Promoting Sustainable Consumption—a View from the Ground

What is it about?

This is a chapter based on a talk given at a SCORAI workshop, in London on 30 Sept 2014 entitled "What to do if your community is not ready for Transition" by Dr Mandy Meikle. The three questions addressed in the presentation were: (i) What actions are being taken by activists, which may reduce consumption or at least make it more sustainable?; (ii) What kinds of resources/skills/support do practitioners need to make projects happen and durable?; and (iii) What makes initiatives fail? The paper looks at how communities can become more resilient to an uncertain, resource-constrained future even if people don't want to engage in such issues. The answer lies in focusing on what a community is ready to engage in.

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Why is it important?

As the welfare state contracts and local authority services decline, communities will increasingly have to 'fend for themselves' . So important will this be, that many more individuals must become actively involved in their communities now to avoid the 'burn-out' of key players in the future. The Transition Initiative is a global movement where communities work to reduce their energy consumption. However, while a force for change, transition Initiatives can be self-selecting and fail to attract people who do not want to engage with global environmental issues, or with local issues.