be capacity-building, leadership, different forms of scaling, and an inclusive, enabling governance. Community initiatives provide an entry point for new novelties and strategies in support of radical transformative ideas. While these initiatives are place-based, there is the need to diffuse and embed these novelties in wider scales to purposely increase their transformative societal impact.

AbstractAmong scholars in sustainability science, there is an increasing recognition of the potential of place-based research in the context of transformative change towards sustainability. In this research, researchers may have a variety of roles; these are determined by the researcher’s engagement with the subject, the inherent theoretical, normative and methodological choices he or she makes, the researcher’s ambitions in contributing to change, and ethical issues. This article explores the varied roles of research fellows within the European Marie Curie ITN research program on sustainable place-shaping (SUSPLACE). By analysing 15 SUSPLACE projects and reflecting on the roles of researchers identified by Wittmayer and Schäpke (Sustain Sci 9(4):483–496, 2014) we describe how the fellows’ theoretical positionality, methods applied, and engagement in places led to different research roles. The methodology used for the paper is based on an interactive process, co-producing knowledge with Early Stage Researchers (fellows) of the SUSPLACE consortium. The results show a range of place meanings applied by the fellows. Varied methods are used to give voice to participants in research and to bring them together for joint reflection on values, networks and understandings, co-creating knowledge. Multiple conceptualisations of ‘sustainability’ were used, reflecting different normative viewpoints. These choices and viewpoints resulted in fellows each engaging in multiple roles, exploring various routes of sustainable place-shaping, and influencing place-relations. Based on our findings we introduce a framework for the ‘embodied researcher’: a researcher who is engaged in research with their ‘brain, heart, hands and feet’ and who integrates different roles during the research process.