ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Jump-starting transition? Catalysing grassrootsaction on climate change

Andrew Reeves & Mark Lemon & Diana Cook

Received: 29 November 2012 /Accepted: 11 April 2013# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013

Abstract The potential for community-led local sus-tainability initiatives to play a key role in a transitiontowards a low-carbon economy has been acknowledgedby both policymakers and researchers. To date, suchinitiatives have predominantly been established throughthe efforts of volunteers, resulting in a scattered uptakeacross towns, cities and other communities in the UKand further afield. In a context where local and nationalGovernment are increasingly seeking to deliver localaction on climate change in partnership with communityorganisations, is it possible or desirable for Governmentand other publicly funded bodies to successfully set upthese grassroots initiatives “from the outside” wherenone exist already? This paper describes a project whichexplored this question through the provision of a 2-yearprogramme of support for local action on climatechange in a sub-region of the UK. Community devel-opment strategies were employed with a view toestablishing new grassroots climate change initiativesin a range of different communities. The results indicatesome potential for the strategy to meet with success,with several new groups and small-scale projects being

established as a result. However, the short lifespan ofmany of the organisations set up and the relatively lowimpact on carbon emission reduction of their activitiesraises questions about the effectiveness of grassrootsinitiatives and how support of their activities can bedelivered most effectively to maximise impact and im-prove cost effectiveness.

Keywords Transition . Community development .

Low carbon communities

Introduction

The number of grassroots initiatives seeking to actlocally on climate change has increased significantlyin recent years with the Transition Towns movementin particular gaining a high public profile and interestfrom academic researchers, both in the UK and furtherafield (Hopkins 2008; Bailey et al. 2010; Seyfang andHaxeltine 2012; Transition Network 2012a). Such ini-tiatives are typically established by volunteers whocite the need to respond locally to issues such asclimate change, resource depletion and economic con-traction as a key motivation (Alexander et al. 2007;Hopkins 2008), tapping into a long-running thread inthe green movement of “thinking globally and actinglocally” (Doherty 2002). The action undertaken focus-es on a specific locality (e.g. a village, neighbourhoodor city), where the initiatives’ members seek to raiseawareness of sustainability issues and deliver practical

Energy EfficiencyDOI 10.1007/s12053-013-9212-z

A. Reeves (*) :M. LemonInstitute of Energy and Sustainable Development,De Montfort University,The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, UKe-mail: areeves@dmu.ac.uk

D. CookRCC (Leicestershire & Rutland), Community House,133 Loughborough Road, Leicester LE4 5LQ, UK

projects to reduce carbon emissions and increase localresilience to an assumed future of resource scarcityand economic contraction (Hopkins 2008; Hopkins2011). The scope of this activity is wide-ranging,including local food production, renewable energy,local currencies and environmental education (LCCN2010; Hopkins 2011). This activity has developed in acontext in the UK where both Government and re-searchers have made the case for the voluntary andcommunity sector playing a key role in supporting atransition towards a low-carbon economy (DECC2009; Peters 2010; Seyfang et al. 2010).

A wide range of potential benefits arising fromcommunity-led action on climate change have beenhighlighted by policymakers, academics and sustain-ability practitioners. These include higher levels ofpublic trust in messages spread through civil societygroups or peer networks (Marshall 2007; GreenAlliance 2010) and improved decision making onlocal issues that builds upon knowledge within localcommunities (Irvine and Kaplan 2001; Seyfang et al.2010). By drawing upon trusted social networks andexemplifying sustainable lifestyles, community-levelaction can also support a shift towards new socialnorms, values and practices that favour sustainableliving (Jackson 2004; CSE 2009; Heiskanen et al.2009; Middlemiss and Parrish 2010; Peters 2010). Itis also posited that community-led action can providea supportive environment for innovative experimentsin sustainable living (e.g. lifestyle changes, new formsof project or enterprise), which, if successful, couldpotentially be adopted by other communities or by agreater proportion of the population (Irvine andKaplan 2001; Steward et al. 2009; Seyfang andSmith 2007; Seyfang and Haxeltine 2012).

Despite this apparent potential, there has been ascattered take-up of grassroots climate change initia-tives, due in part to the establishment of such initia-tives relying largely upon the spontaneous initiative ofmembers of the public (Seyfang and Haxeltine 2012).Many local authorities would welcome the opportuni-ty to deliver action on climate change in partnershipwith members of the local community, and indeedhave contacted Transition Network, the umbrella net-work for Transition initiatives, to enquire aboutwhether they can set up such initiatives themselves(Hopkins 2008; O’Rourke 2008). This raises questionsabout the feasibility and desirability of establishinginitiatives in this way and the extent to which they

would still be independent and community-led. Thispaper aims to shed some light on these issues bypresenting and discussing evidence from a 2-year ac-tion research project, “Communities Cutting Carbon”(CCC) delivered in a UK sub-region, which sought toestablish several new community-led climate changeinitiatives. The activities and outcomes from the CCCproject are described, followed by discussion on theimpact that grassroots climate change initiatives canachieve and effective strategies for assisting such ini-tiatives to become established.

Background and theoretical issues

Local action on climate change

The principle of acting locally to address global issuessuch as environmental sustainability and climate changehas a long track record (Doherty 2002; Church 2005). Ithas been put into practice by a variety of actors includ-ing local authorities (Peters et al. 2010), conservationand campaign groups (Doherty 2002) and communityorganisations such as Development Trusts (e.g. BerwickCommunity Trust 2013). Adoption of this approach canbe seen as deriving in part from the localist values ofmuch of the green movement (Doherty 2002). Soundgeographical motivations also exist, however, such ascitizens having the greatest agency to affect their livingconditions at a community level (Wilbanks and Kates1999), and a potential need to adapt to futurelocalisation of aspects of economic activity if oil pricessignificantly increase in the future (North 2010).

Literature on local action on climate change pre-dominantly focuses on the role of local government todrive this process (for example, Fleming and Webber2004; Peters et al. 2010; Argyriou et al. 2012). Inaddition, low carbon communities literature encom-passes national schemes delivered on a local leveland initiatives by volunteers carried out on aneighbourhood basis (Church 2005; CSE 2009;Steward et al. 2009; Peters 2010; DECC 2012). Thecommunity-led initiatives that have emerged since thefounding of the first Transition Initiative in 2005 ap-pear to represent a genuinely new trend in this arena.Although their aims and criticisms of contemporarysociety clearly echo those put forward by environmen-talists and local sustainability advocates over somedecades, the ambitious focus on community-wide

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engagement, improving local infrastructure and long-term planning expressed by Hopkins (2008) puts thesevoluntary groups in a role that might normally beexpected of a local authority. Such groups also chooseto focus on “positive local solutions” rather than op-positional campaigning (Hopkins 2008; North 2011).This perhaps makes them a new addition to the fourprominent types of green social movement reviewedby Doherty (2002).

The focus of this paper is action carried out on alocal basis to mitigate and/or adapt to climate changewhich is community-led (i.e. initiated by people work-ing voluntarily) as opposed to community-focussedactivities delivered by staffed agencies (DECC2012). Following Peters (2010), we take the often-contested term “community” as meaning a networkof people bound together through a shared place orshared interest. In terms of scale, our interest is ininitiatives delivered within neighbourhoods, villages,towns, cities or small counties, mirroring the typicalscales employed by Transition initiatives across theworld (Transition Network 2012a). Although grass-roots action on climate change is undertaken by a widevariety of community and voluntary groups (Church2005; Green Alliance 2010), the present paper focuseson those initiatives introduced above for which actinglocally on such issues is their core purpose. For con-venience, these projects will be referred to as LocalGreen Groups (LGGs). The exact number of suchinitiatives in the UK is unknown, but it seems likelythat they number in the low thousands (O’Hara 2009),with several hundred of these being Transition initia-tives (Transition Network 2012a).

How community-led initiatives start and develop

A community-led climate change initiative may bestarted in a number of ways: through interested membersof the public coming together to form a group; as a spin-off from an existing group or project; as an outcome froma public event; or one person recruiting friends to getinvolved (TESG 2009; Hopkins 2011). In a survey ofUK-based Transition Initiatives, Seyfang and Haxeltine(2012) found that 89 % of the groups surveyed were setup by “individual citizens coming together”, that only19 % had pre-existing groups involved in setting thegroup up and that none were started by local councils.

The initial stages that a new group goes through arewell documented in literature from the field and case

histories of particular initiatives (for example, Hopkins2008; Hopkins 2011; TSEG 2009; Transition Culture2009). A six-step framework based upon the experienceof the Community Action Groups project (CAG 2012a),which supports LGGs to undertake sustainability pro-jects in Oxfordshire, is presented in Fig. 1 to summariseseveral key stages that such a group passes through(CAG 2012b). The “Kitchen Table” step involves for-mation of the group, and is likely to involve establishingan initiating committee, agreeing group aims andsigning a constitution (Hopkins 2011; CAG 2012b).The “Going Public” step involves recruiting membersand supporters, initial meetings with local organisations(e.g. local council and other voluntary groups), andorganising initial community engagement events(Hopkins 2011). The “Enthusiastic Action” stage iswhere small to medium scale projects and events, suchas food growing schemes or recycling collections getunderway. Transition Network recommends carryingout some sort of practical project relatively early on ina group’s existence to demonstrate the real-world bene-fits of the initiative and avoid the perception amongstmembers and outsiders of the group being a “talkingshop” (Hopkins 2008).

Many groups do not progress beyond Step 3, butsome seek to go on to establish larger-scale projects orto secure their long-term sustainability through an on-going income stream and the adoption of an appropriatelegal structure. An example of this is Transition TownTotnes; this is a registered charity employing severalpart-time staff which seeks to secure income through amixture of grant-funded projects and services providedthrough a social enterprise business model (Hopkins2011). A further example is Sustainable Hockerton

Fig. 1 Stages for community action groups (CAG 2012b)

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which established a community-funded renewable ener-gy project to provide an on-going income stream for thegroup (Sustainable Hockerton 2010). It should also benoted that not every initiative follows this process in alinear fashion, and that many initiatives either scale backtheir activities or fold completely (for example, seeTransition Culture 2009; Du Cann 2012).

Supporting new initiatives

Awide variety of programmes exist in the UK to supportnew LGGs, with support ranging from self-helpamongst volunteers to highly structured schemes offer-ing significant grant funding. Support programmes aredelivered at local, regional, national and internationallevels. Transition Network, which predominantly worksin the UK but also provides support internationally,primarily seeks to facilitate self-help amongst membergroups. It organises networking and knowledge-sharingopportunities, and its website and publications provideguidance on the process of establishing and sustaining anew initiative (Hopkins 2008; Hopkins 2011; TransitionNetwork 2012a). Where new groups are forming,Transition Network recommends that an initiating grouphas at least four members and that they should have astrong connection to their local area (TransitionNetwork 2012a). Transition Network encourages initia-tives to develop effective working relationships withtheir local authority but stresses that the role of localcouncils is to “support, not lead” the Transition process.It therefore discourages local government institutionsfrom seeking to set up Transition Initiatives themselves(Hopkins 2008).

A small number of local support projects exist inthe UK, with Community Action Groups (CAG2012a) being the most established. This programmeprovides mentoring and written guidance for new ini-tiatives, along with core funding of £250 a year andloan of resources to member projects. National supportschemes for particular projects also exist, such asEcoTeams (Global Action Plan 2012), which typicallyoffer toolkits, mentoring, information and training.)Aside from the research reported in the present paper,just two recent examples are known to the authors ofpublic funding being used to establish a new LGG inthe UK. In each case, an established community orga-nisation was funded to conduct community engage-ment around local sustainability issues (BerwickCommunity Trust 2013; Harehope Quarry 2013), but

in neither case did this lead to a new LGG beingestablished by the time the project ended.

The support programmes described above are typ-ically employing the self-help approach to communitydevelopment (Green 2011), by providing facilitation,resources and mentoring to enable local residents towork to improve their area, in this case by acting onclimate change. The strengths and weaknesses of thisapproach are well documented (Green 2011). A keylesson from its practice is that it is most likely to meetwith success in communities with a greater proportionof high-income, well-educated, residents where it iseasier to recruit volunteers with the motivation, skillsand capacity to engage in voluntary projects (Barkan2004). An example of an alternative support strategywith particular relevance to the present paper is that ofdeveloping community-led plans, through which vol-unteers are recruited to consult upon and produce a 5-year plan to act upon issues seen as of greatest impor-tance in their local community. The experience in thesub-region where CCC was developed is that it iscommonplace for groups who have completed theirplan to continue to meet and take action locally, andseveral new local sustainability groups have beenestablished as a result.

Issues affecting development of new initiatives

A number of authors have found theories of socialmovement development to be a useful framework tounderstand the development of environmental initiativesin general (Doherty 2002; Araki 2007) and the activitiesof Transition Initiatives in particular (Seyfang et al.2010; North 2011). Some key relevant concepts fromthis field include the stages social movements common-ly pass through (Christiansen 2009), how issues areframed (both in terms of diagnosis of problems andproposed action in response) (Benford and Snow2000) and mobilisation of participants (Klandermans1993). Despite not meeting many authors’ criteria toqualify as social movements (e.g. Doherty 2002), webelieve that it can still be helpful to view LGGs througha social movements lens, in particular because of theirfocus on voluntary action to affect a dominant socialsituation (that of unsustainable resource use). The socialmovement interpretation of LGGs appears less helpfulfor analysing those groups that seek only to carry outsmall-scale measures within the existing social structureto reduce waste, carbon emissions, etc. (e.g. this would

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hold true for most of the groups supported by CAGs). Inthe latter case, theories of civic participation or volun-teerism (such as Clary and Snyder 1999; Barkan 2004)may have greater applicability. A pragmatic mix of bothtypes of theory is used here to shed light on what is adiverse field of activity.

A central idea in the study of social movement orga-nisations is that they develop “collective action frames”(Benford and Snow 2000), meaning “action-oriented setsof beliefs and meanings that inspire and legitimate theactivities and campaigns” of the organisation (Benfordand Snow 2000). Within the field of climate changecommunication, the dominant framing of the issue inthe UK in recent years has juxtaposed an alarming globalproblem with small lifestyle-change actions (e.g.recycling and switching lights off), leading to incredulityamongst many people who see this scale of response asinsufficient (IPPR 2007a). Many LGGs, and TransitionInitiatives in particular, have put forward an alternativeframing which describes climate change and related is-sues as both a challenge and a positive opportunity tocreate a better world; they have used this analysis tomotivate a call for collective local action by communitymembers to achieve significant structural and culturalchanges over the long term (Seyfang and Haxeltine2012). This new framing holds potential to increasepublic engagement with climate change as a result ofthe increased sense of agency and manageable scaleassociated with long-term local action (IPPR 2007b). Itappears to have motivated people not previously active inenvironmentalism to get involved (Seyfang andHaxeltine 2012). However, the weakening of social tieswithin communities over recent decades may make a callto action based on community co-operation challengingto deliver (Peters 2010; Walker 2011).

Participation is a crucial issue for LGGs as they areusually entirely reliant on the efforts of volunteers.Involvement in voluntary initiatives and social move-ments can vary from low-effort support to active par-ticipation, and it is typical for many more people to besupportive than those who are actively involved(Neeley and Nownes 1998; Bate et al. 2004). Barkan(2004) identifies four key factors associated with ac-tive civic participation which each appear to haverelevance for LGGs: social status; empowerment; so-cial networks; and issues engagement.

High social status individuals appear more likely tobe actively involved in Transition Initiatives (Seyfangand Haxeltine 2012), for which participants are mostly

“the well-educated middle-class that one expects to findin an environmental movement” (O’Rourke 2008).Empowerment relates to the skills, competences andconfidence required for an individual to participate,which is a non-trivial requirement when LGGs typicallydraw upon skills such as use of Information Technology,public speaking and group facilitation when planningand delivering their activities.

Findings from the social networks literature indicatethat when someone initially joins a community initiative,it is most likely the result of being asked or encouragedby someone with whom they have a personal connection(Lim 2008). Passy (2003) argues that the role of socialnetworks in influencing participation is threefold: theysupport a shift in values and attitudes of individualsthrough on-going personal relationships; they provideopportunities to participate through a connection to anorganisation and they support decision making aboutwhich activities to take part in. These findings imply thatinitiatives may struggle to become established if they areunable to draw upon sufficiently strong local socialnetworks to recruit and retain volunteers.

Finally, “issues engagement” plays a key role in de-termining the pool of people available to support andparticipate in a community organisation (Klandermans1993; Stern et al. 1999). Stern et al. argue that people willoffer support to an initiative if they accept its basicvalues, feel that something they value is threatened andbelieve they have the agency to make a difference. LGGscommonly frame action around the need to act on cli-mate change, sustainability, or similar, concepts whichmany people do not strongly value or identify with(Marshall 2007; Peters et al. 2010; Defra 2011). Thispotentially greatly reduces the pool of possible sup-porters, and as discussed above, only a fraction of theseare likely to wish to be active volunteers. Stern et al.suggest that deeper commitment to an initiative is likelyto come from members for whom engagement with aparticular issue is so strong that they see it as part of theiridentity. This implies that LGGs may struggle to recruitpeople to take on more time-consuming active roles, orto secure participation of members who can provide thecommitted and effective leadership that has beenhighlighted as a key success factor for community orga-nisations (Bate et al. 2004) and LGGs (Hopkins 2011).

For the activities of a LGG to be sustained, on-going involvement of volunteers is likely to be re-quired. Clary and Snyder (1999) identified six keyindependent motivations for volunteering: acting on

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values, career development, learning and applyingskills, socialising and esteem of peers, well-beingand personal growth. If over time, at least one of theseneeds is not being met by participation in a LGG, amember is likely to drop out (Klandermans 2007).These factors point to some key issues influencingthe on-going sustainability of community initiativesinclude the desirability of the particular roles andopportunities available in the group and internal groupdynamics. The differing preferences and skills thatindividuals bring to group activities are well docu-mented in literature on learning styles and multipleintelligences (for example, Gardner 1983). The wide-ranging focus of an LGG creates a potential need todraw upon a broad range of skills and knowledge,such as practical competences (e.g. gardening andcomputer skills), knowledge of sustainability issues,written and spoken communication and group-facilitation skills (Hopkins 2008). Mobilisation effortsmay struggle where the group culture focusses uponone style of action (e.g. practical projects and groupdiscussions) leaving few opportunities to participatefor people with different interests or abilities.

Impact of initiatives

What is it feasible for a LGG to achieve in terms oflocal action on climate change, increasing communityresilience or otherwise? In contrast to local authorities,the traditional policy focus of local action on sustain-ability, they have few levers of power and influence attheir disposal. Local authorities are able to influenceplanning policy, develop infrastructure to influenceenergy use, transport and waste, and have resourcesavailable to develop awareness-raising and behaviourchange campaigns or to set up partnerships with otherbodies to deliver action to cut emissions (Fleming andWebber 2004). Best practice by local authorities iswell documented and shared (Argyriou et al. 2012)and systems for monitoring and benchmarking energyuse and carbon emissions have been developed(Fleming and Webber 2004). There is an increasingfocus being placed in the UK on institutions from allsectors (i.e. private, public, community and voluntary)to work together in partnership to achieve the greatestimpact on climate change (e.g. CLS 2013), creating arole for community groups in this process.

In contrast to local authorities, volunteer-run LGGslack power and resources (Araki 2007; Middlemiss

and Parrish 2010), which could lead to a scenariowhere they focus their limited energies on influencingthose with power (recommended by Araki 2007), orconcentrate on awareness-raising activities, a stage atwhich CSE (2009) observe many LGGs remain stuck.LGGs also often lack power in terms of legitimacy:although their members regard their actions as beingfor community benefit, this conception of what is“good” for the community will be heavily informedby the political views of their members (Doherty2002), and does not necessarily represent the widercommunity’s views. Indeed both North (2010) andBridge et al. (2013) highlight that decisions affectingthe local environment depend upon value judgementsaround issues such as appropriate scale, land use andresource use, and as such are likely to be contested bydifferent members of the community. Bridge et al.(2013) argue that a focus on “local” action in itselfbrings with it often-overlooked political implications,as it allies LGGs to socio-technical systems that workat that scale such as particular technologies (e.g. small-scale micro-generation) or governance arrangements(local instead of regional) (Bridge et al. 2013).

Despite these limitations, where LGGs have deliv-ered practical projects, they have often achieved asignificant impact, such as the 20 % cut in householdcarbon emissions achieved in the village of AshtonHayes after the first year of Ashton Hayes GoesCarbon Neutral (Alexander et al. 2007). This measure-ment of progress was achieved with the active collab-oration of a local university, but in general, LGGshave struggled to quantify their impact on climatechange, and the development of a practical tool toassist with evaluation of community-led sustainabilityinitiatives is currently an active topic of research(Transition Network 2012b). Many of the broadersocial benefits attributed to community-led initiativessuch as improved community cohesion and increasedknowledge have also been acknowledged as very chal-lenging to capture or quantify (DECC 2012).

The other key regard in which LGGs have been seenas having a positive impact is through their role inproviding a test-bed for grassroots innovations that holdpotential to be scaled-up more widely (Seyfang andSmith 2007). Scaling up in this context could mean:replication of activities in other communities; increasingparticipation in the activity; increasing the positive im-pact of the activity. Transition initiatives and otherLGGs have a positive record in this regard, in the first

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instance through their own “viral” spread and replica-tion since the launch of Transition Town Totnes in 2005.Community local currencies have been developed on asmall scale in several market town Transition initiatives(Longhurst 2012), and has led to the launch of a city-wide local currency in Bristol in 2012 (Bristol Pound2013). Community-led renewable energy has also be-come a widely replicated model across scores of UKcommunities and a recent large-scale community shareoffer raised over £4,000,000 for a collectively ownedsolar PV park (Westmill Solar Park 2013). In this way,LGGs do seem to be playing a role in supporting low-carbon innovation in the way advocated by literature onStrategic Niche Management (Kemp et al. 1998;Longhurst 2012). However the significant scaling upof initiatives in terms of numbers of active participantsdoesn’t appear to be taking place, with difficulties relat-ing to mobilisation and participation discussed abovelikely to be behind this.

Case study description

Background to case study

CCC provided support for community-led action on cli-mate change through three mutually supporting strandsof activity: providing dedicated support for action in tenpre-selected communities; managing a £50,000 localgrant fund and the provision of a local support huboffering information, resources and advice to peopleand organisations in the Leicester, Leicestershire andRutland sub-region (population 1.3 m, area of2,600 km2). The present paper focuses upon the provi-sion of support to establish a new LGG in seven of thepre-selected communities. The outcomes and learningfrom the other aspects of the project are described in

Reeves et al. (2013). CCC was delivered by a local com-munity development organisation, the Rural CommunityCouncil (RCC), working in partnership with De MontfortUniversity. The work was initiated and subsequentlysupported by each of the local authorities anddistrict/borough councils in the area. The project employedone full-time officer and ran for 2 years from 2010 to 2012.

CCC worked in seven communities where the estab-lishment of a new LGGwas sought. These communitiesare listed in Table 1, using a description of the arearather than its name to preserve anonymity. The supportdelivered included attending planning meetings,organising public events, providing start-up funding tocover venue and equipment hire and creating a web pagefor each group. The selection of communities was large-ly left to local authority partners in the project, who eachselected a community where they already had contactwith an individual or organisation to work with. Two ofthe seven communities (“inner city neighbourhood” and“large village”) were chosen because of their relativelypoor ratings in UK government Indices of MultipleDeprivation. At the outset, it was envisaged that, onaverage, £3,000 of the £50,000 grant fund would beawarded to each of the communities receiving dedicatedsupport; as will be seen this changed slightly duringdelivery of the project.

Support strategy for new initiatives

The procedure followed by CCC to assist new initiativesvaried from case to case, but was based upon the processemployed to establish and support community-led plangroups at the RCC. The process has three key steps, asfollows:

1. Identify stakeholders—contact volunteers andgroups interested in the project and other key

Table 1 Characteristics of supported communities

Community No. of initial contacts Roles of contacts Population

Rural county 2 Environmental campaigner and sustainability professional 39,200

Inner city neighbourhood 2 Manager of community centre and environmental campaigner c. 30,000

Outer city suburb 1 Chair of community stakeholders forum 22,700

Market town 1 Volunteer seeking to establish Local Green Group 12,800

Rural district 1 Volunteer seeking to establish Local Green Group c. 10,000

Large village 4 Community-led plan group members 5,650

Small village 8 Community-led plan group members 800

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community organisations (e.g. Parish Council andresidents’ association) and invite their involve-ment in organising an initial public meeting

2. Hold public meeting—Include an introductionfrom local community organisation and provideinformation on the project to engage people withthe idea. Provide a chance to discuss opportunitiesfor action and gather contact details of attendees.

3. Organise follow-up meeting and on-going support—at the follow-up meeting, identify interest informing a group to take the project forward. Ifsupport exists, assist the group to agree aims anda constitution and help with on-going planning ofactivities.

The methodology used aligned with the self-helpapproach to community development (Green 2011),with the project team seeking to play a facilitatingrole, enabling communities to identify opportunitiesand take action. The approach employed could bedescribed as “semi-structured”, in that it combinedthe structured stages used at the outset with considerableflexibility about how to support the identified prefer-ences of group volunteers beyond that point. The supportwas delivered by the CCCOfficer and combined face-to-face meetings with extensive contact over e-mail andtelephone. Some key support measures are listed inTable 2. The amount of time spent assisting each groupvaried significantly, as indicated by the number of meet-ings and events attended. The extent to which groupmeetings were organised by the CCCOfficer, rather thangroup members themselves, can be seen as an indicatorof how self-sufficient the groups were. Three of theseven groups relied upon the CCC Officer to organisemeetings and take minutes. In-kind funding was madeavailable from the project budget to assist with start-up

activities, such as booking venues, printing leaflets andhiring equipment for use on public stalls, with £83 beingspent on average. In addition, four of the seven groupsreceived funding from the CCC project’s grant fund.

Research methodology

Through the provision of assistance for new grassrootsclimate change initiatives, CCC sought to explore:

& To what extent community development methodscould be used to help to set up and sustain newLGGs

& The impact that these groups have on mitigating oradapting to climate change

& The effectiveness of the chosen method of deliv-ering this support

The project adopted a case study approach (Yin 2003),with the project as a whole being a single case of a localsupport mechanism and each supported community ini-tiative being one of the seven cases that could be com-pared with each other. To capture learning from CCC, anaction research methodology was used (Coghlan andBrannick 2005), incorporating regular feedback frompartners and beneficiaries and reflection on the supportprocess being structured through monthly project teammeetings. Feedback on the quality of support and re-sources provided by CCC to the seven communitieswas derived from an online survey that was carried outover 1 month in August/September 2011 (RCC 2011).

Results

Data relating to the development of the new LGGs aredescribed in the following section through short case

Table 2 Summary of support provided

Community No. of group activitiesattended

Date of firstcontact

Meetingsconvened

Minutestaken

In-kindfunding

Grantfunding

Rural county 10 Apr 2010 No No £105 £1,450

Inner city neighbourhood 19 Apr 2010 Yes Yes £0 N/A

Outer city suburb 6 Mar 2011 Yes Yes £98 N/A

Market town 13 Mar 2010 No No £30 £990

Rural district 10 Jan 2011 No No £74 £1,300

Large village 15 May 2010 Yes Yes £207 N/A

Small village 11 Sep 2010 No No £68 £200

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histories followed by an overview of the action takenby all groups and a summary of the findings from theproject evaluation.

Group case histories

Rural county

The rural county initiative was set up soon after agreen fair organised by an existing local environmen-tal campaign group. Sign-up sheets at the event anddiscussions with the CCC identified five local resi-dents, including a staff member at a locally basedsustainability charity, who expressed interest in settingup a Transition Initiative. A follow-up meeting held atthe charity’s office was attended by six people, whoagreed to set up a Transition group. As the groupbecame established over the following months, themembers of the existing environmental group droppedout, and the core membership was drawn from peopleactive as staff or volunteers with the charity along witha small number of other local contacts. Most memberswere relatively young, in their twenties and thirties.The group’s constitution was agreed based upon amodel provided by CCC and a simple blog websiteset up by members. It was decided to focus uponsustainability and resilience as they relate to a ruralarea and the group was actively supported by theCounty Council’s climate change officer who regular-ly attended the early meetings.

The group pro-actively sought grant funding forprojects, and after an initial failure for a projectrelated to sustainable farming secured funding fromCCC for one that promoted cycling in the localmarket town. The project involved researching bar-riers to cycling in the town and carrying out basicrepairs to make bikes roadworthy, with 120 bikesbeing fixed in all. The group also held informationstalls at three local events with the intention ofengaging the public in conversation about thegroup’s aims and following this up by joining itsmailing list. At their first AGM in July 2011, thegroup expressed satisfaction at how much they hadachieved in their first year. From the time of theAGM until the close of CCC in February 2012, thegroup was less active, with its core members con-centrating on local projects that were deliveredthrough the local sustainability charity rather thanthe Transition initiative.

Inner city neighbourhood

The inner city neighbourhood initiative began throughCCC being put in contact with a local volunteer whofor some years had been actively promoting action onenvironmental issues by the Muslim community.Initial discussions led to a public meeting beingorganised with a specific issue in mind; improvinggreen space and the production of food in the localarea. Attendance at the meeting was quite low, withfifteen people attending, most of whom were drawnfrom the social network of the CCC Officer who livedin the area. The name of the group, its aims and aconstitution were agreed by the six people thatattended a follow-up meeting. The original volunteersoon withdrew from active involvement to concentrateon initiatives that were more explicitly faith based.The core members were white and middle class, insharp contrast to the wider community where incomeswere below average for the city and where residentswere predominantly Muslim, including many fromPakistan, Somalia and Bangladesh. These memberswere in their twenties and thirties, and the majoritywere already part of a friendship group. A Chair,Secretary and Treasurer were elected with each takingon a formal role in a voluntary group for the first time.Taking on these roles noticeably galvanised the mem-bers into the assumption of increased responsibility fororganising group activities.

The group took part in two practical projects overits first year. It agreed to act on a suggestion for aninitial practical project by the CCC Officer; takingpart in the national Big Bulb Plant scheme andsecuring funds to plant bulbs around street trees inthe area. The group also signed up to a City Councilrun scheme to promote community action for im-proved green space. As a result, a Council Officerregularly attended meetings and organised a secondevent for the group to take part in (a litter pickingmorning). In mid-2011, with two of the four coremembers planning to move elsewhere in the city andthe remaining members happy to participate in prac-tical activities but not to lead the group, it dissolvedand donated its remaining assets to like-minded localorganisations. The CCC Officer spent the remainingtime that was allocated to the group providing ad-vice and support to three organisations in the areawhich were seeking to set up new local foodprojects.

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Outer city suburb

The launch meeting for this initiative was organisedwith the support of the Chair of a local network ofcommunity stakeholder organisations. This supportmeant that the meeting was well promoted by e-mailand through local social networks, and was attendedby forty people. Those present commented that despitethe suburb having a roughly 50:50 demographic splitbetween white British residents and those of otherethnic origins, particularly a large Muslim population,the vast majority of those present appeared to be whiteand middle class. At the follow-up meeting, it wasapparent that most of the 20 attendees had come sothat they could get advice on solar PV from a localinstaller that was in attendance; in consequence therewas relatively little discussion on local projects. At thethird group meeting which was attended by five peo-ple, those present agreed that although there was someinterest from individuals about specific activities thatthe initial meetings had raised, none of the peopleattending wanted to step into a leadership role to helpestablish a group.

As a result, the role of the CCC Officer in the com-munity became one of providing support and advice toindividuals to assist with particular activities. This in-cluded organising an educational tour of a local envi-ronment centre (attended by 30 local people), organisingmeetings to discuss the repair of a disused wind turbineand providing a workshop on action on climate changeat an event for young people. As an outcome of theearlier solar PV discussions, ten local households car-ried out installations over the following 6 months.

Market town

The market town initiative was set up by a localresident who had developed significant expertise onsustainability issues through managing a renewableenergy company. Plans for a launch event in April2010 were well underway prior to CCC involvementand the initiative was in the unusual position of havinga paid part-time administration assistant from the out-set. Fifty people attended a well-publicised eveningevent which featured a talk from the founder ofAshton Hayes Goes Carbon Neutral. Follow-up activ-ity was co-ordinated by the group’s founder who ar-ranged for the initiative to become a working group ofthe Town Centre Partnership.

Three months after the launch, an open meeting forpotential group volunteers was held and was attended bysixteen people. The majority of those present were therein a support role, including the CCC Officer, the pro-ject’s administration assistant, the District Council’sSustainability Officer, a member of the Town Counciland a journalist from the local newspaper. This trendcontinued at subsequent meetings, with as few as one ortwo community volunteers present at some meetings.The group agreed to focus broadly on sustainability,incorporating social, environmental and economic is-sues, althoughmost volunteers expressed a need to learnmore about the issue for improved confidence whenengaging with the public and organising events. Theactivities carried out were the setting up of informationstalls at three events organised by the District Council inthe town centre, a grant-funded “EcoTeams” trainingsession (attended by twelve people, but not leading tothe formation of an EcoTeams group) and a Dinner inthe Dark event held at local a restaurant (attended byonly two people). An outcome of having reporters fromthe local newspaper attending meetings was that someof the group’s ideas were given coverage locally, includ-ing a front page story about the idea of having a localcurrency, although this coverage had no noticeable im-pact on attendance at group meetings. The group soughtto carry out a flagship project by partnering with a majorutility company to offer low-cost green electricity toresidents of the town, but after extensive negotiationsthe project failed to come to fruition. In 2011, the groupwent on hiatus which has continued to the time ofwriting. The lack of capacity of members was the im-mediate cause of this although the administration assis-tant role had also come to an end; the group founder wasalso busy with other commitments and no other groupmembers were in a position to take on responsibility forleadership.

Rural district

The rural district initiative was originally initiated in2009 by an individual with prior experience of settingup Transition Initiatives elsewhere. This individualhad sought to set up a project covering a number ofnearby villages within a rural district, had facilitatedvarious public events and was seeking to organise ahigher-profile event to assist with the recruitment of anactive group membership. As a result, a major greenfair was planned for early 2011; this received grant

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funding from CCC to assist with a strong marketingcampaign. The CCC Officer also provided input intothe final stages of planning, which led to a follow-upmeeting being planned after the green fair for peopleinterested in joining the group. The event was attendedby 300 people, and invitations to attend a follow-upmeeting were given to all attendees. Soon after theevent, the initiating member retired from the groupdue to illness, which meant that the follow-up meetingwas effectively seeking to set up a new group fromscratch.

The scope of the group was agreed at two initialmeetings attended by ten people and those presentacknowledged the different preferences of members(from taking practical action to working strategically).The group agreed to focus upon mutual knowledgesharing and a limited amount of public engagementactivity. In 2011, group members organised a filmshowing (attended by fifteen people) and an applepressing day (attended by about forty people). Thisgroup went into hiatus after the death of one of its keymembers in late 2011 and in early 2012, was planningto undertake a smaller number of public engagementactivities.

Large village

The large village initiative emerged out of initial dis-cussions with four members of the village’scommunity-led plan group, who had recently workedwith the RCC. These discussions identified four localopportunities—increased allotment provision, a re-usable bag scheme, the installation of solar PV on thevillage hall and tree planting. The solar PV proposalwas taken to the parish council, who agreed in princi-ple to include the works in its budget for the nextfinancial year as part of its planned work to repairthe hall roof. With the support of the community-ledplan group, a public meeting was organised and wasattended by twenty local residents. At subsequentfollow-up meetings, pride in the local area emergedas the unifying theme for the group, rather than sus-tainability or acting on climate change. Meetings werewell attended by a core of 11 volunteers, but there wasnot a great deal of interest amongst those attending informing a constituted group. A number of possibleprojects were discussed at group meetings, with theone attracting most interest being to improve the ap-pearance of some land in the village centre by planting

fruit trees. Despite some initial work by group mem-bers to explore possibilities, this project was not de-veloped further, due in large part to the absence ofwilling leaders in the group.

The group members agreed to organise a stall at theVillage Fete; co-ordination and resources for the stallwere provided by the CCC Officer, although fourgroup members volunteered to staff it. After the fete,very low attendance at subsequent meetings led to adecision by CCC to cease convening meetings, mean-ing that the group effectively dissolved after 1 year inlate 2011.

Small village

This initiative was established by working with agroup of volunteers who had recently conducted acommunity-led plan with the RCC. The group wasreceptive to the idea of forming a LGG and rather thanorganise an evening meeting, undertook to arrange aweekend coffee morning with sustainability-themedactivities. Thirty people attended the event, withCCC providing a cycle-powered fruit smoothie maker,a short film (“Ashton Hayes Goes Carbon Neutral”)and conducting consultation on projects that attendeeswould like to see happen locally. At a well-attendedfollow-up meeting, it was agreed to form a groupusing the list of ideas from the consultation as a basisfor initial activities and using the idea of “goingcarbon neutral” from the short film as the focusfor the group. Membership was largely drawnfrom those that had been part of the community-led plan group, and due to their familiarity withthe process of running a community group, theyquickly agreed on a constitution, allocation of keyroles (Chair, Secretary and Treasurer) and a patternof bi-monthly group meetings.

The group was very receptive to the activities pro-posed by the CCC Officer and started by organising asmall-scale practical project (planting six apple treesto extend the village orchard). Over the remainder ofthe year they went on to organise a larger-scale project(capturing and sharing thermal images of the village’sbuildings to encourage residents to insulate theirhomes) and organised two other smaller outreachevents (a coffee morning and an apple pressing day).At their first AGM in early 2012, the group weredelighted with their achievements over the previousyear.

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Overview of activity across all communities

The launch activities used to establish each group arelisted in Table 3. Four groups worked with CCC toorganise a public meeting, whilst three held a GreenFair (a public event featuring stalls, food, films, etc.).Attendance varied from 10 to 50 for evening meetingsand 30 to 300 for public events. To promote theevents, all groups prepared and distributed postersand leaflets, invited members of local organisationsand submitted a press release to local media outlets.Evidence gathered on how people came to attend eachmeeting indicated that existing social networks had thegreatest impact overall, although marketing throughposters and local media had a positive impact for thegreen fairs.

As a result of these initial meetings, a group thatbegan to meet regularly (i.e. at least every 2 months)was established in six of the seven communities.Table 4 lists the number of Core Members in eachgroup (taken as meaning those that attended more than

one planning meeting) and All Members (includingthose who attended only once). Four of the groupsagreed formal constitutions, with three using a tem-plate provided by CCC as a basis. Not including thelaunch event and planning meetings, the activitiescarried out by each group are also summarised.

As the activities listed in Table 4 indicate, the out-comes of the group activities were predominantly fo-cussed on outreach and education (e.g. informationstalls, film showings and group visit to eco-centre).The activities which achieved a measurable reductionin carbon emissions were the solar PV knowledge-sharing (leading to ten domestic installations in theouter city suburb), the solar PV promotion in smallvillage (leading to five domestic installations) and thecycling project in the rural county (leading to therepair of 120 bikes an estimated saving of 2 tonnesof carbon dioxide/annum). Other tangible outcomeswere the six fruit trees planted by the small villagegroup and spring bulbs planted by the inner cityneighbourhood group.

Table 3 Launch events

Community Date of event Format Attendance (launch) Attendance (follow-up)

Rural county Apr 2010 Green Fair 30 6

Inner city neighbourhood May 2010 Evening meeting 15 6

Outer city suburb Apr 2011 Evening meeting 40 20

Market town Apr 2010 Evening meeting 50 N/A

Rural villages Mar 2011 Green Fair 300 7

Large village Oct 2010 Evening meeting 20 5

Small village Oct 2010 Green Fair 30 18

Table 4 Group overview

Community Coremembers

All members Dateconstituted

Activities

Rural county 7 15 Aug 2010 Stalls at events, ×3 and cycling project

Inner city neighbourhood 6 10 Sep 2010 Litter pick and bulb planting

Outer city suburb N/A N/A N/A Solar PV knowledge-sharing and group visit to eco-centre

Market town 6 20 N/A Stalls at events, ×2; eco-teams training; dinner in the darkevent; and social and print media coverage

Rural district 5 10 Dec 2010 Apple Day; Green Fair; and film showings, ×2

Large village 11 15 N/A Stall at Village Fete and Parish Council Solar PV

Small village 10 15 Jan 2011 Apple tree planting, Solar PV promotion, Apple Pressing Day,village thermal imaging study, and coffee morning

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Evaluation of support

In September 2011, 23 representatives from the com-munities receiving dedicated support from CCC com-pleted an online evaluation survey. Respondents wereasked to rate the quality of the support provided (on a5-point scale from very poor to very good), and theoverall quality was rated highly with 16 of the 23responses judging it to be “very good”, five as “good”and two “OK” (RCC 2011). All other categories ofsupport (e.g. public launch meeting, signposting andhelp with event planning) showed a similar profileindicating that the all-round level of support was seenas very good by beneficiaries.

Discussion

Establishing and sustaining new groups

A key insight from the CCC project is that new LGGscan be established within communities through the useof community development strategies driven by an ex-ternal agency. The two launch activities used, eveningpublic meetings and green fairs, each attracted interestedmembers of the local community members to attend.Attendance proved to be heavily reliant on the socialnetworks of organisers, as appeared likely from previousliterature (Passy 2003; Lim 2008). Between 5 and 20people attended follow-up meetings held with a view toestablishing a group, a typical turn-out based upon re-cords of similar projects (TESG 2009; Harehope Quarry2013). Where local volunteers expressed an interest inestablishing a new local group or projects, the evidencefrom the CCC survey suggests that the process used, ofsupporting agreement of aims, roles and a constitution,effectively met their needs.

The initial activities to establish new groups failedto meet this aim in two cases, for the large village andthe outer city suburb. However in both of these cases,this activity did lead to beneficial outcomes in terms ofclimate change mitigation—agreement to install solarPV on the parish council building in the former caseand ten households installing solar PV in the latter.These findings indicate that, even without generatingan on-going capability, an open public meeting canstill be usefully employed within a community toidentify opportunities for local action and to raiseawareness of initiatives that are happening already.

Attendance at the open meeting was lowest in thetwo communities chosen because of their relativelyhigh income deprivation, and in the inner cityneighbourhood the volunteers that came forward wereunrepresentative of the wider community. This is inline with earlier findings which cautioned againstsupporting action on sustainability issues throughself-help in lower-income communities and using cli-mate change as a frame for action in such areas(Marshall 2007).

Mobilisation was a key challenge for each of thegroups, most of which expressed concern and frustra-tion that more people did not wish to get involved.This finding supports the earlier assertion that a socialmovement framed around sustainability or climatechange is likely to attract only limited levels of supportand active participation.

By the end of the 2-year CCC project, only three ofthe six groups that had been established within theseven communities were still active (rural county, ruraldistrict and small village). The viability of establishinggroups that can become self-sustaining therefore ap-pears doubtful in many cases. Of the four remainingcommunities, three had relied upon the CCC Officerthroughout to convene meetings, plan events and driveactivity forward, whilst the other (market town) hadrelied upon the group founder to provide leadership,and had ceased to be active when this person had tostep back. This situation highlights the crucial roleplayed by leadership, with the self-sustaining groupsbeing those that had two or more people willing totake on this role and the remainder relying on the CCCOfficer to fill the vacuum. This is in line with theliterature on social movements (Bate et al. 2004),and indicates that Transition Network’s recommenda-tion that member initiatives should have at least fourpeople ready to step into a leadership role appears tobe sound (Transition Network 2012a). These findingsseem to back up the previous assertion that peoplewho wish to lead LGG activity are relatively rare in-dividuals, with a number of key qualities that enablethem to step forward (such as empowerment, verystrong identification with and knowledge of environ-mental issues and lack of practical barriers tovolunteering). In many communities the apparent lackof such people seems to have been a key barrier togetting an initiative off the ground.

At the level of the group, none of the groups movedbeyond the “Enthusiastic Action” step on the CAGs

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framework, and from a social movement perspective,they reached a stage of decline rather thanbureaucratisation (Christiansen 2009). The authors’experience with the 30+ LGGs in the CCC sub-region (one of which is incorporated) and the nationalpicture (where less than 20 Transition initiatives areincorporated) indicates that not moving to Step 4 inthe CAGs framework is the norm rather than theexception amongst LGGs. It was certainly the casethat the majority of communities supported throughCCC largely showed no ambitions to achieve large-scale impacts or to establish their organisations on amore formal footing, making the lack of progress toStep 4 unsurprising.

Activities and impact

The activities delivered by the groups were largelysmall scale and focussed upon outreach and publicengagement. This was an expected outcome whenworking with new groups, as most LGGs will startwith awareness raising and relatively small-scale pro-jects (Hopkins 2008; CAG 2012a, b) and indeed wereencouraged to do so by the CCC Officer to helpdevelop skills and self-confidence. Some initiativesdid lead to benefits in terms of climate change mitiga-tion, such as the installation of solar PV panels and therepair of cycles to encourage increased cycling in amarket town. These impacts were achieved either im-mediately after launch meetings or by a constitutedgroup with several volunteers taking on named roles.Providing on-going support to groups without mem-bers willing to take on leadership roles led to very littlepositive impact.

Hopkins (2008) suggests that Transition Initiativesseek to develop an energy descent action plan and tocouch their activities in a long-term strategic vision forthe community. There was no evidence of a strategicapproach from any of the communities supportedthrough CCC, which may have also been a limitingfactor on their impact, preventing, for example, sys-tematic engagement with all key local stakeholders.As discussed previously however, issues of the lack ofpower or a mandate to act would be likely to discour-age many community groups from pursuing such anapproach.

Improved community cohesion is often cited as abenefit of community-led climate action, but in thiscase the benefits appeared to be very limited due to the

relatively small membership of each group, groupmembers knowing each other already through priorsocial networks, and the lack of new relationshipsformed with people or organisations outside of eachgroup. With the exception of the successful cycle-repair project, it is difficult to find examples of activ-ities that contributed to community resilience to in-creasing fuel prices. The use of a local solar PVinstaller for ten installations in one community wasthe principle economic benefit realised.

A key limiting factor affecting the groups supportedappeared to be the lack of capacity of members (interms of knowledge and skills) and having enough freetime to take a more active role (as suggested byMiddlemiss and Parrish 2010). Lack of free time onthe part of committed supporters prevented the forma-tion of a group in the outer city suburb and lack ofskills and knowledge amongst many membersappeared to hold back progress in the market towninitiative. Issues of capacity were also raised by thetwo most active groups, small village and rural county.Members of both groups expressed their satisfactionwith the extent of their activities at their first AGM,given that they were being carried out by volunteers intheir spare time. The fact that both initiatives had beenworking close to the limits of their capacity and yethad achieved a relatively small-scale local impact interms of climate change mitigation and communityengagement, raises questions about whether LGGscan make a significant difference in their local area.

One area where the case study groups did showpotential for a scalable positive impact was in the areaof innovative projects. The town-wide energy initia-tive project developed by the market town group andthe sustainable land use project proposed by ruralcounty both were innovative new ideas, although nei-ther came to fruition. Nevertheless, they did provideevidence of the innovative behaviour displayed bymembers of some LGGs, and prior experience indi-cates that a successful project would most likely bereplicated elsewhere by other groups and similarprojects.

Delivery of support

The support needs identified for the seven groupsvaried greatly in scale and type of assistance offered,pointing to the need for a delivery strategy that isflexible enough to cater for these diverse needs. As

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noted above, providing unconditional long-term sup-port to pre-selected communities often achieved little;this suggests the need to better-target the support pro-vided to achieve a greater impact for the time invested.This could be achieved by only providing assistance toestablished groups to meet specific needs (e.g. assis-tance with funding bids) and helping with launchactivities and follow-up meetings where initiativesare not yet established. It may also be worth consid-ering factors for success in the wider community (e.g.potential partner organisations and supportive districtcouncils) which would give community-led initiativesthe greatest chance of success.

In two communities, the role of the CCC Officerresponded to local interest by morphing into a singlepoint of contact to advise and assist with any localsustainability initiatives that arose. This role is onethat would naturally fall within the remit of a localsupport hub for grassroots climate change action,something discussed in more depth elsewhere(Reeves et al. 2013).

The strengths and weaknesses of the activities car-ried out can be seen as relating to how appropriate theself-help community development strategy was in thatlocality. As suggested in literature on community de-velopment (Green 2011), the engagement strategyemployed did draw out relatively empowered, middleclass volunteers who were at times not representativeof their wider community. There was strong interestamongst several of the groups in being guided towardsthe choice of projects and activities by the CCCOfficer, which could indicate that a more stronglystructured process (as is the case with a community-led plan) could yield better results in some cases.Examples of low capacity point towards the benefitsof an alternative community development strategy(e.g. a training or mentoring programme), potentiallyputting that community into a stronger position todevelop projects using a self-help model in futureyears.

The organisational model for delivering supportwas found to have a number of benefits. Assistancethrough an independent project focussed upon localaction on climate change enabled specialist support onfunding, knowledge transfer and project developmentto be delivered. The framing of the support project interms of climate change had a questionable impact,with some groups (such as small village) embracing itas their agenda to work on, whilst others identified

more strongly with a different agenda (e.g. local prideand sustainability) and did not want to frame theircommunications around climate change. The activeinvolvement of local authority officers in assistinggroups proved to be beneficial in many cases. Wherean officer attended group meetings, they made groupsaware of opportunities to organise low-effort outreachactivities which could piggy-back on other localevents, publicised group activities and shared infor-mation on the assistance available. Although benefi-cial, this does raise questions about efficient use ofresources, in particular where a dedicated project offi-cer is playing a similar support role. This links actionby LGGs to their wider community setting, impact islikely to be greatest when strong action by all actors ismutually supporting.

The financial support provided to the seven groupswas lower than originally envisaged due to their earlystage of development, with grants of up to £2,000awarded to the supported groups. The take-up ofstart-up funding by the seven communities indicatesthat making a small sum available to new groups tocover core costs can be beneficial, although relativelylow start-up costs are often not a barrier to getting anew group off the ground (Hopkins 2008).

Conclusions

Despite the great hopes placed by many in community-led action on climate change, the findings reported hereindicate that the impact of such initiatives is likelyto be limited by many of the constraints previouslyidentified in literature on social movements andcommunity organisations. Some of the key chal-lenges encountered include recruiting an activemembership and the limited capacity of volunteermembers to plan and deliver projects and events.Our findings indicate that for a LGG to be self-sustaining, it is likely to need a core of memberswho strongly identify with sustainability issues andare willing to step into a leadership role.

Given this context, it seems likely that local author-ities or community development organisations willusually not meet with success if they seek to establisha new grassroots climate change group in a particularlocal area. A more effective strategy appears to be toprovide a point of contact to assist the development ofnew projects and activities where the demand exists.

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This work could beneficially be delivered by a projectproviding resources and funding to such groups in thelocal area (Reeves et al. 2013). The experience of theCCC project indicates that this contact organisationwould benefit from having expertise in the wide rangeof issues relating to community-led climate changeprojects, such as knowledge of sustainability, commu-nity group development and a strong relationship withlocal authorities. The most appropriate delivery mech-anism will be context specific, depending upon therange of organisations with these competences thatare present in an area. It may be suited to directdelivery by a local authority in some cases or a locallybased voluntary sector organisation in others. Despitethis picture, pro-active outreach work, such asorganising a public meeting still appears to have auseful role to play and can be a low-effort strategyfor identifying opportunities for local projects.

The evidence on the impacts of LGGs indicates thatthriving groups seem to be the exception, rather thanthe rule, with several committed volunteers willing toplay a leadership role being key requirements for agroup to be self-sustaining. Initiatives that go on tobecome incorporated or set up larger-scale projectsseem to be few and far between, and future researchcould usefully explore the influence of circumstancesand individuals in making this happen. There wassome evidence of LGGs acting as a seed-bed forinnovative projects, but only in certain groups andthrough the efforts of particular highly motivated in-dividuals in leadership roles. The role of LGGs inpromoting innovation appears very promising and fu-ture research could seek to more explicitly identify theconditions required for innovative projects to developand support this to take place.

This research has explored the possible impacts ofone support strategy in a particular local context in theUK. Further research could beneficially explore theimpacts of a greater range of strategies employed indifferent contexts and geographic regions. These couldinclude supporting self-help within communities with-out using climate change as the frame of action, orsetting up training or entrepreneurial programmes witha view to beneficiaries developing local projects as anoutcome. The grassroots climate change initiative stillappears to hold great potential but an effective strategyto unlock this potential and empower local people toachieve significant change within their areas remainselusive.

Acknowledgements CCC was a collaborative venture be-tween the RCC (Leicestershire & Rutland), De Montfort Uni-versity and the following local authorities: LeicestershireCounty Council, Rutland County Council, Leicester City Coun-cil, and the district and borough councils of Charnwood,Harborough, Hinckley and Bosworth, Oadby and Wigston,Melton, Blaby and North West Leicestershire. The project wasmade possible thanks to financial support from the Economicand Social Research Council (ESRC), the Natural EnvironmentResearch Council (NERC), Defra and the East Midlands Re-gional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership (RIEP). Theproject was delivered through the Knowledge Transfer Partner-ships programme (KTP). KTP aims to help businesses to im-prove their competitiveness and productivity through the betteruse of knowledge, technology and skills that reside within theUK Knowledge Base. KTP is funded by the Technology Strat-egy Board along with other government funding organisations.We are grateful for the helpful constructive feedback providedby the reviewers of this paper.

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