Elsevier

Energy Policy

Volume 38, Issue 12, December 2010, Pages 7596-7603
Energy Policy

Mobilising community action towards a low-carbon future: Opportunities and challenges for local government in the UK

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2010.01.044Get rights and content

Abstract

Over the last decade the important role that local authorities can play in catalyzing community action on climate change has been repeatedly emphasised by the UK Government. The paper examines this policy context and explores the options available to local authorities in terms of reaching and engaging their communities. The type of progressive response shown by some UK local authorities is illustrated with empirical evidence gathered through a study conducted in the London Borough of Islington focusing on their recently established ‘Green Living Centre’. The results confirm interest in this major council-led community initiative, with positive attitudes expressed by the majority of those questioned in terms of the advice and information available. However, it is also clear that many participants had preexisting pro-environmental attitudes and behavioural routines. Results from a broader sample of Islington residents indicate a substantial challenge in reaching the wider community, where enthusiasm for sustainability change and interest in this type of scheme were more mixed. The prospect for local government in addressing this challenge – and their ability to trigger and capitalize upon concepts of social change at the community level towards a lower carbon future – is discussed in the final part of the paper.

Introduction

Over the last decade, a growing recognition of community action as a vital strategy in addressing climate change has increasingly informed government policy, academic inquiry and grassroots action. Mirroring wider changes in the nature and conception of governance in late modernity, there is a growing consensus amongst policy makers that locally conceived projects are more likely to address effectively the social, cultural, and economic barriers, which (a) may prevent individuals from recognizing their own contribution to encouraging more sustainable energy use and (b) can serve to prevent citizens from engaging more fully in the wider political debate on sustainable living (Long, 1998; Jordan, 2006; Fudge and Peters, in press). It is postulated, therefore, that community level initiatives hold the potential to ground climate change policy in a much more visible way to the everyday practicalities of energy use than more ‘top-down’ measures have been able to achieve (Gardner and Stern, 1996; CSE, 2007).

Heiskanen et al., in press argue that the potential for community-led action on climate change to realize the aims outlined above has been an uneven process to date. In particular, they suggest that the eclectic nature of ‘community’ in tandem with the existence of a number of wider constraints on community action, has meant that policy-makers have yet to identify an ideal governing framework capable of both resonating with the community ‘lifeworld’ and capturing socially cohesive drives towards more sustainable living. Additionally, as Redclift, in press points out, good governance ‘requires an informed citizenry who are much more than consumers and customers, but active participants in a new post-carbon politics’. Redclift’s comment in particular, suggests that connecting effectively at a political level with the diversity of needs and priorities, which underpin a community is a core challenge for policy-makers. Invariably, this connection requires some recognition of difference and diversity among individuals of the same community.

The theoretical basis in which the idea of effective community engagement is grounded, is located principally in the concept of ‘social capital’: identified by Halpern (1999) as the features of social organisation that augment a society’s productive potential. Ebi and Semenza (2008) have suggested that it is possible to strengthen and augment a community’s levels of social capital through the encouragement of collective action on climate change. They argue that the appropriate design and implementation of such community-based engagement programmes can be enabled to work: ‘…by organising individuals into neighbourhood groups, connecting different groups, and eventually linking these groups with government officials’ (p. 503).

The related concept of social norms, and insights from social learning and persuasion theories further suggest that there are benefits to be derived from tapping into the cohesion and motivational drives, which can be discerned in already established social networks and community groups (Petty and Cacioppo, 1986; Halpern et al., 2002; Jackson, 2005).‘Trust’ and ‘knowledge’, for example, have been seen as crucial to the diffusion of social signals in promoting patterns of behaviour. Disseminating these signals through existing social networks has proven to be expeditious in the past, contributing for example to the achievements of community-based energy conservation projects (Gardner and Stern, 1996; Walker and Cass, 2007).

An important role for local government in developing and implementing community engagement programmes in order to address climate change has been given greater emphasis over the last decade by the UK Government. Significantly, the last two UK energy white papers, Meeting the Energy Challenge (DTI, 2007) and the 2009 White Paper UK Low Carbon Transition Plan (DECC, 2009) call attention to the vitality of local-level action, complementing the new set of performance indicators for local authorities, which measure how well they use their influence to cut back emissions locally (CLG, 2007a).

Although many local authorities across the UK have been hesitant to take up the challenge of community engagement, on both climate change and more generically, there is substantial evidence to suggest that they will have an increasingly important and influential role to perform in their capacity as a political interface between citizens and government policy (CSE, 2005; CSE, 2007).

This paper is divided into three complementary parts. Firstly, it considers the policy context and the new set of responsibilities placed on the local government sector; specifically in terms of its role in delivering community-led strategies that seek to engage individuals living lower carbon lifestyles. Secondly, the type of response demonstrated by ‘progressive’ local authorities (in terms of substantial attempts, which have been made to galvanise collective action among local residents) is explored with empirical evidence collated through a recent study conducted in the London Borough of Islington. Finally, the findings from this study are discussed in the context of some of the key social organisation concepts introduced earlier in the paper. This discussion attempts to address the question of how local authorities can utilize and enhance existing social capital and social norms to bring about individual and collective actions on climate change within their jurisdictions.

Section snippets

Community action on carbon reduction: the UK policy context

The UK Government’s Sustainable Development Strategy, revised in 2005 and renamed Securing the Future (HM Government, 2005), includes Community Action 2020 – Together We Can. This programme has the stated aim of re-energising action in communities across England ‘to achieve a step change in the delivery of sustainable development…by promoting new and existing opportunities to enable, encourage, engage and exemplify community action to increase sustainability’ (HM Government, 2005: p. 29).

London borough of Islington council: a local authority response

For some local authorities, their aspiration and drive to address the complexities of climate change is not purely contingent upon the exhortations and related (‘official’) communications emanating from Central Government. For the last five years for example, Islington Council (one of the 32 London Boroughs) has launched a wide variety of initiatives with the intention of ‘lead[ing] the way’ in tackling climate change in an inner city environment’ (Pers. Comm., 2007).

Key projects include a £3

Discussion: community action and social organisation

A critical challenge for implementing programmes of prevention and intervention within communities is the appropriate identification of context. The definition of ‘community’ is a persistent challenge (Cohen, 1985; Crow and Allan,1994; Delanty, 2003), but appreciation of the role of communities in enabling change and sharing best practice is important for local authorities developing engagement programmes and behaviour/lifestyle initiatives. In this section we focus on three key concepts:

Conclusion

This paper has considered a community-oriented educational initiative on sustainable living. Situated in a prime high street location, the Islington Green Living Centre is an ambitious and imaginative response by a local authority to the pressing challenge of community engagement in addressing climate change. The rationale behind the council’s broader programme of initiatives, including the establishment of the Green Living Centre, resonates with key concepts of social organisation. These

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