Ecovillages and other community-led initiatives as experiences of climate action

Abstract

AbstractThis editorial aims to clarify the role of community-led initiatives such as ecovillages in the global efforts to mitigate climate change. The response to the climate crises prefigured by these initiatives is based on relocalisation, cultural diversity and social empowerment. In this paper, we describe their commonalities, limitations and their potentials towards a decarbonisation of everyday life and the emergence of a decentralised and empowered civil society. We see community-led initiatives as laboratories and transformative learning fields on sustainable practices, interpersonal competencies, personal development, and the creation of plural ways of living, relating and knowing. We underline the need for greater recognition of community-led initiatives by scientific, economic and political actors in the framework of a concerted climate governance from the top-down and from the bottom-up.