Work

Scaling Local Bottom-Up Innovations through Value Co-Creation

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: Bottom-up initiatives of active citizens are increasingly demonstrating sustainable practices within local ecosystems. Local urban farming, sustainable agri-food systems, circular supply chains, and community fablabs are exemplary ways of tackling global challenges on a local level. Although promising in accelerating towards future-proof systems, these hyper-localized, bottom-up initiatives often struggle to take root in new contexts due to embedded socio-cultural challenges. With the premise that transformative capacity can be co-created to overcome such scaling challenges, the current work addresses the identified gap in scaling bottom-up initiatives into locally embedded ecosystems. While how to diffuse such practices across contexts is not straightforward, we introduce a three-phased approach enabling knowledge exchange and easing collaboration across cultures and ecosystems. The results allowed us to define common scalability criteria and to unfold scaling as a multi-step learning process to bridge identified cognitive and context gaps. The current article contributes to a broader activation of impact-driven scaling strategies and value creation processes that are transferable across contexts and deemed relevant for local ecosystems that are willing to co-create resilient socio-economic systems.

Source: Sustainability

DOI: 10.3390/su141811678

Authors: Chiara Marradi, Ingrid Mulder

Institution: Delft University of Technology

Language: English

Topic: Innovative Approaches in Technology and Social Development

Subfield: Management of Technology and Innovation

Field: Business, Management and Accounting

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Responsible consumption and production, Partnerships for the goals, Sustainable cities and communities, Industry, innovation and infrastructure, Climate action

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $2,094