The Innovative Communities Initiative is a project of the UNU that looks at the concept of innovativeness as applied to a community and explores its implications in managing the local environment.
Need for Innovation and Change
Since the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the critical importance of innovation and change has been repeatedly highlighted to create a more sustainable society. Related efforts have enjoyed a certain amount of success in that they have increased awareness of the principles of sustainability, and helped to change the way governments think and act. Many of the principles enshrined in the introduction to Agenda 21, for example, are now reflected in government policymaking and in the actions of local authorities. Yet, despite all these efforts, many environmental conditions on the globe are deteriorating, prevailing consumption patterns are still unsustainable, and there are only a few frameworks in place to support a constructive coexistence of market economy and environment. Many more steps need to be taken if we are to successfully put the principles and guidelines that arose since the 1992 UNCED into practice.
Many environmental problems are characterized by their complexity, uncertainty, and the fact that they require dynamic approaches by society, if they are to be successfully addressed. The issue of climate change, for example, needs to be understood from many angles, because it impacts biodiversity, land degradation, natural disaster rates, agricultural production, and more. Similarly, global climate change affects local communities and the resulting local behaviour can, in turn, contribute to global climate change. Therefore, understanding climate change requires the utilization of a wide range of knowledge and skills from different fields such as science, economics, and politics, and actions at various levels of governance.
The solutions to environmental problems must also reflect this complexity and be implemented through close coordination of efforts of different stakeholders with a diversity of knowledge and skill sets. Such coordination often requires drastic changes to existing management structures beyond the environment. Add to this the constantly evolving nature of global environmental problems, and the resulting scientific uncertainty, and it becomes clear that society must be responsive, dynamic and willing to experiment with new and innovative approaches, if sustainable development is to be achieved.
Thus, sustainable development requires innovation – major changes in the way institutions, organizations and individuals operate. It cannot be “business as usual” alongside some minor environmental concessions. Some of the necessary innovations involve reforming internal management approaches to achieve change; some are about new technologies; others relate to the nature of monitoring, regulation and enforcement processes through globally agreed standards and reporting mechanisms. Central to all these necessary changes is the participation of stakeholders, especially local communities.
The Importance of the Community Level
Since 1992, evidence has grown that the causes and pressures of any of today's environmental problems can be traced back, directly or indirectly, to the local level – and to the lifestyles, choices, values and behaviours of local communities. The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation adopted at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002, the 10-year follow-up to UNCED, reaffirmed the crucial need to enhance and support actions at the local level, in order to accelerate the implementation of sustainable development principles.
Furthermore, the community has a key role in contributing to wider innovation and change, by raising awareness of the global implications of local decisions, and by creating new social norms that can influence individual values, activities and behaviours. Sustainable development will never be achieved without major changes to the priorities and choices of individuals. As long as success is judged in terms of financial wealth and material consumption, the pressure on finite natural resources is increasing, and the potential for reaching broader equality is reduced. Legislation and regulation will play a part in shaping individual priorities and choices, but it also requires changes to the hearts and minds of individuals, communities and society as a whole.
What is a Community?
There are multiple ways of describing the term community, according to different criteria, including geographic, economic, social, political and administrative. For the purpose of this project, a community is defined as a group of people who are involved in collective action in a specific geographical location. While the project’s definition of communities does not always include all residents, or only residents of a particular area, people in communities share common local issues and take collective action towards solving these issues. Although not all residents are covered in the description of a community, this definition allows all local residents to participate if and when they become aware of these issues. In this regard, a community can be scaled up in its coverage of participants, depending on local circumstances and recognized needs.
What is Community Innovation?
Innovation, which is generally discussed in relation to the introduction of new technologies and approaches in the business sector, can be defined in numerous different ways. It is not easy to develop a single definition; commonly agreed, nonetheless, is that innovation as a concept implies something new and unconventional.
However, when innovation is applied to communities, it becomes more complex, as it implies societal transformation, due to the introduction of new concepts to understand issues, and the adoption of new mechanisms and approaches to address problems in different ways. In order to accept new mechanisms and approaches, communities often need to develop a new ethos, and adopt change to people’s behaviours and roles, as well as political and governance structures. In innovative communities, people think creatively and flexibly, and have the capacity to realign a problem or issue with a different range of possible solutions.
The following four factors encapsulate some of the key features of innovative communities:
1.Communities have abilities and creativity at all levels to design community visions and initiate activities by themselves to fulfill the visions, as well as capacities to take action by applying appropriate technologies, methods and tools to respond to actual needs.
2.Communities have sufficient knowledge on their environment (natural, cultural, historical, etc.), and available resources accumulated and stored within the communities. With available knowledge and resources, communities take a holistic approach, acknowledging basic human needs, and relating it to human development, the elimination of poverty, environmental sustainability and the integrated management of environmental resources.
3.Communities have abilities to work under the shared commitment of all related partners, by combining their technical expertise, skills, and willingness to work in partnership with actors within and from outside communities.
4.Initiatives taken by communities contribute to the solution of not only local environmental problems in a short-term, but also global environmental problems in a long-term scale.
The above listed features of the innovative communities have been used as prerequisites in selecting case examples for the project, and will be explored further through research and discussions conducted under the project.
What does it take for a community to be innovative? Why are some communities innovative and others not? Preliminary research carried out under the project highlighted some of the key factors that contributed to foster innovativeness of communities, including the capacity to understand and analyze problems within the community, partnering with different resources/organizations to find solutions, using local resources for local solutions, and involving relevant stakeholders with comprehensive participation, negotiation and consensus-building from within.
About this Project
Based on the above background, the Innovative Communities Initiative aims to explore vital elements that enable and support inventive community-level environmental management contributing to sustainable development. In particular, the project aims to: a) develop a conceptual framework of innovative communities applicable by communities and community development organizations; and b) promote the use of the concept, tools and processes by communities particularly in developing countries of the Asia-Pacific region. This will be achieved through: a) focused research on catalysts for and impediments to sustainable innovation at the community level, in collaboration with research and operational organizations for community levels; and b) dissemination of research results and publications.
Related Links Project Activities
http://www.unep.or.jp/
http://www.gdrc.org/uem/
http://www.iclei.org/
http://www.citynet-ap.org/
http://www.unhabitat.org/
Project Training and Fellowships
| May 2003: Community Building and Environmental Education Workshop |
| November 2003: Training Workshop on “Innovative Communities and Environmental Education” |
Project Publications
News Releases