Community Engagement in Sustainable Consumption and Production: Empirical Lessons and Grass-root Perspectives

The focus of this chapter is on the role of the community in SCP by drawing on case studies from the Asia-Pacific region of local initiatives for SCP. To this end the chapter looks at the following key points in developing policy oriented empirical lessons:

- Analyse and build on the strengths of community characteristics when choosing the type of activities that communities are expected to undertake towards SCP.

- Governance and information based measures are a key to successful community involvement, but need further intervention to stimulate the interface between macro-policy and field level actions.

- Openness of the community to external facilitators and innovative technology is an important success factor, and there is merit in choosing a community that has such openness when there is uncertainty regarding community acceptance of innovative technology and practices.

- Motivating and mobilising people remains a key success factor, and mind-ware issues, such as environmental ethics and awareness, need to be taken into account in addition to software (social systems and regulations) and hardware (urban or land development).

- Multistakeholder partnerships are a tool to amplify project impacts and safeguards communities from risks associated with innovative projects.