Transition from the grassroots : a sociological study of Bavarian sustainability actors

Sustainability oriented innovation and technology studies have received increasing attention over the past 1015 years. In particular, a new field dealing with “sustainability transitions” has gained ground and reached an output of 60100 academic papers per year. The transition to a more sustainable way of life is an important task to safeguard a livable future for coming generations. The concept of sustainability is defined in multiple ways, but its basic elements are economic, ecologic and social issues. The Bavarian alpine space is heavily affected by increasing pressure on natural spaces and therefore needs to come up with innovative solutions to tackle this. This sustainability innovations study focuses on the three regions of \begin Within this actor-research the focus is on grassroots movements that work in one field of sustainability transitions. Some actors that dedicate their work to sustainability are already in place. This thesis begins with an analysis of the goals, history, network and projects of these actors in order to classify them into different niches. Second, the actors perspective, criticism, hopes and ideas for a design of a new sustainability-network spanning the Bavarian alpine area were examined. Networks are an important tool to strengthen cooperation and bundle efforts to implement innovative projects. This was done by using guided personal interviews and an online survey before mentioned data was achieved. The results include a short overview of the arrangement of the actors and then focus on the regional goals of the actors, their classification into niches and their development (including their history, problems and funding). Furthermore, the actors reactions to the network-idea are shown. The most actors worked in the fields of education and energy- and climate protection. The main problem of initiatives are funding and bureaucracy. regionality is often competition and pinpointed as a potential conflict-area. The network idea was seen as problematic sometimes but in general networking was seen positively. Finally, different sustainability definitions in grassroots initiatives are compared regionally. It is interesting that problems regarding wider recognition and momentum are the same across the areas. Also, policy implications play a major role in the success of sustainability work. The results are put into a wider context by discussing the existing regimes in the Bavarian alpine space and how they interact with the niches. This research demonstrates that the Bavarian alpine space already has a lot of sustainability actors and that this is a growing research field. Further research needs to be done on funding and policy implications since those are the biggest problems in advancing sustainable development on a higher level.Marc StannartzUniversität Innsbruck, Masterarbeit, 2019Freie Universität Bozen, Masterarbeit, 2019(VLID)364442