This research programme is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency's Sustainability Research Call. The programme aims to critically review community interventions and behaviour change programmes which compel sustainable-behaviour change identifying drivers enhanced by those interventions. It will critically examine such interventions as a means to establish any key characteristics of success while also identifying barriers to sustainable transition and change. Potential avenues for transferability for communities and behaviour change groups will also be defined. It will evaluate how local buy-in has been achieved and sustained and what practical guidance could be developed in relation to progressing development in sustainability, renewable energy and resource efficiency at the community scale.
This research builds on previous work by Vincent Carragher and it will develop an extensive list of stakeholders from communities, community actors and related policy makers. It engages in outreach with these and facilitates a comprehensive list of drivers and barriers from academic and community-actor source material. It tests, enhances and ranks these drivers and barriers using Discursive Based Approaches and events with communities and with related stakeholders. It then develops a Transferability Report such that policy makers, community actors and communities can define paths in the future which drive sustainable behaviour change and ownership of sustainable-intervention endeavour. Previous community based research with close to 100 communities has led to this project and has revolved around the sustainable transition of communities and 2 cases in point are Ballina and Cloughjordan ecovillage (access to this research can be gained by clicking on the name of the settlements).
