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The environmental, social and economic limits and shortcomings of the current linear model of production and consumption highlight the necessity of a rapid transition towards a sustainable paradigm. The concept of a circular economy has recently gained traction among scholars, policy-makers and businesses as a promising alternative. Yet our understanding of how to speed up the systemic transition from a linear economy paradigm towards a circular economy paradigm is lacking. In this paper, we address this research gap by introducing the concept of ‘circular disruption’ and by describing how such a disruption may unfold. To do so, we build on S-curve thinking and the concept of panarchy. Based on the resulting synthesis, we propose three phases that constitute the core of the disruption process: (1) the release phase, (2) the reorganisation phase and (3) the eruption phase. We then operationalise these three phases for different enabling innovation system functions and illustrate our observations with examples for the textile and fashion sector. We discuss how each of the three disruption phases can be accelerated to quickly create an opening for the new circular paradigm. The proposed circular disruption framework offers novel insights on socio-technical transitions and changes and contributes to strengthening a systemic and theoretically grounded approach to circular economy research. Scholars and practitioners alike may take advantage of this work to focus circular economy efforts on speed and scale—an urgently needed focus to start tackling the sustainability challenges humankind is currently facing.

Community-based energy systems are gaining traction among policymakers and practitioners as promising models for implementing a low-carbon energy transition. As a result, there has been a proliferation of concepts in the scientific literature, such as community energy, energy communities, community solar, and community wind. However, what scholars mean by “community” in these contexts is often unclear and inconsistent. This paper provides further conceptual clarity in the field by analyzing how the term of community is conceptualized in the scholarly literature on energy systems, through a systematic review of 405 articles. We combine an author keyword network analysis of this corpus with an in-depth analysis of 183 definitions extracted from these articles and systematically coded across three dimensions: meanings, activities and objectives of communities. Our findings show that the meanings attached to the notion of community and the alleged objectives pursued by communities vary substantially across concepts and over time. In particular, there has been a shift away from a notion of community understood as a process that emphasizes participatory aspects toward a notion of community primarily referring to a place. Furthermore, there is a growing focus on communities' economic objectives rather than their social or political goals. These findings suggest a weakening of scholars’ attention to “transformative” notions of community emphasizing collective and grassroots processes of participation in energy transitions, to the benefit of “instrumental” notions. This trend runs the risk of placing the sole emphasis on the market value of communities, thereby diluting their distinctiveness from more commercial actors.

Community enterprises may play pivotal roles in sustainability transitions but have received limited attention in the transitions literature. This paper proposes a framework for theorising the challenges that community enterprises face as they scale up due to the rising institutional complexity of their organisational model, combining the institutional logics of community, market, and corporation. We conceptualise the upscaling processes of community enterprises by distinguishing between the community volunteerism phase, the niche creation phase and the niche expansion phase. We formulate nine propositions on how institutional complexity arises and on possible mechanisms to manage it in each phase of the upscaling process. Our theoretical framework is supported by empirical research on carsharing and renewable energy initiatives in Western Europe. The paper concludes with some avenues for further research on community enterprises in sustainability transitions. Community enterprises may play pivotal roles in sustainability transitions but have received limited attention in the transitions literature. This paper proposes a framework for theorising the challenges that community enterprises face as they scale up due to the rising institutional complexity of their organisational model, combining the institutional logics of community, market, and corporation. We conceptualise the upscaling processes of community enterprises by distinguishing between the community volunteerism phase, the niche creation phase and the niche expansion phase. We formulate nine propositions on how institutional complexity arises and on possible mechanisms to manage it in each phase of the upscaling process. Our theoretical framework is supported by empirical research on carsharing and renewable energy initiatives in Western Europe. The paper concludes with some avenues for further research on community enterprises in sustainability transitions.

This paper analyses the evolution of renewable energy cooperatives, examining all such cooperatives founded in German districts between 2006 and 2016. The rise of the cooperative form in renewable energy production is a prominent example of the strong involvement of users in market formation. We investigate the effects of ‘institutional relatedness’, arguing that renewable energy cooperatives can leverage the organizational knowledge and the legitimacy gained by cooperatives active in other industries in the same district. Using an organizational ecology approach, we find that the local presence of cooperatives in other industries indeed supported the founding of renewable energy cooperatives.

Community-based energy systems are gaining traction among policymakers and practitioners as promising models for implementing a low-carbon energy transition. As a result, there has been a proliferation of concepts in the scientific literature, such as community energy, energy communities, community solar, and community wind. However, what scholars mean by “community” in these contexts is often unclear and inconsistent. This paper provides further conceptual clarity in the field by analyzing how the term of community is conceptualized in the scholarly literature on energy systems, through a systematic review of 405 articles. We combine an author keyword network analysis of this corpus with an in-depth analysis of 183 definitions extracted from these articles and systematically coded across three dimensions: meanings, activities and objectives of communities. Our findings show that the meanings attached to the notion of community and the alleged objectives pursued by communities vary substantially across concepts and over time. In particular, there has been a shift away from a notion of community understood as a process that emphasizes participatory aspects toward a notion of community primarily referring to a place. Furthermore, there is a growing focus on communities' economic objectives rather than their social or political goals. These findings suggest a weakening of scholars’ attention to “transformative” notions of community emphasizing collective and grassroots processes of participation in energy transitions, to the benefit of “instrumental” notions. This trend runs the risk of placing the sole emphasis on the market value of communities, thereby diluting their distinctiveness from more commercial actors.

While the potential for peer-to-peer electricity trading, where households trade surplus electricity with peers in a local energy market, is rapidly growing, the drivers of participation in this trading scheme have been understudied so far. In particular, there is a dearth of research on the role of non-monetary incentives for trading surplus electricity, despite their potentially important role. This paper presents the first discrete choice experiment conducted with prosumers (i.e. proactive households actively managing their electricity production and consumption) in the Netherlands. Electricity trading preferences are analyzed regarding economic, environmental, social and technological parameters, based on survey data (N = 74). The dimensions most valued by prosumers are the environmental and, to a lesser extent, economic dimensions, highlighting the key motivating roles of environmental factors. Furthermore, a majority of prosumers stated they would provide surplus electricity for free or for non-monetary compensations, especially to energy-poor households. These observed trends were more pronounced among members of energy cooperatives. This suggests that peer-to-peer energy trading can advance a socially just energy transition. Regarding policy recommendations, these findings point to the need for communicating environmental and economic benefits when marketing P2P electricity trading platforms and for technical designs enabling effortless and customizable transactions, Comment: 44 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Energy Policy

Little research exists on how alternative understandings of sustainability and societal well-being, such as those developed by marginalized Indigenous populations, can enrich and possibly challenge dominant visions of sustainability anchored in Western discourses on sustainable development and ecological modernization. This paper addresses this research gap in the context of the transition towards low-carbon energy sources by addressing the following question: how do Indigenous worldviews contrast with modernist visions of sustainability in the context of the energy transition? To do so, it first builds a conceptual framework contrasting modernist and Indigenous sustainability worldviews. Second, it applies this framework to the case of wind energy developments within the territory of three Zapotec communities located in southern Mexico, with the discussion relying on 103 interviews with key stakeholders, six focus groups and participant observation. Results show that the Zapotec sustainability worldview contrasts strikingly with wind developers’ modernist propositions, which tend to reproduce the region’s past colonial arrangements in terms of cultural domination, non-recognition of Indigenous identities and disrespect for local customs. This contrast has led to many conflicts and misunderstandings around wind energy projects. The paper concludes that different conceptualizations of sustainability must be recognized to ensure an inclusive and just energy transition, and advances the concept of “pluriversal technologies” to emphasize the need for technologies that embrace ontological and epistemological diversity by being co-designed, co-produced and co-owned by the inhabitants of the socio-cultural territory in which they are embedded.

While the potential for peer-to-peer electricity trading, where households trade surplus electricity with peers in a local energy market, is rapidly growing, the drivers of participation in this trading scheme have been understudied so far. In particular, there is a dearth of research on the role of non-monetary incentives for trading surplus electricity, despite their potentially important role. This paper presents the first discrete choice experiment conducted with prosumers (i.e. proactive households actively managing their electricity production and consumption) in the Netherlands. Electricity trading preferences are analyzed regarding economic, environmental, social and technological parameters, based on survey data (N = 74). The dimensions most valued by prosumers are the environmental and, to a lesser extent, economic dimensions, highlighting the key motivating roles of environmental factors. Furthermore, a majority of prosumers stated they would provide surplus electricity for free or for non-monetary compensations, especially to energy-poor households. These observed trends were more pronounced among members of energy cooperatives. This suggests that peer-to-peer energy trading can advance a socially just energy transition. Regarding policy recommendations, these findings point to the need for communicating environmental and economic benefits when marketing P2P electricity trading platforms and for technical designs enabling effortless and customizable transactions.

This paper aims to extend the energy justice framework by using the capability approach to understand factors affecting community acceptance of energy technologies. The capability approach is a normative framework for assessing people’s well-being and devising interventions for social justice. Whilst recognising that opposition to energy technologies is fundamentally a problem of distributive, recognition and procedural injustices, the paper operationalises the capability approach to unveil what these justice tenets mean to indigenous people living in three communities neighbouring wind installations located in Southern Mexico. Findings conclude that building a bottom-up approach to understand complex conceptions of energy justice within a community can lead to an improved awareness of justice implications relevant to community acceptance of energy technologies. In the Mexican case, these factors relate to inclusive community engagement that pays particular attention to valued ways of being and doing of the local population, such as equal access to employment, higher education and professional training, diversified sources of income, and recognition of the local indigenous everyday life and communal identity. The results also highlight a nested structure of justice concerns, with the three tenets being embedded into one another and presenting different levels of visibility.

This working paper is structured as follows. The first section reviews the main historical roots that have led to the emergence of a diversity of models related to social enterprise and the social economy in Belgium. Next, the second section sketches the main features of these models in terms of legal forms, types of social missions addressed, governance dynamics and resources. In the third section, these models are then illustrated in different fields of activity, both established and emerging. Finally, the fourth section proposes a transversal analysis of the main trends and challenges that the different models face in terms of development and coexistence.

It has been suggested that participation in community energy initiatives may play an important role in enabling a transition towards renewable energy (RE) deployment by fostering positive attitudes toward renewables. Yet, little is known about how members of community energy initiatives differ from non-members in terms of energy attitudes and whether different profiles of community energy members exist. This article empirically analyses the relations between community energy membership and attitudes toward RE and onshore wind energy. Based on statistical analyses of a large-scale quantitative dataset from an original survey (N = 3963) conducted with two energy cooperatives in Belgium, it contrasts different groups of cooperative members with each other and a comparison group of non-members. Results show that members have significantly more positive attitudes towards RE than non-members. Results also suggest that non-members tend to be more indifferent or more uncertain, not more objecting, than members to wind power. Finally, significant differences among cooperative members are highlighted, illustrating the contrast between communities of place and communities of interest. The findings suggest a novel perspective on the benefits of community energy membership – to overcome indifference or uncertainty – that is relevant to foster a rapid and socially acceptable low carbon transition.

An understanding of the resilience of energy systems is critical in order to tackle forthcoming challenges. This chapter proposes that the polycentric governance perspective, developed by Vincent and Elinor Ostrom, may be highly relevant in formulating policies to enhance the resilience of future energy systems. Polycentric governance systems involve the coexistence of many self-organized centers of decision making at multiple levels that are formally independent of each other, but operate under an overarching set of rules. Given this polycentric approach, this chapter studies the roles of community-based energy initiatives and, in particular, of renewable energy cooperatives, in enhancing the institutional resilience of energy systems. In this perspective, the chapter identifies three major socio-institutional obstacles, which undermine this resilience capacity: the collective action problem arising from the diffusion of sustainable energy technologies and practices, the lack of public trust in established energy actors and the existence of strong vested interests in favor of the status quo. Then, it shows why the development of community-based energy initiatives and renewable energy cooperatives may offer effective responses to these obstacles, relying on many empirical illustrations. More specifically, it is argued that community-based energy initiatives present institutional features encouraging the activation of social norms and a high trust capital, therefore enabling them to offer effective solutions to avoid free riding and enhance trust in energy institutions and organizations. The creation of federated polycentric structures may also offer a partial response to the existence of vested interests in favor of the status quo. Finally, some recommendations for policymakers are derived from this analysis.

Les nombreux défis que représente la transition sociale et écologique vers une société post-croissance constituent des problèmes typiques d’action collective. La littérature récente consacrée à ces derniers met en exergue la notion de système « polycentrique » de gouvernance des biens publics, qui implique une multiplicité de centres de décision indépendants partageant un ensemble de règles communes. Un système polycentrique suppose également un degré élevé de participation citoyenne auto-organisée. Les formes organisationnelles adaptées pour encadrer l’action citoyenne ont cependant été jusqu’à présent peu étudiées, à tout le moins dans leur lien avec la transition. Cet article vise à combler ce vide et à explorer les rôles que peuvent jouer les organisations d’économie sociale à cet égard. Nous montrons comment leurs spécificités organisationnelles les rendent aptes à encadrer l’action citoyenne auto-organisée et donc à favoriser la mise en place de systèmes de gouvernance polycentrique de la transition social-écologique. Enfin, nous appliquons cette grille de lecture à deux domaines d’activité : l’énergie et l’alimentation.

One potential major role of social economy organizations in sustainability transitions is the creation and mobilization of social capital. Yet, the social economy gathers very distinct organizational models which may be associated with different types and levels of social capital. Accordingly, the objective of this article is to explore whether, and if so how, the type and level of social capital differ between mutual benefit organizations – which essentially seek to meet their members’ needs – and public benefit organizations – which seek to enhance the well‐being of a broader community or the society as a whole. The study draws on an econometric analysis of different forms of social capital in two renewable energy cooperatives which are located in Flanders but have clearly divergent orientations toward mutual versus public benefit. The results show that, as compared with an orientation toward public benefit, an orientation toward mutual benefit is associated with lower social identification with the cooperative and weaker ties between members. Our study explores the underlying explanatory mechanisms behind these relationships. Its findings contribute to understanding the potential roles played by cooperatives in sustainability transitions.