As a researcher, Amy’s work focuses on the role of civil society groups and local government in promoting innovative and sustainable development in the context of planning, placemaking and place-based identities, political systems and broader policy influence, organisational design and incentivising action on climate and biodiversity issues. She also specialises in Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL) and Communications, with extensive field-based experience in Southern Africa, Brazil and the UK. She has worked as a Neighbourhood Planning practitioner, supporting several community groups and local governments in the UK to produce community-led development plans and has established community-led organisations, including community energy and community-led housing groups, and advised social enterprises on measuring the impact of regenerative procurement.
This chapter argues that whilst specific policy instruments, industry standards, and the Sustaina... more This chapter argues that whilst specific policy instruments, industry standards, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have an important role to play in establishing climate targets, incentivising action and monitoring outcomes requires a more interdependent approach to drive green initiatives at all scales. This chapter puts forward a conceptual framework for mutually reinforcing mechanisms and incentives to promote ‘regenerative value’ based on the measurement of net sustainability outputs across different dimensions.
Amy Burnett considers the benefits and possible organisation of a
more regenerative and redistrib... more Amy Burnett considers the benefits and possible organisation of a more regenerative and redistributive planning system that not only reduces our environmental impact but also seeks to restore and replenish resources
This paper seeks to critically assess how "radical" sustainability approaches that challenge "mai... more This paper seeks to critically assess how "radical" sustainability approaches that challenge "mainstream" development trajectories-and politics-are crafted and contested within local government. We explore the extent to which these approaches account for a consolidation, break down or transformation of role boundaries and political identities and their implications for the politics of niche-regime dynamics. In our in-depth study of Independents for Frome (Somerset, UK), an "independent" group who took control of the town council in 2011 and consolidated a non-partisan approach within its administrative functions, referred to as its "Flatpack Democracy" model, we take a closer look at adversarialism and the intersection of power dynamics within local government. The findings reveal the capture of local mainstream political institutions by niche "protagonists" through an orchestration and consolidation of transition governance, woven in strategically and opportunistically into new forms of localized political identities at the niche-regime interface, which helped to create a community-level regime of transition governance. We suggest that informal institutional capital, such as the role of personal ties can impact on legitimacy, accountability, or the validation of sustainability agendas. Our findings also advance debates on transition thresholds within "liminal transition spaces", interstitial spaces between a previous way of knowing and doing, and a new way. Here ground rules dictating socio-political norms are unclear, collaborative actions are potentially working at cross-purposes and/or multiple forms of (transformative) power are exercised simultaneously at distinct moments, or instantiations of transition. That is, there remains a much-needed theoretical debate around the fragile and imperfect processes of democratization within the everyday politics of transition management.
Amy Merritt and Tristan Stubbs examine the challenges
of promoting environmental citizenship in t... more Amy Merritt and Tristan Stubbs examine the challenges of promoting environmental citizenship in the UK. Citizen participation in policymaking is receiving greater attention from politicians, academics, and citizens. However, due to political and institutional barriers and a lack of resources, citizens face real challenges in their engagement. They explore the legislative parameters of localism in the UK by charting the Transition Town movement’s contribution to locally driven sustainability.
This article explores some of the challenges associated with financing sustainability action at t... more This article explores some of the challenges associated with financing sustainability action at the local level, using South Africa and the UK as case studies. Formal climate finance, including flows through multilateral development banks and private sector investor markets, has been criticised for failing effectively to link global financial interests to community needs and priorities. We discuss how a number of new financial innovations, including TimeBanking, community currencies, community share schemes, and peer-to-peer lending could help to bridge this gap. In particular, we explore how such financial innovations could be employed to support a more community-driven allocation of sustainability financing that prioritises local social and environmental benefits. We suggest that grassroots financing mechanisms have the potential to account for the social dimension in mobilising resources in a green economy as well as supporting civil society and local governments to develop greater decision-making around the mobilisation and allocation of sustainability resourcing. Further, by bringing together the local and the global, sustainability financing instruments could also help to create synergies and constructive partnerships among public administrations, markets, and society for finding creative and locally appropriate solutions to promote sustainable development.
This thesis explores how ‘formalised’ policies, practices, and spheres of governance relate to ‘b... more This thesis explores how ‘formalised’ policies, practices, and spheres of governance relate to ‘bottom-up’ activities in pursuit of new models of socio-political development in and around the planning process. In particular, whether rights bestowed to local authorities under the Localism Act (2011) offer a mechanism to lock-in relocalised (ultra-local, sustainable) or subversive agendas within mainstream development processes. The case study of the market town of Frome (Somerset, UK) has pushed an innovative sustainable placemaking agenda since a group of town councillors who reject party politics, the Independents for Frome (IfF), were elected in 2011. Using Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA), this study explores the conditions for the influence of relocalised actors and entities on Frome’s placemaking and politics, whether ‘niche’ protagonists possess and retain this identity when occupying formal spaces of power, and the role of the ‘regime’ in cultivating and contesting or development alternatives and broader shifts in environmental, social and political arrangements. The findings reveal autonomy and independence as crucial frames used to justify an orchestration of transition governance, with both emergent and strategic foundations. Pre-existing ties and reciprocity helped to express and advance relocalised place-based artefacts using the structures of the state to weave in institutionalised forms of alternative governance to support local placemaking initiatives. Multiple praxes of the niche and planning and party-political ‘regimes’ were invoked, rendering the terms more fluid than is typically understood within intersecting regimes of transition. The findings highlight a need for greater attention to the cultural qualities of placemaking and scale as a basis for social ties that support inclusive and emergent governance. Cycles of transition and the intergenerational phases between old and new were key drivers in transition processes for individuals and organisations. The notion of placemaking transitions is offered to explore how the politics of place influences sustainability transition arenas.
Localism and Neighbourhood Planning: power to the people?, 2017
Whether the state strategy of localism delivers on its promise of empowerment depends on the exte... more Whether the state strategy of localism delivers on its promise of empowerment depends on the extent to which it devolves effective instruments of policy to citizens and communities. The devolution of localism is commonly conveyed by invitation to citizens to join local governance structures or be included in neighbourhood management projects (Lowndes and Sullivan, 2008). Citizens seldom acquire the right to make decisions as a collective, and it is rare for statutory power to be designed to be wielded by public participants rather than public officials (Bradley, 2015). This chapter examines the use of statutory planning powers to effect spatial change by neighbourhoods in England. Neighbourhood planning is unusual in that a tailor-made set of statutory powers was devised and offered to communities to give them distinct rights within the development planning framework. Where much research on neighbourhood planning, including in this book, has focused on its impact on community governance and the management of place, this chapter is concerned with the implementation of a set of spatial practices, and the use by neighbourhoods of a specific, and quite limited, framework of land-use planning to achieve their goals.
Conference Proceedings for a Panel on Policy Measures and Institutional Arrangements to Govern Data-Driven Innovation for Sustainability, The 5th International Conference on Public Policy, 2021
In an effort to share local knowledge and best practices, online sustainability knowledge-action ... more In an effort to share local knowledge and best practices, online sustainability knowledge-action platforms of various types have proliferated. We conducted a review of 42 online sustainability knowledge-action platforms, which we classify as digital tools that seek to manage and organize knowledge and activities to advance a sustainability agenda at the local level. This interdisciplinary paper analyzes the structure and functionality of existing sustainability platforms through a systematic coding process. The coding is based on a review of the key issues highlighted in three bodies of literature: i) localization of the SDGs, ii) digital platforms and iii) multi-level governance of sustainability transitions. Our analysis indicates that numerous online collaborative tools, while offering an array of resources, struggle to provide context-sensitivity and higher-level analysis of the trade-offs and synergies between different sustainability actions. Context sensitivity and systemic thinking are essential, however, if we wish to align local targets with international priorities like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG localization adds another layer of complexity where multi-level governance, actor priorities and institutional logics may generate tensions as well as opportunities for intra- and cross-sectoral alignment.
Our paper offers a series of recommendations for accelerating local sustainability innovation with sustainability-focused online tools. We discuss various policy measures and approaches to facilitating data-driven innovation and how these might address issues relating to data ownership and accessibility, data interoperability and integration (particularly between the Global South and North), incentives relating to data collection, disclosure and sharing of data, and trust and engagement in data governance. We argue that, while showcasing and exemplifying local actions, an integrative platform that leverages existing content from multiple extant platforms and provides additional functionality could better assist local leaders to accelerate local to global actions across multi-level and complex system change requirements. We posit the need for an integrative open-source and dynamic global online data management tool that would enable the monitoring of progress and facilitate peer exchange of ideas and experience among local government, community and business stakeholders.
This chapter argues that whilst specific policy instruments, industry standards, and the Sustaina... more This chapter argues that whilst specific policy instruments, industry standards, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have an important role to play in establishing climate targets, incentivising action and monitoring outcomes requires a more interdependent approach to drive green initiatives at all scales. This chapter puts forward a conceptual framework for mutually reinforcing mechanisms and incentives to promote ‘regenerative value’ based on the measurement of net sustainability outputs across different dimensions.
Amy Burnett considers the benefits and possible organisation of a
more regenerative and redistrib... more Amy Burnett considers the benefits and possible organisation of a more regenerative and redistributive planning system that not only reduces our environmental impact but also seeks to restore and replenish resources
This paper seeks to critically assess how "radical" sustainability approaches that challenge "mai... more This paper seeks to critically assess how "radical" sustainability approaches that challenge "mainstream" development trajectories-and politics-are crafted and contested within local government. We explore the extent to which these approaches account for a consolidation, break down or transformation of role boundaries and political identities and their implications for the politics of niche-regime dynamics. In our in-depth study of Independents for Frome (Somerset, UK), an "independent" group who took control of the town council in 2011 and consolidated a non-partisan approach within its administrative functions, referred to as its "Flatpack Democracy" model, we take a closer look at adversarialism and the intersection of power dynamics within local government. The findings reveal the capture of local mainstream political institutions by niche "protagonists" through an orchestration and consolidation of transition governance, woven in strategically and opportunistically into new forms of localized political identities at the niche-regime interface, which helped to create a community-level regime of transition governance. We suggest that informal institutional capital, such as the role of personal ties can impact on legitimacy, accountability, or the validation of sustainability agendas. Our findings also advance debates on transition thresholds within "liminal transition spaces", interstitial spaces between a previous way of knowing and doing, and a new way. Here ground rules dictating socio-political norms are unclear, collaborative actions are potentially working at cross-purposes and/or multiple forms of (transformative) power are exercised simultaneously at distinct moments, or instantiations of transition. That is, there remains a much-needed theoretical debate around the fragile and imperfect processes of democratization within the everyday politics of transition management.
Amy Merritt and Tristan Stubbs examine the challenges
of promoting environmental citizenship in t... more Amy Merritt and Tristan Stubbs examine the challenges of promoting environmental citizenship in the UK. Citizen participation in policymaking is receiving greater attention from politicians, academics, and citizens. However, due to political and institutional barriers and a lack of resources, citizens face real challenges in their engagement. They explore the legislative parameters of localism in the UK by charting the Transition Town movement’s contribution to locally driven sustainability.
This article explores some of the challenges associated with financing sustainability action at t... more This article explores some of the challenges associated with financing sustainability action at the local level, using South Africa and the UK as case studies. Formal climate finance, including flows through multilateral development banks and private sector investor markets, has been criticised for failing effectively to link global financial interests to community needs and priorities. We discuss how a number of new financial innovations, including TimeBanking, community currencies, community share schemes, and peer-to-peer lending could help to bridge this gap. In particular, we explore how such financial innovations could be employed to support a more community-driven allocation of sustainability financing that prioritises local social and environmental benefits. We suggest that grassroots financing mechanisms have the potential to account for the social dimension in mobilising resources in a green economy as well as supporting civil society and local governments to develop greater decision-making around the mobilisation and allocation of sustainability resourcing. Further, by bringing together the local and the global, sustainability financing instruments could also help to create synergies and constructive partnerships among public administrations, markets, and society for finding creative and locally appropriate solutions to promote sustainable development.
This thesis explores how ‘formalised’ policies, practices, and spheres of governance relate to ‘b... more This thesis explores how ‘formalised’ policies, practices, and spheres of governance relate to ‘bottom-up’ activities in pursuit of new models of socio-political development in and around the planning process. In particular, whether rights bestowed to local authorities under the Localism Act (2011) offer a mechanism to lock-in relocalised (ultra-local, sustainable) or subversive agendas within mainstream development processes. The case study of the market town of Frome (Somerset, UK) has pushed an innovative sustainable placemaking agenda since a group of town councillors who reject party politics, the Independents for Frome (IfF), were elected in 2011. Using Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA), this study explores the conditions for the influence of relocalised actors and entities on Frome’s placemaking and politics, whether ‘niche’ protagonists possess and retain this identity when occupying formal spaces of power, and the role of the ‘regime’ in cultivating and contesting or development alternatives and broader shifts in environmental, social and political arrangements. The findings reveal autonomy and independence as crucial frames used to justify an orchestration of transition governance, with both emergent and strategic foundations. Pre-existing ties and reciprocity helped to express and advance relocalised place-based artefacts using the structures of the state to weave in institutionalised forms of alternative governance to support local placemaking initiatives. Multiple praxes of the niche and planning and party-political ‘regimes’ were invoked, rendering the terms more fluid than is typically understood within intersecting regimes of transition. The findings highlight a need for greater attention to the cultural qualities of placemaking and scale as a basis for social ties that support inclusive and emergent governance. Cycles of transition and the intergenerational phases between old and new were key drivers in transition processes for individuals and organisations. The notion of placemaking transitions is offered to explore how the politics of place influences sustainability transition arenas.
Localism and Neighbourhood Planning: power to the people?, 2017
Whether the state strategy of localism delivers on its promise of empowerment depends on the exte... more Whether the state strategy of localism delivers on its promise of empowerment depends on the extent to which it devolves effective instruments of policy to citizens and communities. The devolution of localism is commonly conveyed by invitation to citizens to join local governance structures or be included in neighbourhood management projects (Lowndes and Sullivan, 2008). Citizens seldom acquire the right to make decisions as a collective, and it is rare for statutory power to be designed to be wielded by public participants rather than public officials (Bradley, 2015). This chapter examines the use of statutory planning powers to effect spatial change by neighbourhoods in England. Neighbourhood planning is unusual in that a tailor-made set of statutory powers was devised and offered to communities to give them distinct rights within the development planning framework. Where much research on neighbourhood planning, including in this book, has focused on its impact on community governance and the management of place, this chapter is concerned with the implementation of a set of spatial practices, and the use by neighbourhoods of a specific, and quite limited, framework of land-use planning to achieve their goals.
Conference Proceedings for a Panel on Policy Measures and Institutional Arrangements to Govern Data-Driven Innovation for Sustainability, The 5th International Conference on Public Policy, 2021
In an effort to share local knowledge and best practices, online sustainability knowledge-action ... more In an effort to share local knowledge and best practices, online sustainability knowledge-action platforms of various types have proliferated. We conducted a review of 42 online sustainability knowledge-action platforms, which we classify as digital tools that seek to manage and organize knowledge and activities to advance a sustainability agenda at the local level. This interdisciplinary paper analyzes the structure and functionality of existing sustainability platforms through a systematic coding process. The coding is based on a review of the key issues highlighted in three bodies of literature: i) localization of the SDGs, ii) digital platforms and iii) multi-level governance of sustainability transitions. Our analysis indicates that numerous online collaborative tools, while offering an array of resources, struggle to provide context-sensitivity and higher-level analysis of the trade-offs and synergies between different sustainability actions. Context sensitivity and systemic thinking are essential, however, if we wish to align local targets with international priorities like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG localization adds another layer of complexity where multi-level governance, actor priorities and institutional logics may generate tensions as well as opportunities for intra- and cross-sectoral alignment.
Our paper offers a series of recommendations for accelerating local sustainability innovation with sustainability-focused online tools. We discuss various policy measures and approaches to facilitating data-driven innovation and how these might address issues relating to data ownership and accessibility, data interoperability and integration (particularly between the Global South and North), incentives relating to data collection, disclosure and sharing of data, and trust and engagement in data governance. We argue that, while showcasing and exemplifying local actions, an integrative platform that leverages existing content from multiple extant platforms and provides additional functionality could better assist local leaders to accelerate local to global actions across multi-level and complex system change requirements. We posit the need for an integrative open-source and dynamic global online data management tool that would enable the monitoring of progress and facilitate peer exchange of ideas and experience among local government, community and business stakeholders.
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more regenerative and redistributive planning system that not only
reduces our environmental impact but also seeks to restore and
replenish resources
of promoting environmental citizenship in the UK. Citizen participation in policymaking is receiving greater attention from politicians, academics, and citizens. However, due to political and institutional barriers and a lack of resources, citizens face real
challenges in their engagement. They explore the legislative parameters of localism in the UK by charting the Transition Town movement’s contribution to locally driven sustainability.
localism is commonly conveyed by invitation to citizens to join local governance structures or be included in neighbourhood management projects (Lowndes and Sullivan, 2008). Citizens seldom acquire the right to make decisions as a collective, and it is rare for statutory power to be designed to be wielded by public participants rather than public officials (Bradley, 2015). This chapter examines the use of statutory planning powers to effect spatial change by neighbourhoods in England. Neighbourhood planning is unusual in that a tailor-made set of statutory powers was devised and offered to communities to give them distinct rights within the development planning framework. Where
much research on neighbourhood planning, including in this book, has focused on its impact on community governance and the management of place, this chapter is concerned with the implementation of a set of spatial practices, and the use by neighbourhoods of a specific, and quite limited, framework of land-use planning to achieve their goals.
Our paper offers a series of recommendations for accelerating local sustainability innovation with sustainability-focused online tools. We discuss various policy measures and approaches to facilitating data-driven innovation and how these might address issues relating to data ownership and accessibility, data interoperability and integration (particularly between the Global South and North), incentives relating to data collection, disclosure and sharing of data, and trust and engagement in data governance. We argue that, while showcasing and exemplifying local actions, an integrative platform that leverages existing content from multiple extant platforms and provides additional functionality could better assist local leaders to accelerate local to global actions across multi-level and complex system change requirements. We posit the need for an integrative open-source and dynamic global online data management tool that would enable the monitoring of progress and facilitate peer exchange of ideas and experience among local government, community and business stakeholders.
more regenerative and redistributive planning system that not only
reduces our environmental impact but also seeks to restore and
replenish resources
of promoting environmental citizenship in the UK. Citizen participation in policymaking is receiving greater attention from politicians, academics, and citizens. However, due to political and institutional barriers and a lack of resources, citizens face real
challenges in their engagement. They explore the legislative parameters of localism in the UK by charting the Transition Town movement’s contribution to locally driven sustainability.
localism is commonly conveyed by invitation to citizens to join local governance structures or be included in neighbourhood management projects (Lowndes and Sullivan, 2008). Citizens seldom acquire the right to make decisions as a collective, and it is rare for statutory power to be designed to be wielded by public participants rather than public officials (Bradley, 2015). This chapter examines the use of statutory planning powers to effect spatial change by neighbourhoods in England. Neighbourhood planning is unusual in that a tailor-made set of statutory powers was devised and offered to communities to give them distinct rights within the development planning framework. Where
much research on neighbourhood planning, including in this book, has focused on its impact on community governance and the management of place, this chapter is concerned with the implementation of a set of spatial practices, and the use by neighbourhoods of a specific, and quite limited, framework of land-use planning to achieve their goals.
Our paper offers a series of recommendations for accelerating local sustainability innovation with sustainability-focused online tools. We discuss various policy measures and approaches to facilitating data-driven innovation and how these might address issues relating to data ownership and accessibility, data interoperability and integration (particularly between the Global South and North), incentives relating to data collection, disclosure and sharing of data, and trust and engagement in data governance. We argue that, while showcasing and exemplifying local actions, an integrative platform that leverages existing content from multiple extant platforms and provides additional functionality could better assist local leaders to accelerate local to global actions across multi-level and complex system change requirements. We posit the need for an integrative open-source and dynamic global online data management tool that would enable the monitoring of progress and facilitate peer exchange of ideas and experience among local government, community and business stakeholders.