How eco-champions solve the triple-bottom-line challenge

Eco-champions in eco-communities offer valuable lessons for mainstream societies to solve the triple-bottom-line (TBL) challenge for a sustainable ecosystem, society and economy. Eco-communities are self-sufficient on most TBL-processes, which makes them a microcosm to study eco-champions in. Eco-champions were studied as key informants and lead-users for their eco-innovative TBL-solutions. This study collected data through ethnogra-phies, interviews, surveys, and secondary data from 28 eco-communities as a multiple case study. The eco-communities are assessed on the regional circular economy RCE framework to find if and how all TBL-processes operate within regional and planetary boundaries. Findings are that some eco-communities solved the TBL-challenge, and that this pivots around the lifestyle of eco-champions. Thirteen TBL-solutions were identified that relate to lifestyle aspects of living space, food, leisure and work. These solutions are common in eco-communities, but are largely absent in mainstream-society. This is arguably because sustainable transitions require an eco-innovation network. The network is understood as a helix-model, specifically the eco-quintuple helix model eco-5HM, which describes the collaboration between the natural ecosystem, civil society, economy, education and governance. Initiating such networks in mainstream societies could set a sustainable transition towards TBL-solutions. This study therefore recommends five propositions that may initiate eco-innovation networks in mainstream societies. The propositions are about (1) understanding, awareness and care; (2) greenwashing issues; (3) trust and sharing; (4) nature-based solutions, and; (5) reduced transport needs. The TBL-solutions and propositions are radically different from current initiatives and policymaking that target sustainability, and deserve more consideration as a viable solution to the TBL-challenge.


Introduction
The Triple Bottom Line (TBL) challenge is to sustainably balance the economy, society and natural ecosystem together (Elkington, 1997).The TBL are highly interconnected systems with Economical Production Processes (EPP) serving Societal Processes (SP) and pressuring EcoSystem processes (ESP) (Cato, 2012).There is overwhelming evidence (e.g.Dasgupta, 2021;IPCC, 2022;Richardson et al., 2023) that EPP pressure ESP into overshoot, which will cause a complete systems collapse.However, current initiatives and policymaking are not on track for solving the TBL-challenge (FAO et al., 2021;IPCC, 2022;Vogel and Hickel, 2023).Many well-intended efforts merely shift problems by pressuring other processes and regions (Lenzen et al., 2012;Schumacher, 1973;Korhonen, 2004).The tradeoffs between processes are insufficiently understood (Barrett et al., 2011;Fiksel, 2006;Gallopín, 1996).To find TBL-solutions a comprehensive systems approach is required to better assess the interconnectedness of all processes (Lozano and Huisingh, 2011;Korhonen and Snäkin, 2005).
While mainstream societies and particularly Western culture fail the TBL-challenge (Tukker et al., 2014;WMO, 2023), there may be successful eco-champions among them.Eco-champions can be studied as key informants on the TBL-challenge and as lead-users of eco-innovative TBL-solutions: Key informants have knowledge and overview of the comprehensive system (Gemser and Leenders, 2001;Marshall, 1996), and lead-users are ahead of others in innovating products, services and processes (Von Hippel, 1986) and create user innovation solutions (Bogers et al., 2010;Morrison et al., 2004;Urban and Von Hippel, 1988).Therefore, the hypothesis of this study is that studying eco-champions for their user innovation can result in TBL-solutions for mainstream society.
This study focusses on eco-champions in highly self-sufficient ecocommunities to observe them in a comprehensive systems approach.Such communities are a microcosm and therefore ideal to observe the interconnectedness of TBL-processes and TBL-solutions.Mainstream societies have significant displaced pressures, these are externalities difficult to identify and quantify (Gregson et al., 2015;Hertwich and Wood, 2018;Lenzen et al., 2012), but eco-communities such as ecovillages avoid shifting problems as they seek self-sufficient solutions (Andreas, 2013;Bang, 2005;Curtis, 2003).Alongside identifying solutions as products, services and processes, a microcosm-study may also inform policymaking (Benton et al., 2007).This expands the hypothesis, with the expectation that eco-communities are suitable to study a comprehensive systems approach, to ascertain whether perceived solutions are strong sustainable TBL-solutions that do not shift problems.
The research question in this paper is: what can mainstream societies learn from eco-champions who solved the TBL-challenge?Two objectives underpin this question: first to ascertain if ecocommunities can solve the TBL-challenge, and second to identify how eco-communities solve the TBL-challenge.To explore this question data is collected from 28 eco-communities and their eco-champions.Using a multiple case study approach, eco-communities are assessed on their TBL-performance in a comprehensive systems approach.Data is collected by a combination of methods, namely ethnographies, interviews, surveys and secondary data.Multiple case studies and mixed methods create richness of data to ascertain eco-champions solved the TBL-challenge and induct TBL-solutions.The RCE framework assesses eco-communities' TBL-performance, while the eco-5HM maps the collaboration within these communities towards implementing TBLsolutions.

Background
As mentioned, the TBL-challenge requires a comprehensive systems approach.Popular frameworks to assess sustainability (e.g.SDGs, GRI, ISO14001, BCorp) do not align with strong sustainability (Demastus and Landrum, 2023;de Oliveira Neto et al., 2018), but strong sustainability is required to solve the TBL-challenge.These popular frameworks have gaps in assessing ESP, SP and EPP.Assessing ESP is often limited to the process of climate change (IPCC, 2022;Vitousek, 1994), while there are nine ESP, of which overshoot of their regional or planetary boundaries leads to a systems collapse (Rockström et al., 2009;Richardson et al., 2023).Assessing SP for 'quality of life' comprehensively is too complex as SP are many, heterogeneous and subjective to measure (Pissourios, 2013;Ravallion, 2011).EPP are commonly assessed by GDP, which leads to misleading results (Costanza et al., 2014;van den Bergh, 2007).Moreover, popular frameworks do not sufficiently account for problems shifted to other regions, or between the TBL (Clayton and Radcliffe, 2018;Korhonen, 2004).A comprehensive framework for strong sustainability needs to include the dependencies of EPP and SP on ESP to create better understanding of the TBL interconnectedness (Daly, 1991;Pearce and Atkinson, 1993).For example, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) framework mostly emphasizes on SP and EPP, which are admirable goals, but are fundamentally unsustainable when SDGs persuade this by exceeding regional and planetary boundaries of ESP (Zeng et al., 2020).The 17 SDGs may be comprehensive, but lack an interconnected system, wherefor the SDGs are opaque on problem shifting and tradeoffs (Pradhan et al., 2017;Luttikhuis and Wiebe, 2023) Assessing 'XS-scale' communities (the scale of neighborhoods and precincts) simplifies the comprehensive systems approach (particularly when the community is rather self-reliant).Research and practice on overcoming the TBL-challenge at this scale is receiving renewed attention, e.g.C40 cities (2021), EC (2023), Salat (2021), and UNEP (2021).There are also plenty of TBL-sustainability frameworks, e.g.LEED-ND, BREEAM Communities, SITES, One Planet Communities, and Community Sustainability Assessment GEN.However, these sources and frameworks also lack the comprehensive systems approach to confirm if the TBL-challenge is solved.The frameworks do not center around TBL processes, but focus on buildings, infrastructure, and technology instead.They also fall short of community behavior and governance (Liu et al., 2020).Self-reliance receives limited attention, and problems shifted go largely unaccounted (Luederitz et al., 2013;Sharifi et al., 2021).Assessment frameworks on XS-scale also lack a comprehensive systems approach to assess if and how the TBL-challenge is solved.
A significant gap in determining which solutions actually contribute to overcoming the TBL-challenge is the consequence of popular TBL frameworks not aligning well with strong sustainability.However, the Regional Circular Economy (RCE) framework (van Bueren et al., 2022) was identified as suitable for assessing the TBL in a systems-approach.The RCE framework maps serving and pressuring impacts between processes, and also maps the risk on overshooting any boundaries per process.With 'just' 23 processes (9 ESP, 8 SP and 6 EPP) it may not be completely comprehensive, however this RCE framework covers the most significant and most interconnected key-processes for assessing on the TBL-challenge (Engström et al., 2020).Fig. 1 illustrates the RCE framework with an example assessment.
Solving the TBL-challenge can be understood as avoiding any overshoot in operating all TBL key-processes as presented in the RCE framework.This also aligns with strong sustainability as described by Daly (1991) and Pearce and Atkinson (1993) -processes (van Bueren et al., 2022).The TBL-challenge is to balance each process safe from overshooting its regional and planetary boundary.The RCE framework creates an understanding of the interconnectedness and dependencies of all key processes: when an overarching process (depicted in a larger circle) overshoots, a systems collapse will significantly pressure its constituent processes (in a smaller circle).The challenge here is that serving one process may pressure another.An example of EPP Agriculture illustrates the challenge: EPP Agriculture serves SP Food (green arrow), but also pressures 7 ESP (brown arrows).Because of the impacts, some processes are safe on their boundary, but others are uncertain or at high risk of overshoot.This example is for the impacts of one process; a comprehensive assessment should include all interconnections.
how to meet "the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs", as proposed in the Brundtland (1987) definition on sustainable development.

Selection and description of methods
Data is collected from multiple case studies for a thematic analysis through mixed methods of ethnographies, interviews, surveys and secondary data.Triangulating this mix of methods creates stronger evidence as it overcomes weaknesses from any one single method (Denzin, 2012;Fontana and Frey, 2005;Yin, 2009).This mix of methods demonstrated success in relatable comprehensive system approaches (e. g.Converse, 1987;Parten, 1950).
Multiple case studies can provide a wide range of views and contexts to verify reliability and wider validity (Burgess, 2002;Gustafsson, 2017;Stewart, 2012).This contributes to identifying the best eco-communities and eco-champions as key informants and lead-users, as well as how valid the TBL-solutions are.
Thematic analysis is commonly applied in multiple case studies (Aronson, 1995;Alhojailan, 2012;Braun and Clarke, 2006).Thematic analyses involve categorizing data to create findings (Grodal et al., 2020) through a highly iterative process (Eisenhardt, 1989).The if-objective follows the pre-identified categories from the RCE framework.The how-objective inducts solutions from the data by means of template analysis (King, 2012;Saunders et al., 2009).The resulting solutions may be products, services and processes (Von Hippel, 1986), including processes to inform policymaking (Benton et al., 2007).
The leading data-collection method is ethnography.This qualitative method is used to study behaviors, perceptions, and the environment of participants (Cunliffe, 2010;Reeves et al., 2008).Ethnography can be used in exploratory and emergent ways, while refining the research in the process (Saunders et al., 2009).Long stays in eco-communities allows observing the TBL-processes in a systems-approach, including the interconnected products, services and processes that impact them.The data is broadened and deepened with interviews, which were mostly conducted during the ethnographies.Combining interviews and ethnographies enriches the data quality, as compared to the individual methods separately (Spradley, 2016).
Additionally, data is collected through online surveys that systematically cover all 23 TBL-processes on barriers and perceived solutions.The survey was informed by preliminary ethnography and pilot interviews.These online surveys are more structured than ethnography and interviews, this contributes to comparisons between cases and to cover all 23 processes more equally.Surveys are also practical to collect multiple cases, and from different countries.However, participants are less motivated to go in depth and data reliability is lower (Saunders et al., 2009).Survey results aided in confirming solutions identified through ethnography and interviews.The survey had a 75% response rate, and is included as Appendix A. The role of secondary data (such as review of literature and from internet searches) is to verify and elaborate findings.
The eco-communities are assessed on the RCE framework to ascertain their TBL-performance (the if objective).Each process is loosely quantified on a scale of 'safe to high-risk', similar to the example in Fig. 1.The four data-collection methods, and comparing cases provided high confidence in determining the best cases if they solved the TBLchallenge.This required a fair understanding of each process, and open-mindedness for different approaches and perceived solutions.Processes that are not self-reliant within the region required considerations how much pressures are exported and the potential overshoot elsewhere.Secondary data also supported understanding of processes and review of perceived solutions.A more quantitative assessment would require measuring, LCAs and other methods, which would complicate the research, but would unlikely lead to different results on the 'safe to high-risk'-scale.Note, that this is process is significantly different from the popular XS-scale assessment framework that only tick pre-described solutions.
This RCE assessment is done in parallel with identifying what contributes to great performance (the how objective).The identified solutions are assessed on how they contribute to the TBL; each TBL-solution is examined on which processes they serve and pressure.This verification is only qualitative, as impacts are not objectively quantifiable, and most metrics have low validity.This research is conducted responsibly according to the Australian Code on human research ethics (NHMRC, 2007), including consent of participants, anonymizing data, and the use of relevant quotes that were verified and approved.

Description of the data sample of case studies
Case studies were found through internet searches and from references of eco-champions.Selection criteria was based on selfidentification as eco-community and a pre-assessment with secondary data (when available).Another selection criterium was to include variety.GEN (Global Ecovillage Network) aided on finding and identifying cases, but eventually only led to four cases.The full ethnographies had some additional practical selection criteria: travel distance and accommodation availability.Over 3,500 km was travelled between ethnography locations (through various climate zones).In four cases accommodation was found through the website HelpX.
Twenty-eight eco-communities are included in this multiple case study.The results are saturated.Table 1 presents the data-collection methods applied on the number of cases.Ethnographies are divided into full ethnographies of multiple day on site presence and mini ethnographies of several hours.Thirteen eco-champions were identified and studied.They particularly serve as key informants and lead-users on how to address the TBL-challenge.Eco-communities and human participants with slightly lower TBL-performance also contribute to the data, however this data is appraised more critically to verify whether perceived solutions are not actually displacing problems.
The methods took various measures to ensure data reliability: a variety of methods to find and select case-studies; multiple case studies across highly diverse communities, and the use of four different datacollection methods.Admittingly, two patterns occurred that may

Table 1
Number of data collection methods on the multiple case studies.The second column counts the number of eco-communities, whereas the third column is the number of eco-champions involved within the eco-communities.debatably skew the data.First, no cases were included in a dense urban context.Such context could be very sustainable because of proximity to amenities, required space efficiency and optimized logistics.However, urban communities are hard to study in a comprehensive approach (as a microcosm) because of their interconnectedness with neighboring precincts and beyond.Second, virtually all case-studies were based on permaculture principles (implicitly, but often also explicitly).Permaculture (Mollison and Holmgren, 1978) is a concept which is particularly popular within Australia, and is arguably nearly synonymous with strong sustainability and circular economy.When understood as synonymous, then this did not skew the data.The discussion section deepens on this point.This paragraph describes the case study at Crystal Waters Ecovillage, to gain better understanding of the case studies and data-collection: Crystal Waters is a village 80 km North of Brisbane (Australia) with around 250 residents.It was established in 1988 based on permaculture principles (Ney, 2019).The ethnography here lasted two weeks, plus a three-day follow-up six months later.Accommodation was in the village, with 1 week at a camping site, and the remainder duration in a guestroom at one of the participants.Observations and semi-structured interviews were made while participating in a range of community activities, including shared meals, entertainment, domestic duties, and a workshop.Data was documented through 'live' notes in a notebook, photos and regular reflections documented.Data-collection focused on the ecovillage and community, but also identified three eco-champions for a more in-depth study.One eco-champion participant is Robin Clayfield, who is active as writer and permaculture consultant.Robin is also an elder involved in governing the village, participates in a co-operation for farming bamboo and makes a tiny house available for others to stay in.The researcher had several meetings with Robin, including social encounters within the community and one scheduled audio-recorded interview of 1 h.Following human research ethics, explicit permission was obtained from Crystal Waters and Robin to be mentioned, noting that other case studies and participants have been anonymized.

TBL-assessment of eco-communities
The eco-communities are assessed on the RCE framework to ascertain their TBL-performance (the if objective).Out of the twenty-eight communities, five stood out for solving the TBL-challenge.Fig. 2 presents the TBL-performance of the five best eco-communities and the performance of Australia as a mainstream culture.The eco-community assessments are based on relating collected data to the TBL-processes on a semi-quantitative scale of 'safe to high-risk'.Section 6.2 describes how the processes were interpreted for assessment on this scale.The result from Australia (van Bueren et al., 2022) is used for comparison.
Each eco-community assessment involves hundreds of datapoints collected from aforementioned methods.The survey systematically covered questions on all 23 TBL-processes, while observations and discussions with residents focused on them as well.The following example describes observations made to assess the nine ESP in the ecocommunity.The words in bold mark the assessed ESP.
The community is very strict in avoiding and minimizing products holding chemicals, plastics, ozone and fossil fuel.All water in the community comes from rainwater collected in human-made ponds and water-tanks.Pumping water from a nearby creek as back-up is only used in exceptional dry years.Used water is treated from biogeochemicals in a small field with sediments, native-plants and a micro-biological system before flowing back in a pond.Some compost toilets collect other biogeochemicals for gardening, and men are encouraged to urinate around fruit-trees.The land use transformed from a barren cattle ranch back into a biodiverse forest with the community living here.There are buildings, homes, unpaved roads, and gardens, but it feels like living in the middle of nature surrounded by plants and animals.The community works to reduce invasive species and intentionally creates microbiomes for local species.The region appears to be net storing of carbon in soil, trees and even in timber building-materials.Some local wood and bamboo are used for heating homes and even to create activated carbon.
The eco-community performance is impressive as they operate highly self-sufficient within regional boundaries of between 1 and 260 ha, while Australia exceeds its boundaries and displaces pressures despite being a continent.Eco-champions even outperform Australia in managing EPP locally (opposed to importing).Eco-communities were observed to import some EPP and related resources: EPP Manufacturing (tools, electronics and vehicles), EPP Mining (metal, cement and rareearth), EPP Agriculture (staples such as rice and wheat) and EPP Aquaculture (although this is small).These EPP and their resources are only manageable on larger scales (van Bueren et al., 2021), even though Fig. 2. The TBL-performance of the best five eco-communities on XS-scale (on the left) and Australia on L-scale (on the right).The eco-communities manage nearly all TBL-processes from the RCE framework within their regional boundaries.This is a good performance, particularly compared to the performance of Australia in general.Australia performance is based on van Bueren et al. ( 2022), with updates from Hoff et al. ( 2021) and Richardson et al. (2023) eco-communities tend to use these imported resources in smaller amounts, are more durable, and are often replaced with more local alternatives.A participant stated: "if it comes from far, it must be bad, like these new car batteries, mining rare-earths is the new oil".These words were also put to action; for example, adobe or aircrete homes require up to 90% less cement compared to conventional homes.The best five eco-communities are reasonably self-sufficient on all ESP, SP and EPP as they all perform well within their regional boundaries.

Identifying TBL-solutions
The objective of how eco-champions solved the TBL-challenge was studied alongside the if objective.Eco-champions were found to understand and care for the TBL-challenge and actively work on solutions.Every product, service and process, as well as every decision is critically accounted on the TBL in a systems approach, up to compulsive levels.E. g.: "My solar-panels are 15-20 years old, but they keep my -just as old-fridge cold (…) new panels could power an electric kettle and cooktop, but so many rare-earths go in panels.(…) besides, my forest provides me enough firewood for heat".Participants with such reasoning are most valuable key informants.Ethnographies, interviews and surveys continued until multiple eco-champions were found and identified TBL-solutions saturated.Identified solutions cover every aspect of lifestyle, from living space, food, leisure and work.The same solutions were present across multiple case studies of different sizes, climates, cultures or other varieties; however, they are largely absent in mainstream societies.Solutions that already emerge in mainstream societies (e.g.solar panels) were left out, as well as solutions that are unrealistic to implement widely (e.g.bathing in a waterfall).Within each selected solution are variants, that all serve TBL-processes with inconsequential risk of any overshoot.Table 2 presents the TBL-solutions.
The following paragraph describes a typical day during the ethnography, to explain how the observed solutions were inducted from the data.Note that this description merges different days and locations of data-collection to make this example more illustrative and concise.The words in bold mark the identified eco-champion solutions: "A group of people gather in the eco-community for a workshop on building a natural house.There is a big variety in the group: ages from teenager to retiree, some in professional workwear and some dressed in organic hemp, there are at least four different nationalities.Most people are visiting the community.Two Argentinian brothers start chatting with me, they are on a working-holiday and lodge in the eco-community in exchange for work.They explain to me the gardening skills they learned: "if you grow certain vegetables and fruits next to each other, they all grow better and provide a stable harvest all year round.(…) If we combine this GIY gardening and DIY building your own home and we can start our own off-grid home back in Argentina'.I look around as the workshop host tries to get attention, but everyone is busy chatting with each other.The host welcomes everyone and explains the program of today followed by a speech why she is passionate about sharing knowledge and skills in this workshop: 'with just little money for materials and a big, healthy exercise everyone can make their own dream home come true.You don't need a mortgage and you don't need to wake up at 7am to drive into a traffic-jam to a job stealing 40 hours of your week away.I had a part-time job to pay for materials and spend my spare time building my dream homes here in the forest where I can enjoy nature.For 7 years all my time and money were invested in building these homes, but now I generate enough passive income from rent, and I save money as we grow our own food in this nice little community.Not bad for a single mum, right?' (…) 'Half the money I spend on my home was getting the building permission as the council had no idea how to assess this material.But it is finally approved, which makes it easier for others to get approval.I can share with you the documentation for it.Or you can decide to make a tiny-home, which may not need council permission.'Then it is time to get our hands dirty.The group breaks in small teams for different tasks, and teams rotate to get experience on various tasks.After some hard-working hours lunch is served, pasta salad with many vegetables fresh from the garden.Bacon is served separately as half of the participants are vegetarian.Most people brought their own plate, cutlery and drinking cup as requested by the host, but there are some available from her own kitchen.No single use plastics are used.One participant also brought food to share; woodsmoked carrots with herbs.Very tasty and hard to believe it is plantbased.While the group is distracted by a spectacular display of kangaroos passing by, a magpie seizes the opportunity and swoops by to grab some bacon.'Yap, that's the bird-tax you pay in this village' says one local jokingly.The workshop is very inspiring and educational, nobody has regrets joining or paying the workshop-fee.Besides learning living-skills and socializing also a lot of labor was done by a group who paid for doing labor!"Each solution is assessed on their TBL-impacts to understand how

Table 2
Identified TBL-solutions of products, services and processes.Solutions are described with examples and variants.These solutions cover every lifestyle aspect of living space, food, leisure and work.The right column presents common mainstream variants of the same lifestyle aspect to illustrate avoided pressures.

TBL-solutions
Opposed to mainstream variants (illustrative)
Buildings from concrete, brick, steel and imported timber with questionable FSC-certification.
Tiny-home, declutter, own-little and share-a-lot.
Oversized living space and consuming many products per individual.Green energy & conserve, particularly solar, woodstove, natural ventilation and passive solar.
Coal-power and inefficient energy usage.
Forest & ponds that stimulate native biodiversity, filter and preserve fresh water.This also mitigates and adapts to climate change.
Paved surfaces with underground water-runoff.Fields of non-native grass and mono-culture landscapes.

Food
Plant-based diet, particularly avoiding red meat and dairy.
Meat centered and sugary food.they contribute to solving the TBL-challenge.This assessment is presented in Fig. 3 as a Sankey-diagram with (serving and pressuring) impacts from all 13 solutions on the 23 TBL-processess of the RCE framework.Each impact is also assessed if these are local (inside the ecocommunity region), or displaced (problems shifted to outside the region).The diagram shows that most impacts are serving and local, with just few local or displaced pressures.This result confirms these TBLsolutions enable a lifestyle within regional and planetary boundaries; solving the TBL-challenge.

GIY (Grow
The solutions perform significantly better opposed to their common mainstream variants (as listed in Table 2).This is illustrated in Fig. 3 by avoided pressures, which appear to be many and mostly displaced pressures to other regions.
TBL-solutions are unlikely to widely emerge into mainstream societies, despite being great for solving the TBL-challenge, and despite not even being technically innovative.The solutions are still innovative for mainstream societies, but they are often not new, unavailable or unknown.The solutions may seem rather extreme, inconvenient, or disruptive for mainstream societies.Hypothetically, they work in ecocommunities because of an underlying eco-innovation network, where one solution serves another solution to emerge.Serving relationships between solutions were identified (see Fig. 3 by the impact lines between solutions in green on the far left).For example, a Natural house made with adobe and earthbags, like a human-sized hobbit-house, is cheap on materials, but extremely laborious.Eco-communities avoid high labor-cost with voluntary labor from DIY & share, Holiday exchange and a 20h workweek.Eco-champion solutions may not be popular in mainstream societies because the absence of such eco-innovation network.
An eco-innovation network may be required to make a sustainable transition towards TBL-solutions.When this was realized, analysis deepened to identify what forms this network.This analysis was to explore if initiating eco-innovation networks in mainstream societies set a sustainable transition towards TBL-solutions.

Identifying the eco-innovation network
Thus far, the results confirmed that eco-champions are considerably successful in solving the TBL-challenge, and thirteen contributing TBLsolutions were inducted.Solutions of products, services and processes, answer how eco-champions solve the TBL-challenge, but understanding the eco-innovation network may help to set a sustainable transition in mainstream societies to adopt these solutions.To find an (existing) explanatory theory, literature on sustainability transitions was reviewed, e.g.Stam et al. (2023) and Fastenrath et al. (2023).Simultaneously, more data relevant to this was collected.Eventually, an explanatory theory was found in the literature that matched well with the collected data; a theory on creating a regional innovation network: helix models.
The helix stands for the collaboration of stakeholders that create a systemic innovation network; metaphorically as a DNA-molecule with interconnected strains moving in an upwards spiral (Leydesdorff, 2013).The triple-helix is the collaboration between government, economy (firms) and education (Leydesdorff and Etzkowitz, 1996).An extension also includes civil society and the natural ecosystem as the quintuple-helix (Carayannis and Campbell, 2010).Helix-models do not necessarily contribute to the TBL-challenge, but the eco quintuple-helix model (eco-5HM) is the sustainability-centric variant (van Bueren et al., 2023).The eco-5HM may be understood as an eco-innovation network, as antecedent for the eco-innovative TBL-solutions.
Helix-models are typically studied and applied in regions the size of a city or country; no prior literature was found of helix-models validated for the XS-scale of communities.However, all five stakeholders could be identified in the data, but some individuals were assigned multiple stakeholder-roles at once.Helix-literature explains this as hybridstakeholders (Champenois and Etzkowitz, 2018).Therefore, the helix-model is assumed to be also valid for this XS-scale.Moreover, it can be understood as a microcosm; as a very grounded case study of the helix-model.
The hypothesis is tested if the eco-5HM contributes as eco-innovation network in the eco-community.The eco-5HM is therefore applied as template to categorize data into stakeholder-roles and collaborations.
The following sections describe each role and collaboration.

Education
Understanding the TBL-challenge is a prerequisite for finding actual solutions.Eco-champions were found to actively educate themselves on the TBL, and also share their learnings.Few eco-champions based their understanding on state-of-the-art science, other sources were found that serve just as well: books like Permaculture One: a perennial agriculture for human settlements (Mollison and Holmgren, 1978), and Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics as if people mattered (Schumacher, 1973).Some eco-champions were mostly autodidact through leisure in nature and GIY.Even spiritual believes were observed to lead to a strong understanding of how everything (and in this case TBL-processes) are interconnected.
Eco-champions were also found to reject a lot of commercial (mis) information, e.g.: "why would I need brand-clothes, hair-dye, an advanced coffee-machine, a bigger car and all these plastic things, … none of these make me happy".Eco-knowledge is widely available for everyone, but mainstream societies may be confused by the loud voice of greenwashing and other commercial (mis)information.

Society
Civil society (the community) reinforces the education-helix of creating understanding with awareness, care and trust.For example, with leisure activities around learning and practicing living-skills.Peerpressure to confirm with the eco-community reinforces eco-habits: "In the city people get respected for their fancy car, fashion and bling-bling, but here you get respected if you care for nature and people, and when you share your killer chutney".Indeed, a strong distrust against marketing and consumerism can be observed among eco-champions.Awareness, care, trust and sharing are important societal antecedents that can be directly linked to the TBL-solutions (see Table 2).

Economy
The economy inside the community was observed to be quite different from mainstream societies, for the small role of firms and formal jobs.There is prosperity and no shortage of any EPP, but the role of commercial firms is much smaller.DIY & share and GIY enable to acquire resources (such as products, services and materials) locally and without money or firms as middleman.Even Natural houses can be largely made by local and free materials (e.g.earth and stones) in a sustainable manner.The absence of firms has TBL-benefits, although it comes with inconveniences of extra time, labor, planning and trust.
Many examples were found that illustrate benefits of DIY, GIY and sharing: DIY adding personal value: "I travelled with my backpack for 20 years already and repaired it many times, every stich and patch are memories and souvenirs from places I have been."GIY as healthy hobby, and sometimes not even laborious, e.g. the (sub)tropical perennial treelettuce (Lactuca Indica) has leaves like lettuce that can be plucked daily: "The grocers do not want you to know about this one, as then they won't sell any overpriced lettuce to you anymore" as an eco-champion jokingly said.Sharing was found in a variety of forms, e.g.sharing gardening tools to neighbors; sharing gardening knowledge; gardening chores together in a working-Bee; veggie-swaps and sharing chutney, and; working holiday travelers receiving boarding.Eco-champions even experience the inconveniences from DIY, GIY and sharing as rewarding challenges.
Some firms do support DIY, GIY and sharing.Firms that ecochampions actively use are e.g.local markets, second-hand shops, ecoconscious shops (despite higher prices) and LETS.LETS stands for 'Local Energy Trading Scheme' and is a trust-based platform to exchange products and services.Many other preferred firms are online connectors and brokers, among examples mentioned are: WWOOF, Workaway and HelpX for holiday workers; Peerby for sharing tools; LeftoverSwap and EatWith for sharing food; Mindahome for minding a home and petsitting; Uber-carshare for sharing your car, and; Carma Carpooling for sharing rides.
Not involving firms seems a frugal but rich lifestyle.Money is saved and time is well-spent on productive hobbies.This enables ecochampions to have a 20 h workweek with ample time for these hobbies.As a participant explained: "There is no business model for selling nothing (…) advertisement lures you into buying things you don't need (…) realize that you only work to live, and not live to work".Note that people on (long-term) welfare support are not considered eco-champions due to lack of financial self-sufficiency.

Ecosystem
The ecosystem is very present in eco-communities.The local ecosystem provides support for SP and EPP with many products, services and materials, e.g.firewood, building materials, healthy soil, food, shading and a leisure environment with flora and fauna (beautiful birdsongs were frequently observed).Other eco-functions provided by the ecosystem are carbon-uptake, bioremediation, water retention and water purification.Some eco-champions managed to grow their daily food on just 40 m 2 per person (excluding rice and wheat), yet most live on much larger land for other eco-system functions and as stewards for preserving the ecosystem.The local eco-system receives support from the eco-community, e.g.reducing non-endemic species, avoiding pollution, reforestation, and creation of biotopes were observed.Stakeholders collaborate with the natural ecosystem by providing and receiving support of nature.
The ecosystem is sometimes also a treat to eco-communities, particularly weather extremes of droughts or rainfall, e.g.harvests failed, and buildings threatened by bushfire and floods.This can be partially attributed to the ESP overshoot eco-champions try so hard to prevent.Snakes and spiders are perceived by mainstream societies as threats, but eco-champions assured they rarely cause accidents despite they share the same environment.Snakes and spiders were observed during the ethnographies, including a 2.5 m carpet python climbing a veranda, and a red-back spider which was relocated from the bathroom.Statistics support that snakes and spiders are harmless, with under two human deaths a year Australia-wide (Welton et al., 2017).

Government
Governance contributes significantly to the success or collapse of a community.Many participants were aware of difficulties on this stakeholder-role: "We made an alternative lifestyle; this attracts all kinds of people including some toxic counterculture individuals who don't self-reflect and are full of conspiracies.This causes tension in the community."The governance role in eco-communities is actively engaging on the TBLchallenge.Many different governance structures were observed.For example, one founder (the landowner or even a spiritual leader) who is ultimately responsible for all decisions.Other communities have democratic approaches such as sociocracy and meritocracy.There are regular group meetings, which often follow specific formats, including nonviolent communication.The natural ecosystem is often discussed and represented as a 'voting' stakeholder.
Legal structures can be a building-corporation, co-ownership of all land, or full ownership of individual plots.Legal structures have extensive democratic and financial consequences, including systems on attracting new members (e.g.buy-in or vote-in).The implications of governance (and legal) structures on the TBL-challenge are significant, but further study is required to conclude on what is most successful.

Stakeholder collaborations
Stakeholder-roles and their contributions were identifiable after testing the eco-5HM as explanatory theory as eco-innovation network.Furthermore, stakeholder collaborations were also identified and are numerous.The following example is an anecdote describing a successful collaboration between the five stakeholders (The words in bold mark stakeholder-roles): "An eco-community resident came to understand (education) that cats and dogs negatively impact the local wildlife (Murphy et al., 2019).This was raised at a meeting on governing (government) the community.Despite many residents loving their pets, they have awareness and care (society) about the local biodiversity as well.Cats and dogs were phased out, which led to the return of endangered koalas in the region.The community felt empowered (society) by the success and cherished their region and ecosystem even more.More initiatives (society) followed to create a better habitat for koalas, but also for native-bees, frogs, and butterflies.The initiatives were documented and shared at the info-center (education), the eco-community became more popular, which led to a camping-ground for visitors and increased property value (economy).Banning pets is now a policy in many eco-communities, but also by councils in ecological valuable areas (government)." This example also illustrates that eco-communities are a microcosm that can inform policymaking elsewhere.Arguably, the small size of ecocommunities and their aim to solve things locally strengthens stakeholder collaborations.This could lead to faster and better results.On the downside, small size also creates vulnerability, such as from the "toxic counterculture individuals".

Propositions for mainstream societies
Mainstream societies have a lot to learn from eco-champions on how to solve the TBL-challenge.Lessons from eco-communities can inform research and policy (Lyth et al., 2017;Seyfang and Smith, 2007).Mainstream societies need a systemic change to implement TBL-solutions (see also Loorbach and Rotmans, 2006;Stam et al., 2023).This change may be made by building an eco-innovation network based on the eco-5HM.How to initiate the change? is the next question.The following five propositions are composed by the insights learned from eco-champions underpinned by the literature.These propositions may catalyze towards wider implementation of TBL-solutions.They are to onboard all helix-stakeholders, with arguably an initiating role for the government.
1. Understanding, awareness and care.These are key elements to spark any eco-innovation, as observed in eco-communities and according to helix-literature (Alméstar et al., 2022;Liyanage, 2022;van Bueren et al., 2024).Main-stream societies need (better) environmental education via multiple media, including through leisure in and for nature (Groffman et al., 2010;Elliott-Ryan, 2023).Eco-champions were found to be understanding, aware and caring on how all TBL-processes are interconnected.This leads to eco-habits such as reducing waste and plant-based diet (Brennan et al., 2021;Kemper, 2020).Mainstream societies seem little aware of the TBL-challenge and are therefore more resistant to change their behavior, or make wrong decisions based on greenwashing advertisements.2. Greenwashing issues.Misleading sustainability claims and other commercial (mis)information has grown highly successful to persuade unnecessary purchases into an overly materialistic lifestyle (Alonso-Calero et al., 2022;Nguyen et al., 2019).This is profitable for firms, but harms society and the ecosystem.
As observed from eco-champions, happiness can come from good values of kindness, sharing and preserving, opposed to bad values of materialism, egoism and consumerism.Mainstream societies may not realize about the good values as they receive underwhelming attention by lack of advertisement.This is because "there is no business model for selling nothing".
Arguably, the next step in sustainable business model innovation is post-firms and towards community model innovation.For firms to become TBL-sustainable, requires a fundamental shift in almost every aspect of how it is conducted (Bocken et al., 2014) as the nature of firms is egocentrically focussing on personal profit (Breuer and Lüdeke--Freund, 2017).
Stakeholders (other than firms) may consider stimulating, promoting and educating on actual TBL-challenge solutions.Products with significant negative impacts can be restricted from being advertised, e.g. as this Dutch city did on meat (the Guardian, 2022).Misinformation to greenwash can be suppressed, e.g. from a directive by EC (2023).Positive alternatives can also be given more promotion, e.g. as Taiwan did on promoting meat alternatives (Su and Yang, 2023).Concluding from eco-communities, a smaller role of firms and formal jobs contributes positively to the TBL in eco-communities.This is worth considering in policymaking.
3 Trust and sharing.Sharing of underutilized tools, equipment, transport and excess produce saves resources.Skills, labor, knowhow and dinners can also be shared and help in creating social quality.Space can also be shared as community space, for example for a shared living-room, coworking-space, kitchen, garden, leisure and other facilities.This stimulates smaller private homes and products with shared ownership (Chen et al., 2022;Hilder, 2021).A trusting local community can be very beneficial socially (SP) and ecologically (ESP), while preserving costs from EPP (Light and Miskelly, 2019;Mi and Coffman, 2019).Governing community relations is essential to establish trust and sharing (Ter Huurne et al., 2017).
Trust and sharing increases through understanding, awareness, and care for sustainability (Claessens et al., 2022); this a good example of how the eco-5HM as eco-innovation infrastructure can be self-reinforcing.4 Nature based solutions.Ecological qualities in a living environment were found to provide relaxation, shading and food produce at a lower cost than paved and grass surfaces.Large, paved surfaces typically make a bad microclimate with drought, dust and heat-stress (Majidi et al., 2019).Grass lawns and grass parks have little to no ecological qualities while requiring regular maintenance (Smith et al., 2015).Communities with native vegetation, simple GIY and permaculture principles were observed to prosper on the TBL.Therefore, paved and grass surfaces could be transformed into native vegetation, simple GIY and permaculture.This also helps understanding, awareness and care.5 Transport needs.The multifunctional planning in eco-communities was identified to reduce needs for transport.This design consideration for rural and residential area is arguably more effective than creating more 'green' transport, and deserves more consideration (Woodcock et al., 2007).A prioritization strategy can include multifunctional planning, stimulate walking and cycling, 'green' public transport, with car infrastructure as the last priority.One participant noted that "cycling is bad for the bad economy, because it is cheap and healthy, so you won't pay big-oil and big-pharma".

Efficacy of the RCE framework
Although the RCE framework contributes to strong sustainability, it is inconclusive on how to interpret and measure some of the 23 TBLprocesses.Fuzziness of interpretation is acceptable as they are only loosely quantified on a scale of 'safe to high-risk'.However, this section offers more details on how processes were interpreted, to offer B.J. A. van Bueren et al. transparency and to elaborate to the framework.
The nine ESP are well described in a growing body of knowledge since Rockström et al. (2009).Literature is available to guide assessing ESP (Richardson et al., 2023), even for small regions.ESP Aerosol loading, ESP Ozone depletion and ESP Chemical pollution had little relevance for eco-communities, but still hold regional and planetary boundaries that should not overshoot.
SP for 'quality of life' have a weak theoretical foundation (Pissourios, 2013).This seems unavoidable, particularly when the number of key processes is limited for useability (Ravallion, 2011;Pintér et al., 2012;MacKenzie et al., 2011).The eight SP from the RCE framework does show efficacy in covering quality of life, and its interconnectedness to ESP and EPP.The eight SP from the RCE framework align largely with Raworth (2017), but in a different aggregation.The following section argues how to interpret each SP.
• SP Transport is about the need and access to (green) transport.Observations initially focused only on access to green and public transport, but it became evident that eco-champions had very little need for transport besides walking or cycling.Reducing the need to transport significantly support the TBL.• SP Governance is about creating stability by maintaining all TBLprocesses within their boundaries.This includes justice and anticipating on change Indicators for this are observed long-term stability and opinions from the community.• SP Development was assessed on the level of knowledge and sustainable infrastructure.Knowledge may come from outside the community (e.g.internet and books), but this was not negatively accounted on self-sufficiency.• SP Food, SP Built environment and SP Goods & services are about how they contribute to 'quality of life'.This is not about quantity, but whether the community has sufficient access to it.To be satisfied with low materialism and consumption is an important aspect in this, for as long it does not negatively impact SP Health.• SP Health is about how physical and mental wellbeing develops in the community.Healthy aging can be observed by physical activeness and sharpness of mind.For example, a seventy-year-old participant who goes gardening daily and is unbeatable in scrabble.A proportionally large group came to eco-communities as they have mental struggles with mainstream society, for them was observed whether they find peace of mind in the eco-community.• SP Populate is about population size multiplying pressures (Ehrlich and Holdren, 1971).This was assessed by how family planning contributed to pressuring ESP.
The six EPP contribute to 90% of the pressures on ESP (Engström et al., 2020) and can therefore be considered the key economic processes to manage for reducing ESP pressures.A sustainable economic system is net self-sufficient on all EPP.Import of certain resources is on this XS-scale unavoidable.Importation of resources can be assessed in money, but this is more subjective for local production.

Permaculture the old paradigm for circular economy?
Solving the TBL-challenge, RCE and strong sustainability are the same paradigm, but how about permaculture?Many eco-champions referred to permaculture books, e.g.Holmgren (2002) and Mollison et al., (1991).These books underscore the importance of a systems-approach of all living and non-living things and solving things locally.Permaculture theory aligns well with circular economy principles, except permaculture emphasizes more on the small scale, rural context and supports biological processes better.Arguably, circular economy, and sustainability in general, could burgeon from learning from permaculture theory and practice.Other interesting old and emerging concepts encountered in this study are agroforestry, syntropic farming, bioregionalism, self-reliance and regenerative design.

Contributions to theory
This study set out to study eco-champions in eco-communities to find if they solved the TBL-challenge and what TBL-solutions enable this.Contributions to theory from this study are on further validating the RCE framework, helix-models, eco-communities as research objects, and strong sustainability in general.
The theoretical models of RCE framework and the eco-5HM have been further validated and expanded through empirical evidence.The 23 RCE processes have been described and tested further in detail for the XS-scale.The framework presented to be an effective tool to analyze TBL-performance for strong sustainability in a comprehensive systems approach.With this, the RCE framework arguably overcomes weaknesses from popular frameworks (Demastus and Landrum, 2023), including from SDGs (Zeng et al., 2020) and from XS-scale frameworks (Liu et al., 2020).The empirical evidence also contributes to a better understanding of the eco-5HM and helix-models in general.Helix-models have barely been studied on the XS-scale before, and demonstrated to be effective as explanatory theory, and potential as a tool to create eco-innovation.
This study also demonstrated that eco-communities, like ecovillages, are very interesting research objects.Eco-communities can be considered as a microcosm for studying a comprehensive systems approach.All TBL-processes can be observed, and from multidisciplinary perspectives (socio-technical-spatial-cultural-economic).It confirms Benton et al. (2007) that such microcosm can be used to inform policymaking.Also, its eco-champions are lead-users and key informants for sustainable user innovation solutions.This extends theories from Bogers et al. (2010), Marshall (1996) and von Hippel (1986), by demonstrating that lead-users and key informants are not only good for commercial innovations, but also for TBL-innovation in general.
The theoretical contribution to strong sustainability is a better understanding of its: key-processes (by the RCE framework); stakeholders (from eco-5HM); thirteen TBL-solutions, and; five propositions to solve the TBL-challenge for strong sustainability.

Contribution to practice
Contributions to practice from this study concern stakeholders of government, firms, education, and the community.Review of literature already identified that current policies and frameworks are not ambitious enough and shift rather than solve problems.This study presents a different practice from all stakeholders can lead to solving the TBLchallenge.Indeed, mainstream society can learn a lot from the ecochampions.Practical contributions are: RCE as a comprehensive systems approach to assess strong sustainability; thirteen TBL-solutions that cover all lifestyle aspects; roles per stakeholder for collaborating towards eco-innovation; and five practical propositions for mainstream societies to begin the sustainable transition.These contributions are radically different from current initiatives and policymaking, but identified as viable by this study.
How eco-champions solve the TBL-challenge may contribute not only to mainstream societies, but arguably also for developing countries and different cultures.It takes a simple observation to notice that developing countries often develop more towards mainstream society, with big residential suburbs, highways, more meat-based diets and increased consumerism.This is highly unsustainable considering ESP and SP.Indeed, sustainable development following SDGs are a smokescreen for strong sustainability (Zeng et al., 2020).Developing countries are in transition, and contributions from this paper can inform them towards a sustainability transitions, more than the SDGs do.

Limitations
Limitations of the contributions are that the solutions are only studied in the microcosm of eco-communities.Scale-up and translation to other societies is yet to be studied further.For example, on how to apply the eco-5HM as a policy-tool, and testing the propositions.Alternative governance structures were identified in the ecocommunities, with different strengths and weaknesses, but no conclusive recommendations were identified.
Another limitation is that dense urban contexts were not studied, and many of the contributions need translation to this context.For example, a Natural house from haybale would take too much space from the thick walls to fit in an urban context.Also, a green transport infrastructure in an urban context could justify lower self-reliance on XS-scale, with more dependency on its hinterland.
A limitation on a more philosophical note is that mainstream societies may be thriving because of egocentric individualism and consumerism, changing these values for mainstream societies might require many generations, if even possible at all.

Conclusion
Eco-champions in eco-communities offer valuable lessons for mainstream societies to solve the triple-bottom-line (TBL) challenge for a sustainable ecosystem, society and economy.Eco-communities are selfsufficient on most TBL-processes, which makes them a microcosm to study eco-champions in.Eco-champions were studied as key informants and lead-users for their eco-innovative TBL-solutions.This study collected data through ethnographies, interviews, surveys, and secondary data from 28 eco-communities as a multiple case study.
The first step was to ascertain if eco-champions managed to solve the TBL-challenge in their eco-communities.This was done by an assessment of 23 TBL-processes from the RCE framework.Step two answers how the TBL-challenge was solved, by identifying-solutions.The solutions were critically appraised on how they impact the 23 TBL-processes.The third step was to find an explanation on why these solutions are implemented in eco-communities, but largely absent in mainstream societies.
Findings from step one are that eco-champions have indeed solved the TBL-challenge as they operate highly self-sufficiently on economic production processes (EPP) to make prospering societal processes (SP), with respecting regional and planetary boundaries of ecosystem processes (ESP).Some EPP cannot realistically occur locally, such as mining and manufacturing of metals, cement and rare-earths, as well as agricultural staples like rice and wheat.However, these imported resources are reduced to a minimum and not likely overshoot boundaries elsewhere.These finding contribute to validate the RCE framework suitable to assess strong sustainability and the interconnectedness between TBLprocesses.
Findings from step two are thirteen TBL-solutions covering lifestyle aspects: Solutions related to living space are Natural house, Tiny-home, Green energy & conserve, and Forest & ponds.Solutions related to food are: Plant-based diet, GIY, and Manage food-waste.Solutions related to leisure are: Leisure in and for nature, DIY & share, Holiday exchange, and Small family.Solutions related to work are: 20 h workweek, and Responsible investments.The common mainstream variants to these solutions mostly displace pressures to other regions, which gives a false sense of sustainability.These findings contribute to community and policymakers for what contributes to a sustainable lifestyle.
Step three identified the eco-5HM as an eco-innovation network to create a sustainable transition towards TBL-solutions.The eco-5HM encompasses helixes of stakeholder collaboration between the ecosystem, (civil) society, economic system, education system and governance.Mainstream societies may be able to adopt the eco-5HM to implement TBL-solutions towards solving the TBL-challenge.The ecoinnovation network may be initiated through five propositions: (1) Understanding, awareness and care; (2) Greenwashing issues; (3) Trust and sharing; (4) Nature based solutions; (5) Transport needs.These findings contribute to enabling policymakers and the other stakeholders on how to initiate a sustainable transition.
The TBL-solutions and propositions are radically different from current initiatives and policymaking that target sustainability.Current efforts seem to miss how the TBL-processes are interconnected, as many perceived solutions merely shift problems to other regions or other TBLprocesses.Eco-champions found real solutions from long established knowledge such as permaculture principles.These solutions deserve more consideration in mainstream societies as a viable path to solve the TBL-challenge.

Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Fig. 1 .
Fig. 1.The Regional Circular Economy (RCE) framework comprising 23 interconnectedTBL-processes (van Bueren et al., 2022).The TBL-challenge is to balance each process safe from overshooting its regional and planetary boundary.The RCE framework creates an understanding of the interconnectedness and dependencies of all key processes: when an overarching process (depicted in a larger circle) overshoots, a systems collapse will significantly pressure its constituent processes (in a smaller circle).The challenge here is that serving one process may pressure another.An example of EPP Agriculture illustrates the challenge: EPP Agriculture serves SP Food (green arrow), but also pressures 7 ESP (brown arrows).Because of the impacts, some processes are safe on their boundary, but others are uncertain or at high risk of overshoot.This example is for the impacts of one process; a comprehensive assessment should include all interconnections.

Fig. 3 .
Fig.3.Sankey flow-diagram of all 13 identified TBL-solutions (left column) and their impacts on TBL-processes from the RCE framework (right column).Impacts can be serving (green lines) or pressuring (brown lines) and local or displaced.Additionally, avoided pressures (blue lines) form mainstream variants are added in the diagram to also illustrate their relative performance.Note, this Sankey-diagram presents only qualitative connections between the solutions and the TBL-processes; data is not quantified by lack of valid metrics.Impacts of 'small family planning' and 'responsible investments' are significant but hard to qualify in this diagram.
3), and provides clarity to