IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v38y2010i12p7624-7633.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Community action for sustainable housing: Building a low-carbon future

Author

Listed:
  • Seyfang, Gill

Abstract

This paper presents a new analytical framework of 'grassroots innovations' which views community-led initiatives for sustainable development as strategic green niches with the potential for wider transformation of mainstream society. This framework is applied to a low-carbon, low-impact, community-based sustainable housing initiative in the USA that pioneers straw bale housing techniques within a strong community-building ethos. The project is evaluated according to New Economics criteria of sustainable consumption, and is found to be successful at localising the construction supply chain, reducing ecological footprints, community-building, enabling collective action and building new institutions and systems of provision around housebuilding. However, viewing it as a strategic niche with aim to influence wider society, it is clear that it faces significant challenges in diffusing its ideas and practices beyond the niche. Its model is not necessarily suitable for scaling up or widespread replication; however, the scope for niche lessons to be adopted by mainstream builders is greater, given a supportive policy environment. Recognising the innovative nature of green niches at the policy level could lead to new approaches to governance of bottom-up community action for sustainable development.

Suggested Citation

  • Seyfang, Gill, 2010. "Community action for sustainable housing: Building a low-carbon future," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(12), pages 7624-7633, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:38:y:2010:i:12:p:7624-7633
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301-4215(09)00774-5
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Røpke, Inge, 2009. "Theories of practice -- New inspiration for ecological economic studies on consumption," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(10), pages 2490-2497, August.
    2. Shove, Elizabeth, 1998. "Gaps, barriers and conceptual chasms: theories of technology transfer and energy in buildings," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(15), pages 1105-1112, December.
    3. Gill Seyfang, 2004. "Consuming Values and Contested Cultures: A Critical Analysis of the UK Strategy for Sustainable Consumption and Production," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 62(3), pages 323-338.
    4. Sanne, Christer, 2002. "Willing consumers--or locked-in? Policies for a sustainable consumption," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 273-287, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Axsen, Jonn & TyreeHageman, Jennifer & Lentz, Andy, 2012. "Lifestyle practices and pro-environmental technology," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 64-74.
    2. Manisha Anantharaman, 2018. "Critical sustainable consumption: a research agenda," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 8(4), pages 553-561, December.
    3. Christian Schubert & Andreas Chai, 2012. "Sustainable Consumption and Consumer Sovereignty," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2012-14, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    4. repec:plo:pone00:0204917 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Maréchal, Kevin, 2010. "Not irrational but habitual: The importance of "behavioural lock-in" in energy consumption," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(5), pages 1104-1114, March.
    6. Sahakian, Marlyne D., 2011. "Understanding household energy consumption patterns: When "West Is Best" in Metro Manila," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 596-602, February.
    7. Filippo Corsini & Rafael Laurenti & Franziska Meinherz & Francesco Paolo Appio & Luca Mora, 2019. "The Advent of Practice Theories in Research on Sustainable Consumption: Past, Current and Future Directions of the Field," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(2), pages 1-19, January.
    8. Malmaeus, J. Mikael & Alfredsson, Eva C., 2017. "Potential Consequences on the Economy of Low or No Growth - Short and Long Term Perspectives," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 57-64.
    9. Vincent Sennes & Jacques Breillat & Francis Ribeyre & Sandrine Gombert, 2009. "Local policies for reducing the ecological impact of households: the case study of a suburban area in France," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 11(5), pages 1031-1049, October.
    10. Alcott, Blake, 2008. "The sufficiency strategy: Would rich-world frugality lower environmental impact," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(4), pages 770-786, February.
    11. Gill Seyfang & Alex Haxeltine, 2012. "Growing Grassroots Innovations: Exploring the Role of Community-Based Initiatives in Governing Sustainable Energy Transitions," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(3), pages 381-400, June.
    12. David Gibbs & Kirstie O'Neill, 2014. "Rethinking Sociotechnical Transitions and Green Entrepreneurship: The Potential for Transformative Change in the Green Building Sector," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 46(5), pages 1088-1107, May.
    13. Marletto, Gerardo, 2011. "Structure, agency and change in the car regime. A review of the literature," European Transport \ Trasporti Europei, ISTIEE, Institute for the Study of Transport within the European Economic Integration, issue 47, pages 71-88.
    14. Bossink, Bart A.G., 2017. "Demonstrating sustainable energy: A review based model of sustainable energy demonstration projects," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1349-1362.
    15. van Alphen, Klaas & Hekkert, Marko P. & van Sark, Wilfried G.J.H.M., 2008. "Renewable energy technologies in the Maldives--Realizing the potential," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 162-180, January.
    16. Frame, Bob & Brown, Judy, 2008. "Developing post-normal technologies for sustainability," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 225-241, April.
    17. Bale, Catherine S.E. & McCullen, Nicholas J. & Foxon, Timothy J. & Rucklidge, Alastair M. & Gale, William F., 2013. "Harnessing social networks for promoting adoption of energy technologies in the domestic sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 833-844.
    18. Olerup, Brita, 2001. "Technology development in market networks," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 169-178, February.
    19. Annukka Berg, 2011. "Not Roadmaps but Toolboxes: Analysing Pioneering National Programmes for Sustainable Consumption and Production," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 34(1), pages 9-23, March.
    20. Andreas Chai, 2017. "Tackling Keynes’ question: a look back on 15 years of Learning To Consume," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 251-271, April.
    21. Manchado, Cristina & Otero, César & Gómez-Jáuregui, Valentín & Arias, Rubén & Bruschi, Viola & Cendrero, Antonio, 2013. "Visibility analysis and visibility software for the optimisation of wind farm design," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 388-401.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:38:y:2010:i:12:p:7624-7633. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.