Co-creation of climate change mitigation policies: the superiority of a community-based approach

Jens Hoff, Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen, DenmarkE-mail: jh@ifs.ku.dk.

Abstract:

The focus of this paper is on the places where citizens and public authorities meet –

possible involving other stakeholders as well – to discuss, formulate and implement

climate change mitigation policies at the local level. Through looking at a number of

concrete cases stemming from the CIDEA research projecti and spread over the

continuum from local government initiated to citizen initiated, and from projects

aimed at changing individual behaviour to projects involving bigger communities

(housing association, villages, etc.), it will be argued that both from a governance

perspective (CO2-reductions), as well as from a democratic perspective, citizen

initiated projects involving communities of different kinds are clearly superior to for

example government initiated campaigns aimed at the behaviour of individuals. This

finding has clear policy-implications meaning that local climate change mitigation

policies should be aimed at finding ways to support citizen initiated initiatives to a

greater extent than is currently the case.

Keywords: climate change mitigation, co-creation, behaviour, communities, citizen driven innovation.

Paper presented at Nordic Environmental Social Science (NESS) Conference, Trondheim, Norway, June 2015

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Introduction:

This paper deals with the smallest units in the global field of climate politics; citizens,

and their possibility of making a difference in relation to climate change mitigation;

i.e. reducing their carbon footprint. What we are interested in is how different types

of organizational set-up’s can either motivate citizens to take action or discourage

them from such action, and if some set-up’s can be said to work better in this respect

than others.

This way of formulating the problem begs two questions: what do we

mean by ‘organizational set-up’, and what do we mean by ‘work better’? Concerning

the first question there are clearly numerous ways in which citizens can engage in

action on climate change mitigation. They (we) can chose to engage as individuals,

trying to change our consumption habits in terms of food, transportation, energy, etc.

Or we can engage as members of social movements that take action on climate

change. We can also engage in activities or projects together with public agencies or

eventually private companies. It is this last type of (public) engagement, which is in

focus here. This because it is increasingly realized by public authorities at all levels,

that the challenge of climate change is of such magnitude, that it is absolutely

necessary to involve citizens in climate change mitigation (see e.g. Hoff 2015). An

example of this is the Danish government’s energy strategy, which although heavily

relying on systemic and infrastructure changes in energy supply to reach its goal of a

40 per cent reduction of CO2-emissions by 2020 compared to 2006, also relies on

citizens’ reductions contributing with 6 per cent (out of the 40, or around 1/7)

(Regeringen 2011).

For this reason there is or might be a common interest between (local)

public agencies and (groups of) citizens in working together in climate change

mitigation projects of various types. In the literature on planning, governance and

innovation (see e.g. Bason 2010, Healey 1997, Sørensen and Torfing 2011) such type

of collaboration has been called co-production, co-creation, collaborative innovation

or collaborative arrangements, while it is called citizen participation in the literature

on participatory democracy (Reed 2008). While these concepts are used to describe

basically the same type of activities or projects, they link up to different theoretical

traditions, and using one or the other might therefore have different implications for

how we analyze or evaluate activities and projects. Words and concepts are never

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innocent, and while we shall deal with these distinctions in the paragraph on theory

below, we can with this caveat, illustrate the field of possible collaborative

arrangements through the figure below:

Fig. 1. Field of possible collaborative arrangements concerning climate change mitigation. Vertical axis represents the initiation of intervention and horizontal axis represents the focus of intervention.

Government agents, local authority

1 2

Individual Community

3 4

Civil society, citizen-driven

Figure 1 present the field of possible collaborative arrangements between local public

agencies and citizens. The Figure combines a vertical axis representing the initiation

of climate change mitigation interventions with a horizontal axis representing the

focus of these interventions. The vertical axis is presented as a continuum and shows

that interventions can be initiated either by government agents or by citizens, but most

often in a collaboration in which one of the two poles weighs more than the other. The

horizontal axis of the Figure, also presented as a continuum, shows that interventions

can target either individual change (consumption patterns, transport habits) or

collective changes (creation of a low-energy housing cooperative, a sustainable

village, building of new collective infrastructures). Since collective change requires

the participation of a (large) number of individuals, and since individuals are

influenced by collective behaviour, most interventions mix both aspects, to various

degrees.

Square 1 of the Figure denotes arrangements/projects that are clearly

initiated by a public agency, and are focused primarily on influencing individual

behaviour. These arrangements rely most often on policies influenced by rational

choice theory, which posits that individuals will always choose the most rational

options that maximise their advantages. The type of policies that this approach entails

focuses on providing the right information to actors and influencing behaviour mainly

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through economic (dis)incentives. Information campaigns, taxes or subsidies are

therefore the most common social technologies found among these arrangements.

Square 2 of the Figure denotes arrangements initiated by a public

agency that focus on different types of communities where the changes promoted

require the support of a collectivity, or at least of a certain number of participants.

Well-known examples of collective arrangements include environmental impact

assessments relating to projects such as construction of wind turbines, national parks

and power plants that impact landscapes or a neighbourhood.

Square 3 of the Figure denotes action initiated specifically by citizens

themselves as individual actors. Citizens may reflect on and take action to mitigate

climate change in their homes, at work, while shopping and transporting themselves

and in numerous other ways. Many such daily choices are not made in response to

temporary external interventions, but are based on the total knowledge, norms and

values internalised by each individual throughout his/her life. Because individuals

may try to save money at the same time as they try to conform to norms, respect

legislation or be emphatic towards other living creatures, the motivations for such

actions can be economic, social, legal and moral. Such individual actions can also

depend on a number of socio-economic factors such as gender, age, income,

education, values and political orientation.

Square 4 of the Figure denotes arrangements/projects where the

initiative comes from citizens or groups of citizens, and are typically aimed at

improving their local community or association. Arrangements in this square include,

inter alia, food cooperatives, sustainable food clubs, carbon- neutral building blocks,

communities or villages and sustainable islands.

Now having presented, and given concrete examples of what we mean by

‘organizational set-up’; namely collaborative arrangements involving both citizens

and public authorities in joint efforts to reduce CO2 emissions, we can return to the

question of which of these types of set-up’s that work best. The way we will approach

this question is through looking at five case studies representing square 1, 2 and 4 in

the figure above. Square 3 is not represented in this analysis, as there are no specific

organizational set-up involved here; or rather the set-up’s might be all of the

organizations that frame consumption patterns in our everyday lives. The analysis of

such diversity is beyond the scope of this paper. The five cases all stem from the

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CIDEA research project (see footnote 1), and have been analyzed using a variety of

social science research methods, such as (anthropological) field work, participatory

observation (even to the point of being part of building the website presented in case

1, and teaching at the courses for climate ambassadors presented in case 4),

interviews, document studies and surveys2

What do we mean by ‘work best’? This question is at the same time easy

and very complicated to answer. As a main goal in all of the cases analyzed has been

to reduce CO2 emissions, it is self-evident that measuring the projects’ effectiveness

toward this aim must be an important parameter. However, already here the problems

start. Thus, measuring CO2 emissions down to the level of the individual or groups of

individuals is a complicated affair (see e.g. Strobel, Erichsen and Gausset 2015), and

in order to compare reductions it is a least necessary to use a common methodology.

This has not been the case in the organizational set-up’s we are trying to compare, and

this already at the outset makes our comparison and thus our conclusion rather

tentative.

Secondly, as will be clear in the case descriptions, reductions in CO2

emissions has not been the only, and for some actors maybe not even the most

important goal. Other goals such as strengthening social cohesion in the community,

creating jobs and local revenue, and improving local democracy have also been on the

agenda with different intensity in the different cases. Should we also use all of these

goals as parameters in our comparison?

If we were working as consultants we would surely need to be attentive

to and reflect on the degree to which the goals of important stakeholders are fulfilled.

However, as researchers we need to be more cogent, and apply a uniform

methodology across the cases. Such methodology can be arrived at through different

avenues, but here we will arrive at the methodology deductively through looking at

the criteria used for such evaluations in the broad literature on co-production of

policies involving citizens and public agencies. However, doing this we again run into

challenges, which has to do with the position from which one looks at these

organizational set-up’s. In our situation a fundamental schism is between the positions

from which one chooses to look at collaborative arrangements. Thus, should these

arrangements be seen ‘top/down’ as instances of public steering? Or should they

rather be seen ‘bottom/up’, as instances of citizen participation? Choosing either

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perspective surely has wide-ranging consequences for the evaluation criteria one

needs to apply.

We shall deal with this dilemma in the paragraph below, but will already

here anticipate the discussion by stating that we see these types of collaborative

arrangements as instances of both. They represent instances of (attempts at) public

steering and (weaker or stronger) citizen participation at the same time. This demands

considerations on a diverse body of literature.

Theoretical considerations and tools for evaluation

In a certain sense there is nothing new in connecting environmental policies with

citizens participation, and analyzing this nexus. Thus, it has been argued quite

convincingly that since its inception as a separate policy field in the 1960s,

environmental policies have developed in a constant dialogue and interplay with

green movements, green parties and other types of green civil society organizations

(Connelly et al 2012, 354ff). Developing on this fact Hoff (2015) has demonstrated

how citizen participation in this area has moved through four phases from the 1960s

till now, marked by an uneven both steady development of increasingly sophisticated

policy instruments (from laws and permits over environmental taxes and tradeable

permits to local Agenda21 and co-creation) , an increasing number of different types

of experts involved, and a changing citizen role or identity to match this development

(from objects of steering over stakeholders to cosmopolitans and ‘future makers’).

This development has been analyzed from different theoretical

perspectives, but a broad distinction can be made between theories looking at the

development in a steering or governance perspective, and theories looking at the

development from a democratic perspective.

The governance perspective

Seeing citizen participation in a governance perspective has lead to the development

of such terms as co-creation and co-production of public policies and services (Bason

2010) and collaborative (public sector) innovation (Sørensen and Torfing 2011). The

point of departure for these theories is that hardly any of society’s wicked problems

(e.g. climate change) can be solved through the isolated efforts of a single authority,

or even the collaboration between different authorities (Bason 2010:88). In order to

begin solving these problems it is necessary to involve stakeholders outside of

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government; citizens, NGO’s, businesses, etc. depending on the type and scale of the

problem. Bason (op.cit.: 6) calls this process co-creation; creating new solutions with

people outside government, not for them. As these new solutions are created

intentionally, even though they are not always initiated by government, Bason

(op.cit.) as well as Sørensen and Torfing (op.cit) call them innovations. Thus,

Sørensen and Torfing (2011:29) define such (collaborative public sector) innovations

as ‘referring to a more or less intended and proactive process, which develops,

implements and spreads new and creative ideas creating a qualitative change in a

given context’. As being able to create such new ideas becomes more and more of an

imperative for public agencies, they develop increasingly sophisticated techniques for

co-creating policies with citizens. Indeed, Bason’s book from 2010 is an attempt at

developing an encompassing methodology for co-creation. This methodology implies,

among other things, a shift from a focus on management and professionals as the

main drivers of public policy innovation to a focus on citizen- or user driven

innovation. This also means changing the conception of the citizen in relation to

public policies from seeing the citizen as a client or a customer to seeing him/her as

co-producer or a ‘public innovator’ (Agger and Lund 2011:189).

While these frameworks all pay considerable attention to the needs and

wishes of citizens and other civil society actors, the perspective is none the less a

steering perspective, with the main aim of providing new and hopefully better public

sector services or policies with the same or fewer resources. Bason (2010, 153-154) is

very clear about this: ‘Involving citizens in the innovation process is, thus, not about

increasing democratic participation or legitimacy through the act of involvement

itself. It is about finding better solutions to achieve politically defined visions of the

future, Even though citizens may often be very motivated to contribute their time and

expertise, and indeed experience that their participation is meaningful and

empowering, that is not the main point.’ None the less, and a bit contradictory, Bason

(2010 46) mentions democracy as an important ‘bottom line’ against which to

measure the ‘products’ of co-creation. A similar ambiguity is found in Healey (2006,

332 and 337) who on the one hand stresses that a main aim of collaborative processes

is for public agencies to achieve a better problem-solving capacity, and on the other

hand stresses that: ‘.. such collaborative practices are not innocent and carry their

own potential to mask critical power relations and obscure critical issues’.

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Summing up in terms of the evaluation criteria we are searching for,

Bason (2010:45-46) himself is actually pointing at the areas in which he sees value

being generated through public sector innovation. The four types of value are:

productivity (relationship between the inputs and outputs of public service

production), service experience, results (outcomes) and democracy (specified as

citizen participation and empowerment, transparency, accountability and equality).

For our purposes here we will disregard the two first criteria as they relate quite

specifically to public services. However results (outcomes) as well as democracy is

certainly relevant for our climate change mitigation cases. We shall elaborate on the

democracy dimension below.

The democratic perspective

Looking at collaborative arrangements from a democratic perspective, we are faced

with the same ambiguity as in the case of the governance perspective. On the one

hand, it is necessary to realise that there is nothing inherently democratic about citizen

participation, as is aptly demonstrated in the above quotation from Bason. Citizen

participation has in many instances become a tool or policy instrument used in more

or less sophisticated ways by public authorities confronted with new or complex

problems. The attraction of using citizen participation as a policy instrument is aptly

formulated by the pragmatic tradition within citizen participation theory (Reed 2008),

which is why one can actually question whether this tradition sits well under the

heading of ‘the democratic perspective’.

In the pragmatic tradition, one can distinguish between substantive and

instrumental arguments for citizen participation. The substantive argument focuses on

the substance of the policy output. When discussing why citizens should participate,

theorists refer to the improved quality, substance and robustness of the policy output.

In improving the substance of the output, knowledge is seen to play a pivotal role,

especially the knowledge of lay actors (Wright and Fritsch 2011, 2269). Such local

knowledge is thought to contribute insights that are outside or under the radar of

experts.

Through these insights, which are based on local conditions, solutions

are then developed in collaboration between public and local actors that are better

adapted to the particular setting and have a better chance of success. The assumption

is that: ‘those who are closest to the problem develop the best understanding of it…

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(which is why) it seems plausible that environmental decisions can profit from the

factual knowledge that local actors have about the environmental issues concerning

them’ (Kastens and Newig 2008, 28).

Furthermore, citizen participation is also seen to reduce the uncertainty

connected with scientific knowledge. Even though the knowledge of lay actors does

not in and of itself contribute significantly to the scientific knowledge base, the

participation of lay actors often means that more ideas and perspectives are

represented in the decision making process. This increases the likelihood of

addressing local problems and priorities, because the information of decision makers

will be more complete (Reed 2008, 2420). The substantive argument of authors

writing in this tradition is that citizens should participate in policy discussions and

implementation because this will add more perspectives to the process, improve the

knowledge base and reduce uncertainty, which will – all things being equal – lead to

better decisions and a better policy output.

The instrumental arguments for citizen participation focus on how

participation can improve the implementation of a given decision (Wright and Fritsch

2011, 2268). If citizens feel excluded from decisions or implementation, they can

obstruct current as well as pending law-making and implementation (participation of

stakeholders is also said to have a conflict-reducing effect). Central concepts in this

tradition are accept, confidence and ownership. By effectively engaging stakeholders,

it is possible to increase the understanding and acceptance of a given decision. This

cannot help but have a positive effect on implementation (ibid. 2269).

Confidence and learning are also posited as central arguments for

engaging citizens as stakeholders in decision-making and implementation processes

because such integration is said to transform antagonistic relations between actors. If

confidence and learning is increased, a broad coalition behind a given policy can be

formed, which can give the policy longevity and lead to better implementation (Reed

2008, 2420).Finally, when they become involved, citizens can take on ownership,

which can only improve implementation (Reed 2008, 2420):’If goals are developed

through dialogue…between participants, they are more likely to take ownership over

the process, partnership building will be more likely, and the outcomes are more

likely to be more relevant to stakeholder needs and priorities, motivating their

ongoing active engagement’ (ibid. 2424).

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While these are all good arguments for why a public authority entertains

the idea of citizen participation, one also has to realise that citizen protest, citizen

initiatives and engagement in sustainability issues has led to changes in democratic

institutions and/or democratic procedures, which have institutionalized such

participation. Cases in point exist in form of LA21, which has been given a formal

role in a number of participatory processes in for example Denmark, including,

among others, complaint boards with representatives from environmental

organisations and hearing procedures where citizen groups and (local) NGOs are

automatically included.

Such developments can be interpreted as more in line with the

normative tradition within citizen participation theory. This tradition explicitly takes

its point of departure from literature and ideas about democracy, in particular those

related to participatory democracy (see e.g. Pateman 1970, Barber 1984). Central to

this tradition is that the purpose of participation is as much the process itself and its

participants as it is the results of the process. The focus of the writers in this tradition

is on the civic potential of the individual citizen. Pateman (1970), for example, talks

about citizen participation as a ‘school in democracy’. Other early writers in this

tradition stress the empowerment dimension of participation, but still with a focus on

the benefits of the individual citizen or group of citizens. An example of this is

Arnstein’s famous definition of citizen participation, which states that:‘citizen

participation is a categorical term for citizen power. It is the redistribution of power

that enables the have-not citizens presently excluded from the political and economic

processes to be deliberately included in the future’ (Arnstein 1969, 216).

Newer developments within democratic theory, such as the deliberative

democracy approach, (Dryzek 2002, Held 2006) emphasise the democratic process

itself and its potential for developing the capacities of the individual citizen through

deliberation about public matters. Such deliberation is not only seen to improve the

democratic capabilities of citizens. It is also seen to improve public decision making

because private interests are scrutinised in public, which transforms initial preferences

to positions able to stand the test of public debate. In this tradition, participation is

also linked to the decisions and the output of the process, even though this is not the

main concern of the theory.

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These ideas from the normative tradition are echoed by some contemporary

academics writing about citizen participation in environmental politics. Priscoli

(2004), for example, in an article about management of water, stresses the educating

and informing aspects of involving citizens and considers these aspects as

prerequisites for a democratic culture. Referring to classic democratic theory, she

states that ‘those who are affected by a decision should have a say in decisions that

affect their lives, because in doing so they become better citizens’ (ibid. 224). Others

draw on the deliberative democratic tradition, coupling their commitment to citizen

participation with considerations about efficiency. This is true for Blackstock et al.

(2007), who write that participation results in ‘increased understanding of complex

systems, more durable and equitable solutions and increased capacity for active

citizenship’ (ibid. 727). There is here a simultaneous emphasis on improved capacities

for citizens and better policy output.

Summing up in terms of our evaluation criteria the democratic

perspective contributes with quite a number of criteria with which to access

collaborative arrangements. These are: 1) whether local knowledge is allowed to play

a role in these arrangements, 2) whether the activities reduces the uncertainty

connected with the application of scientific knowledge, 3) whether the participation of

citizens have a conflict-reducing effect, 4) whether participation makes citizens more

confident both in the solutions agreed upon and in their own capabilities to act on the

problem (the latter dimension is the same as the empowerment dimension below), 5)

whether citizens are increasing their knowledge about the problem (the learning

aspect), 6) whether citizens take ownership of the arrangement/activities, 7) whether

the collaborative arrangement contributes to the cultivation of citizens’ civic virtues

(this aspect might be covered by points 3 to 6 above), 8) whether citizens become

empowered through their participation, and 9) whether the collaborative arrangement

in question represents a space for deliberation on the problems and uncertainties

connected with the project.

If we skip points 4) and 7) due to their overlap with some of the other

points, this leaves us with 7 criteria to be used in the evaluation of concrete cases of

co-creation of climate change mitigation policies. If we add the result (outcome)

criteria from the governance perspective, this leaves us with 8 criteria, which we will

use to evaluate our cases.

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Cases and methods

The five cases we shall describe and analyze below are chosen from a bigger set of

12-14 cases all analyzed by the CIDEA project. They are a results of 4 years of

research (2010-14), in which researchers have engaged in an intensive dialogue and

collaboration with seven Danish municipalities (Copenhagen, Køge, Odense,

Middelfart, Kolding, Skanderborg and Herning) looking at their interactions with

citizens in relation to climate change mitigation efforts.

As mentioned above the five cases are chosen because they are seen to

be ’representative’ of cases in square 1, 2 and 4; meaning that they represent different

types of organizational set-up’s or organization of citizen-public agency collaboration.

The idea is now that the presentation of the cases shall enable us to to evaluate, or at

least make some kind of judgement on, which cases perform best in relation to the

evaluation crtiteria deduced above.

Overall, the CIDEA project has been based on an interactive research

methodology (referencer), meaning that the researchers have been a part of the field

and in a more intense and continous interaction with citizens and public agencies than

in most conventional research projects. Concretely, the methods used have been a

variety of social science research methods, such as (anthropological) field work,

participatory observation, interactive research (to the point of being part of building

the website presented in case 1, and teaching at the courses for climate ambassadors

presented in case 4), interviews, document studies and surveys2. These methods have

been supplemented by two annual seminars with our research partners in the

municipalities; typically the civil servants working with the concrete mitigation

projects. However, also other stakeholders such as for example representatives of

community groups have been invited to these seminars from time to time as well as

other academics. Minutes and other material from these seminars, as well as from two

conferences arranged by the project constitute part of our dataii.

The cases we shall describe and analyze are the cases of the website

klimabevidst.dk, the climate family project in Ballerup, the energy renovation project

MyClimatePlan (and ZeroHouse), the climate ambassador project in Kolding, and the

climate village Studsgård. We have sought to place the cases according to their

organizational characteristics in Fig.2 below, following the logic of Fig.1 above. As

will be clear from the case descriptions below the unit appealed to in the cases of the

climate families in Ballerup, MyClimatePlan and climate ambassadors is the family.

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However, in the case of the climate families it is the individual family, in the case of

MyClimatePlan it is a cluster of families, while it is all the families in a social housing

complex in the case of the climate ambassadors. For this reason the cases have been

spread over the horizontal continuum. ……

Fig.2 Location of cases in the field of possible collaborative arrangements

The field of possible collaborative arrangementsconcerning climate change mitigation:

Initiation of intervention:

Government agents, local authorityKlimabevidst

‘Climate families’ MyClimatePlan ‘Climate ambassadors*

Person Family Schools/institutions Housing cooperatives Villages

Climate village

Studsgaard

Civil society, citizen driven

Institut for Statskundskab

Case #1: Websites that help Danish citizens and companies to reduce their carbon

footprint . www.klimabevidst.dk and www.borger.klimabevidst.dk

Klimabevidst.dk is a website that contains energy savings guides. It exists in two

versions – one aims at small and medium sized enterprises while the other aims at

private citizens. The version aimed at private citizens has been developed in a

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collaboration between the small software company IngenCO2, the municipalities of

Hernins, Skanderborg and Ålborg and the CIDEA research project. The analysis

below will focus on the version aimed at citizens.

Klimabevidst.dk aims at reducing user’s energy consumption. It

provides a catalogue of ‘energy reduction guides’ that individuals or families can use

as recipes for energy reduction in different spheres of everyday life, such as lighting,

transport, shopping and lifestyle habits. At the core of the application is an online

catalogue which contains more than 200 ‘energy saving guides’ that tell the user

about behaviour changes that can reduce costs by implementing environmentally

friendly changes. These guides are sorted into different categories, e.g. lighting, food

and transport. Each category contains guides in more specific sub categories. Thus the

category ‘consumption and life style’ has instructions on climate friendly restaurants,

washing laundry at low temperatures and environmentally friendly cleaning products.

The application motivates energy reduction behaviour by providing information about

the potential savings that could be achieved by making the necessary changes. The

potential savings are estimates. The economic indicators are followed by instructions

on how to achieve the savings. Secondly, the application contains a ‘competition

module’ in which individuals or groups can compete against each other on who can

implement the most energy reduction guides. These groups can consist of teams of

families or neighbours, who can share the experiences, knowledge, and know-how

they have gleaned from using the website.

The key output is an online energy consumption chart that shows users’

progress combined with an overview of which energy guides have been implemented.

The chart shows how many points a user has scored. Each energy guide is scored

from 1 to 10 depending on the positive impact that implementing the suggestions

promoted by the guide will have on the climate. When implementing the suggestions

the application will add up the points from each guide implemented. The higher the

score, the more environmentally friendly the user’s behaviour is said to be.

It has not been methodologically possible at the present time to quantify

the nominal effects of the web application in terms of CO2 reductions outside of an

experimental setting. However, concerning the version of the website aimed at small

and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) a survey was done. This survey (n=328,

response rate around 30%), found that a total of 29–56 % of the SMEs reported that

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the application has had a perceived medium or large effect on energy reduction

depending on the area of energy consumption (e.g. electricity consumption, recycling

trash or regulating heating) (Scheele 2014). Concerning the version of the website

aimed at citizens we therefore find it likely that there is a positive effect on users, but

as long as we have no secure measurements of neither the number of users nor the

durability of eventual effects, we have no way of estimating this effect.

Case #2: The Climate Family Project in the municipality of Ballerup

Ballerup is a typical suburban municipality located just outside Copenhagen with

approximately 50,000 inhabitants. Following the disappointment of the COP15

Climate Summit in Copenhagen, the municipality launched a plan to reduce the CO2

emissions of the municipality as a geographical unit by 25 per cent (compared to 2006

levels) by 2015. Five per cent of this reduction is to be achieved through the efforts of

citizens, which means that citizens need to reduce their individual CO2 emissions by

26 per cent by 2015.

To address this challenge, Ballerup initiated a project called ‘The

Climate Family Project’, which began in 2009, ran for three years and involved 20

families. These families were to be role models and a showcase of a more CO2-

sensible way of living that would communicate a message of sustainability and

change to the citizens of the municipality.

The families had to engage in two types of activities: the first was a six-

month carbon accounting regime (see table 1 below for the kind of information that

had to be reported every day); the second was the use of a toolbox of green devices (a

shower duck timer and bicycle gear, among others), which the families received from

the project.

The project was very successful according to the official records: the

families involved reduced their CO2 emissions significantly (20–25 per cent in the

three-year period). Two factors seem to have been particularly important for the

success of the project. One was the early involvement of the families in the project,

and their role as co-developers of the project process. The other was that the project

succeeded in turning the families into communicators of the project’s success in

achieving CO2 reductions in the families’ everyday lives. The families organized

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events and made appearances at town fairs and the like, often with the Mayor in tow,

who wanted to be associated with this group of active citizens.

Table 1. The carbon accounting regime of the climate families in Ballerup

Case #3: Energy renovation in Danish municipalities.

The second example of the use of advanced policy instruments and the increased use

of expertise in sustainability policies are projects addressing energy renovation in

private households that have been conducted in several municipalities in Denmark (s

Case #3: Energy renovation in Danish municipalities: the case of MyClimatePlan

In Denmark there are three types of actors involved in reduction of energy

consumption at the household level. These are citizens, energy companies and

municipalities. The Danish government compels energy companies to reduce their

customers’ energy consumption, which amounts to the companies’ helping their

customers save on conventional energy by either investing in green energy and/or by

reducing their energy consumption.

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It has been estimated that the greatest potential for reducing energy

consumption in private households is to retrofit houses by improving insulation and

changing the source of heating in particular. In order to significantly reduce their

energy consumption, citizens must be convinced of the wisdom of investing in such

retrofits.

The municipality of Middelfart has been at the forefront of setting up

such schemes. It introduced the Energy Service Company (ESCO) concept iii to

Denmark, which made it possible for municipalities to energy retrofit municipal

building without having to use municipal funds. Building on these experiences, the

municipality set up a project called MyClimatePlan in 2009, which offered a free

energy check of homes to any group of a minimum of 10 house-owners living in the

same neighbourhood. An energy advisor from the local energy company, a

representative from the municipality and two builders visited and evaluated each

house. The energy advisor then sent an energy report to each household, and the

builders sent an offer estimating the costs of the recommendations suggested in the

report. In order to convince households to do the work, they were offered a 15 per

cent cost reduction by the builders under the condition that the retrofitting be done at

the same time as that of the other members of the group.

Whilst the MyClimatePlan appeared to be well-planned, it was slow to

get going. A major problem was the cost of the energy consultation, which the

municipality had to pay. It was replaced by the so-called ‘ESCO-light’ project in

2011, in which the municipality, in collaboration with the local energy companies,

began training builders in energy counseling. After this training, the builders could

now deliver the necessary energy counseling to the customers, and if they decided to

have the work done, the builder could then help customers sell their energy savings to

the energy company. From the customers’ perspective, this project provides both free

and qualified energy counseling, as well as a subsidy to those who choose to retrofit

their house. Indeed, it has been the idea of the project to create a win-win situation for

all involved. The builders increase their knowledge about energy renovation, energy

companies outsource to builders some of the burdens of generating energy savings in

private households and the municipality realises CO2 reductions and more revenue

because more jobs in the building industry are created.

This project, and the similar ZeroHouse project in southern Denmark,

has been very successful in generating numerous energy renovations in private

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households. However, although reported as successful we do not have an overall

account or estimate of the CO2-reductions obtained through the ESCO-light project.

Case #4 Climate ambassadors in Kolding

As a result of a project set up in 2011 in collaboration between the social housing

complex, AAB Skovparken (comprising more than 200 apartments), and the

municipality of Kolding 15 unemployed women living in the complex mainly with an

Ethiopian background volunteered to work as ‘neighbourhood mothers’. The women

followed a 12-week education with sessions on how to save on water and energy.

About half of the women left the project either due to language difficulties or other

personal matters or because they got regular jobs. The remaining group was offered

additional education in environmental matters (in which the CIDEA project

participated), which boosted their competences and self-confidence. They are now

organizing talks on climate and sustainability in the housing complex, and they can be

booked for free counseling by the tenants in the complex.

Good results in terms of reductions in consumption of both water and

energy is reported by the board of the housing complex. However, we have not been

able to get any figures on exact reductions from neither the board nor the

municipality.

Case #5 The ’climate village’ Studsgård

Studsgård is a small rural village 10 km outside Herning in the western part of

Jytland. It houses around 250 families, and has a very active and green village

association (‘Borgerforening’). In 2008 the village started a collaboration with the

municipality of Herning in order to become a ‘climate village’. Simultanously the

village association agreed on a goal to reduce CO2-emissions in the village with 25%

by 2012 (baseline 2007). The municipality of Herning supported (and still supports)

the project with a ‘green corordinator’, who has/is helping the villagers to start up

different green initiatives.

Till now a range of different activities has been undertaken such as

common ‘climate friendly’ dinners once a week, placement of recycling containers on

the village square, energy councelling (resulting in more solar panels on houses and

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trashing of oil-fired burners), opening of a second hand shop, planting of trees on

former farm land, and establishment of a windmill guild.

As a concrete goal was set for CO2-reductions the village and the

municipality of Herning has tried to carefully measure the effect on CO2-emissions of

each of the initiatives. These calculations are shown in table 2 below. As can be seen

from the table total reductions in the period from 2009 till 2012 amounts to 220 ton

CO2. This is equivalent to around 1 ton pr. family. Considering that the average Dane

emits at least 6 ton CO2 pr. year the reduction does not meet the 25% target, and is

probably closer to the 10-12% mark.

Table 2. CO2 reduction from different initiatives in climate village StudsgårdPeriod: Activity: Ton CO2 reduced from

2009 to 31.12. 2012:

2009 and onward Common climate friendly dinners

4,1 ton CO2

2012 and onward 11 stk. 6 kW sun cell plants (private)

20,3 ton CO2/år

2010 5 oil-fired boilers changed to district heating

23,4 ton CO2/år

2010 5 ha farmland changed to mixed forest

67 ton CO2/år

2011 and onward Second -hand shop 4,5 ton CO2

2011 and onward Cardboard container 4,7 ton CO2

2009 and onward Metal container 5,5 ton CO2

Total CO2 reduction since 2009

  220 ton CO2

Discussion and evaluation

An important goal in all of the cases described above has been to reduce citizens’

carbon footprint. While all of the projects report good results on this account, it is

striking that some of them are rather vague when it comes to exact measurement of

CO2-reductions. While the two cases/projects where precise reduction goals have

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been set (the climate family project and the climate village project) have made a

considerable effort to measure actual reductions, this has apparently had less priority

in the other cases. In the klimabevidst.dk case this is due to the methodological

difficulties in measuring the exact effect of the energy reduction guides on the

website. However, in the other two cases his might be due to the fact that other

priorities have also been of importance Thus, in the case of MyClimatePlan creating

local jobs and revenue has also been high on the agenda of the municipality and local

businesses, and in the case of the climate ambassadors the question of increasing

knowledge about sustainability and climate change in the community and lifting

women with an etnic background out of unemployment has played a big role.

This uneven character of the measurements makes it very hard to

compare the results of the different organizational set-up’s on actual CO2-reductions,

and a first learning from the case studies seems to be that if no concrete reduction

goals are set, measuring progress on this dimension becomes less of a priority. On the

contrary, if goals are set considerable effort is spend in order to measure progress, and

the measurement (and progress) becomes a motivating factor in and of itself (as was

clear in the case of the climate families in Ballerup).

While the jury is still out on which of the collaborative arrangements

presented that ’works best’ in terms of CO2-reductions, it is fair to say that most

enthusiasm and engagement has been generated by the projects engaging families and

the village (the climate family project and the the climate village project). These

projects, together with house retrofitting project in Middelfart also seem to be the

projects that have generated the most CO2-reductions. While immediate reductions

have been highest per individual in the climate family and the house retrofitting

projects, the reductions in the climate village – while lower – promise to be long-

lasting, and maybe even increasing over time. This fact, and the inclusive character of

the village project gives it an edge over the other collaborative arrangements

presented.

Also when it comes to the democratic aspects of the collaborative arrangements

presented above it is difficult to make an evaluation; especially if based on the rather

sketchy description of the cases above. However, it is rather clear that the cases

’scoring’ best on the 7 democratic criteria elaborated above are the projects where

citizens have been given a big say in the planning of the project and in the running of

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day-to-day activities. This is especially true for the climate family and the climate

village projects, and to a lesser extend the MyClimatePlan and the climate

ambassador project. Thus, in the first two projects the degree of citizen involvement

has contributed to a good input of local, context-specific knowledge in the planning

and execution of activities, and to a reduction of the uncertainty of the scientific

knowledge applied due to the possibility of being able to question and challenge such

knowledge. This again has to do with the space for deliberation created in these

projects, as the civil servants involved have acted more as facilitators of the process

than as traditional planners. This role of the civil servants has also served to reduce

eventual conflicts in the projects.

When it comes to the criteria of learning, ownership and empowerment

the projets are more alike, as learning by citizens is certainly taking place in all of the

projects. Also, citizens certainly become empowered in most of the projects, as they

increase both their internal as well as external efficacy (capacity to act as well as

actually doing so). When it comes to ownership of the projects it is again quite clear

that the feeling of ownership to the project is highest in the cases where citizens have

either themselves taken the initiative to the project (the climate village) or have had a

big say in how the project has been formulated and implemented (climate families and

MyClimatePlan).

The result of the evaluation is summarized in table 3.

Table 3. Evaluation of the five cases in terms of effectiveness and democracy

Parameters: Klimabevidst.dk Climate families

MyClimatePlan

Climate ambassadors

Climate village

CO2-reductions

(+) + (+) (+) +

Input of local knowledge

- + + - +

Reduce uncertainty of scientific knowledge

- + ? + +

Conflict-reducing effect

- + - ? +

Learning + + + + +Ownership - + + - +Empowerment + + - + +

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Space for deliberation

- + - + +

+ known positive effect , (+) positive, but unknown effect, , - no effect

Conclusion and policy implications

’If we wait for governments, it will be too late, if we act as individuals it will be too

little, but if we act as communities, maybe it will be enough’ (Ben Brangwyn,

Transition Network trustee, cited in Irving 2009).

While the truth of this statement might unfortunately be doubtful, the analysis above

of five instances of co-creation of climate change mitigation projects has at least

demonstrated that both when it comes to effectiveness as well as to democratic

aspects, citizen initiated community based projects, or projects initiated by public

authorities but where citizens, as a group, are given a big say in both the planning and

implementation of the project have more benefits than projects initiated by public

authorities and directed towards individuals (see the score of the klimabevidst.dk case

above).

This conclusion is corroborated by an analysis of the more intangible

benefits of citizen driven projects based on different types of communities. While it

has not been possible to develop this analysis here, the data from the CIDEA project

shows that such projects also often support and strengthen the community, create a

feeling of common identity, and improve relations between the community in

question and public authorities. Furthermore, policies anchored in communities tend

to have a longer life than policies formulated solely by civil servants, implemented

from above and directed towards individuals.

The policy implications of this analysis are quite clear: if (local) public

authorities want to engage citizens in climate change mitigation efforts, the best way

to do this both in terms of CO2-emissions and democracy is to find ways to facilitate

citizens’ own initiatives, especially those anchored in different types of communities,

or to give citizens a big say in the formulation and implementation of projects initited

by the public authority itself. Doing this will most often also have a number of more

intangible benefits such as strengthening the community, enhancing the feeling of

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common identity and improving relations between the community in question and

public authorities.

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i The Citizen Driven Environmental Action project (CIDEA) is a Danish cross-disciplinary research project aimed at finding out how it is possible to engage and motivate citizens to do an effort to reduce their carbon footprint. The project has been supported by the Danish Strategic Research Council with approx.. 11 mill. DDK in the period 2010-2014, and involved 6 senior researchers, five PH.D. students and a number of MA students. 22 In the CIDEA project we have actually also covered square 3 in fig. 1 through surveys in three municipalities with a representative sample of the population over 18 years. These surveys have yielded a number of interesting results concerning the correlations between different types of motivation and sustainable behaviour (see Gausset, Hoff, Scheele and Nørregaard 2015). 22 In the CIDEA project we have actually also covered square 3 in fig. 1 through surveys in three municipalities with a representative sample of the population over 18 years. These surveys have yielded a number of interesting results concerning the correlations between different types of motivation and sustainable behaviour (see Gausset, Hoff, Scheele and Nørregaard 2015). ii For a more thorough description of the methods used in some of the cases; see Hoff and Gausset (eds.) 2015, forthcoming. iii ESCO means Energy Service Company. The ESCO concept is a financing model in which a company conducting energy renovation in bigger buildings can guarantee a certain level of energy savings. The payment of the renovation is directly financed by the energy savings realised. In this way, municipalities are able to renovate their buildings (offices, schools, old age homes) without having to increase their budgets. After the payback period (typically 2 to 15 years), the municipality reaps the full benefit of the energy savings.