TY - JOUR
T1 - Financing grassroots innovation diffusion pathways: the case of UK community energy
AU - Cairns, Iain
AU - Hannon, Matthew
AU - Braunholtz-Speight, Tim
AU - Mclachlan, Carly
AU - Mander, Sarah
AU - Hardy, Jeff
AU - Sharmina, Maria
AU - Manderson, Ed
N1 - Funding Information:
Fourth, even though the public sector has intervened, introducing new rule sets into the finance meta-regime to support small scale development, thus far this has been insufficient to drive widespread diffusion of CE. The devolved administrations in Scotland and Wales have moved to address a shortage of capital investment for small scale ventures ( Fig. 2 ). In Scotland, for example, the Scottish Government-backed Energy Investment Fund operates as a secondary lender to supply small sums of capital and de-risk investment for private banks ( Cairns et al., 2020c ). Conversely, smaller scale projects receive limited finance support from the UK government.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022
PY - 2023/3/1
Y1 - 2023/3/1
N2 - This paper explores how finance can better support the diffusion of Grassroots Innovations (GIs), community-led solutions for net-zero transitions. We examine the case of UK community energy (CE), across three ‘diffusion pathways’: niche replication (growth in the number of projects), individual scaling (growth in an organisation's scale) and collective diffusion (a confederation of GIs). We investigate each pathway through analysis of a nationwide survey, interviews and four case studies. We find that while finance currently supports replication of small-scale CE projects, the incompatibility between GIs and the wider finance meta-regime inhibits individual scaling. The UK CE sector has responded with collective diffusion, via business group intermediaries; attracting greater but still insufficient finance. Consequently, for GIs to diffuse effectively, they must be supported to translate across both sectoral regimes (e.g. energy) and broader meta-regimes (e.g. finance). This paper contributes to theory on the role of finance in sociotechnical transitions and the role of intermediaries in GI diffusion.
AB - This paper explores how finance can better support the diffusion of Grassroots Innovations (GIs), community-led solutions for net-zero transitions. We examine the case of UK community energy (CE), across three ‘diffusion pathways’: niche replication (growth in the number of projects), individual scaling (growth in an organisation's scale) and collective diffusion (a confederation of GIs). We investigate each pathway through analysis of a nationwide survey, interviews and four case studies. We find that while finance currently supports replication of small-scale CE projects, the incompatibility between GIs and the wider finance meta-regime inhibits individual scaling. The UK CE sector has responded with collective diffusion, via business group intermediaries; attracting greater but still insufficient finance. Consequently, for GIs to diffuse effectively, they must be supported to translate across both sectoral regimes (e.g. energy) and broader meta-regimes (e.g. finance). This paper contributes to theory on the role of finance in sociotechnical transitions and the role of intermediaries in GI diffusion.
KW - Sociotechnical transitions
KW - Grassroots innovations
KW - Community energy
KW - Intermediaries
KW - Community finance
KW - Finance
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85145715120&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.eist.2022.11.004
DO - 10.1016/j.eist.2022.11.004
M3 - Article
SN - 2210-4224
VL - 46
JO - Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
JF - Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions
M1 - 100679
ER -