Active community for climate change: a Dynamic Performance Governance analysis of a biodiversity preservation program

Purpose - This study aims to illustrate how collaborative platforms may leverage active community for climate change adaptation to implement biodiversity preservation policies. Design/methodology/approach - This study adopts the Dynamic Performance Governance methodological framework to analyze the causal relationships affecting biodiversity preservation policy outcomes. Findings - Active community reduces harmful factors for biodiversity (i.e. biological threats and anthropogenic pressure), limiting the risk of extinction of perennial plants. Stakeholders’ prior knowledge is an enabling condition of climate adaptation processes as it triggers the adoption of prescriptions and cultural changes in a community. Practical implications - The study provides methodological guidance to define measures to deliver material information to support environmental performance governance. It elaborates an inventory of short- and long-term performance indicators integrating natural-science targets into accounting measures that can support policymakers operating in other contexts to implement climate change adaptation policies. Social implications - As a response to the study findings, social implications provide insights into how active community in collaborative platforms for climate change may support stakeholders to address natural resources imbalances, define strategies to share the burden among them and intervene on multiple policy domains (e.g. financial, environmental and social). Originality/value - Climate change adaptation challenges are conceptualized as “super wicked problems,” and the collaborative platforms designed to address them are rendered as complex adaptive systems. This makes the paper go beyond traditional environmental governance, demonstrating that stakeholders’ interactions within collaborative platforms harness active community specialized knowledge.