Mapping the Big Green Challenge - The Skills & Learning ...

Mapping the Big Green Challenge 11experiment with new models, for highly motivated professionals to innovate more freely outside thestate, for social movements to develop new approaches to community action, and for socialentrepreneurs to combine assets in imaginative ways. Identifying community organisations as beingformed around a shared set of values, which may operate against some aspect of mainstreamvalues, can also be seen as an on-going strength in terms of the sector’s ability to create change(Harris & Albury, 2009). The New Economics literature (e.g. Boyle, 1993) focuses on the opportunityto create spheres in which different value systems operate and this harks back to an older literatureon utopian communities (e.g. Moss Kanter, 1972). As such organisations can act as promoters ofalternative value systems and, in the broadest sense, of the possibility of living differently(something which mainstream institutions are likely to find hard to do according to writers such asJordan & O’Riordan, 1997).The 3 rd Sector is sufficiently diverse for it not to be necessary to choose between these arguments.Instead it seems likely that both approaches might be pursued by different types of organisations orin relation to different kinds of activity. We use these two approaches to innovation, characterisedrespectively as ‘regime’ and ‘niche’ innovation, to provide a framework for thinking about thedifferent ways in which community organisations might support low carbon innovation.2.2 Third Sector as a Site for Within-Regime Low Carbon InnovationsRather than identify a particular type of innovation, arguments made from this perspective tend tojust draw on what they see as the broad characteristics of the sector and argue that they giveorganisations advantages in relation to ensuring wider awareness of, and commitment to, measuresto tackle the causes of climate change and, in particular, to achieve wider and more sustainedbehaviour change. The latter is particularly important given that there are areas where wellestablished changes could have a significant impact but are not being taken up by large sections ofthe population. Examples of this type of perspective can be found in the Third Sector Review(Cabinet Office, 2007) which suggests that “the third sector has a critical role in engaging, enablingand encouraging wider action on climate change and the environment. … As trusted organisationswith established and growing audiences, third sector organisations are particularly powerfulcommunicators …”. Jackson (2005) argues that changing behaviour is difficult and that “communitybasedapproaches to social change are becoming an increasingly important part of the landscape ofsustainable development”. He suggests high levels of participation, particularly in the constructionof social norms which are seen as in the interests of their community, reinforced by monitoring and‘sanctions’, are key to a policy approach based on small group or community management. Hale(2008) argues that “individual action of the scale necessary will only emerge through collectivedecisions in the networks and communities with which people have strong personal affiliations andwhich can give them both the motive and opportunity to act”. Harris & Albury (2009) stress thatworking at a local level “allows for a much stronger link to behaviour change” (27). Similarsentiments can be found in other reports including that from the Sustainable ConsumptionRoundtable (2006) which concludes “a combination of incentives, community initiatives and localfeedback will reassure people that they are part of a collective movement that’s making adifference” and by Downing and Ballantyne (2007) who report a majority of the populationendorsing the view ‘I would do more to try to stop climate change if other people did more too’.Appleby Ltd July 2009