Ricerc@Sapienza

The contribution of community-based initiatives towards sustainability transitions is of growing interest. However, systematic, quantitative, and comparative assessments of their potential impact across different environmental, social, and economic dimensions are scarce. In this paper, we present a multi-dimensional assessment of 37 initiatives grouped in the following typologies: community gardens, solidarity purchasing groups, food cooperatives, community energy, recycling, and mobility initiatives.

This special issue presents one of the first systematic, comparative, and multi-dimensional assessments of the contribution of "community-based" or grassroots initiatives to a transition towards a low-carbon society. The papers characterize and quantify the impact of activities across many different domains of community engagement, such as community gardens, solidarity purchasing groups, community-supported agriculture, alternative food networks, recycling, sustainable mobility, and renewable energy.

This paper explores the role public policies have or may have in favoring or disfavoring the emergence, development, and diffusion of community-based sustainability initiatives. To this end, it presents evidence collected through a survey of initiatives operating in six city-regions in Europe and across various domains of active citizenship: alternative food networks, community energy, sustainable mobility, and recycling. Results show that although they are mostly driven by pragmatic goals, the case of apolitical grassroots initiatives is quite rare.