As the ACCTING project reaches its final week, we are proud to share the results of its second cycle of research, which are now available in a series of Research Line Reports.

Building on the project’s first research cycle, this second round presents findings from 87 quasi-experimental case studies conducted across 13 countries and deepens our understanding of how communities, particularly those facing marginalisation, experience and respond to the challenges of climate transition.

The findings confirm that change is most effective when driven from the ground up, supported by inclusive policies and strong public infrastructure. They also reveal persistent structural barriers that hinder action, from economic hardship to inadequate transport, housing, or food systems. Despite these, grassroots initiatives continue to demonstrate resilience, creativity, and the capacity to drive meaningful transformation.

Each report focuses on one of ACCTING’s research lines and offers evidence-based insights that can help shape more inclusive sustainability policies and interventions.

Explore the Research Line Reports

This article is part of a three-part series focusing on the successes, challenges and lessons learnt from ACCTING’s pilot projects.

Three years ago, the ACCTING project set out to explore how to make the European Green Deal more inclusive and just, especially for communities often left behind. Alongside research activities, ten pilot projects across Europe were funded. The context in which pilots were implemented however vary greatly – this includes the sectoral (from fire resilience to cycling) and geographic context (from rural Zagori to urban Palermo), as well as the primary target group (from Roma communities to disadvantaged youth). Nevertheless, there is a range of shared successes and achievements, challenges and obstacles as well as general lessons learnt that can be identified as cross-cutting.

Lessons learnt by the ACCTING pilots

• Many pilots stressed the need for increasing investment in approaches grounded in resilience and dialogue, given environmental variables and increasingly volatile climatic conditions. While some successes were seen in this regard, the lack of response and top-down approach taken by many public authorities towards the pilots is at odds with the need to engage and co-create with the public. As conditions on the ground become increasingly unstable and prone to sudden changes, traditional planning approaches become less fit for purpose and an approach of regular monitoring and dialogue is instead needed.

• We also see that there are different ways municipalities can support the work of CSO actors. These might be simply uptake and scaling (as in the case of Dialogue & Action Against Wildfires’ fire resilience planning), but they could also take the form of enabling or complementary actions (as in the case of the Municipality of Kamëz building new bike lanes to support the cycling advocacy work of EduMove; or various Czech municipalities engaging with Mapko on ways to include community gardens in urban planning processes).

• The involvement of educational actors was commonly cited as a promising approach. This could be in terms of stakeholder recruitment generally (for instance, EduMove noted that working with students had the benefit of involving a lot of young, open-minded potential participants). Or as seen in Success #3, it could be involvement of respected academic institutions to provide legitimacy to the project (see Echoversity). The strong potential “ripple effects” of working through educational policy was noted in a number of instances, a way to reach less engaged individuals such as parents through their children (School goes green), or to test systems change in a smaller, more controlled environment (schools), before seeking to roll out similar changes at a city-wide scale (Food4Schools ).

• Educational policy is seen as a particularly crucial enabler of “locking in” learnings from pilot projects, – influencing generations of students through inclusion of project outputs in school curricula and thereby driving long-term behavioural change (EduMove). The incorporation of sustainability goals into educational curricula can also help to develop a more nuanced and systemic understanding of the issues at hand, with Food4Schools for instance citing the need for a Whole School Food Approach that recognises food education and food policies as inherently interlinked.

• Certain topics are particularly worth addressing through CSOs because they tend to have a bottom-up ethos yet have translocal relevance and are perhaps less limited by country-specific rules and regulations. Food gardens are one such community practice that is found across Europe and globally.

• In many instances, we see trade-offs between formalisation and flexibility / informality with the work of CSOs. There is a risk that positive avenues of dialogue and co-creation will cease, once projects are taken up and formalised by public actors. Resistance can also be raised by local communities to such formalisation attempts – for instance Supporting Roma micro-entrepreneurs in Albania noted the project’s aim to support vulnerable micro-entrepreneurs was met with resistance to change due to perceived risks of formalisation. Informal groups can be a valuable conduit for volunteering and activism, but these actors tend to still require support due to limited recognition and capacity, pointing to the potential value of umbrella / framework organisations like Supporting Roma micro-entrepreneurs in Albania and Uključi se! (Get involved!).

• This links to an important point about the complementarity of different actors. It is clear that there is real value in having different kinds of CSOs with complementary skill sets. Some might be more locally rooted, trusted by their communities, and activism-oriented. Others might be more institutionally rooted, experienced and well-organised and -capacitated, able to provide a link between public actors and/or business and community groups on the ground. PA9 for instance notes that they “provide mentors through local partners that are “hands-on” support for each informal group. They can support them in project writing, financial, communication and reporting aspects of the project.” Finding a balance between these types of CSOs is key.

• Even at the bottom-up level, there is evidence of an urban-rural divide, with initiatives in rural areas having a harder time obtaining the required institutional support. For instance, in Mapko it was noted that community gardens in urban areas like Prague benefit from greater institutional support, while rural regions struggle with limited access to resources such as funding and training for community garden leaders.

• Pilots can help make higher-level policy processes more tangible – creating localised findings and deliverables. Pilots can also likely benefit from greater institutional support if they make these links, i.e. helping policy-makers to solve a policy-problem that they already have. Food4Schools’s example of hoping to replicate their school food policy in Greece by noting how food systems transformation is entangled with climate resilience, and seeking to link to the work of Greek Mission Cities – Thessaloniki, Ioannina, and Kalamata.

• However, in relation to behavioural change particularly there are real shortcomings to a piloting approach. The experience of the ACCTING pilots shows that behaviour is often enabled or restricted by broader systemic conditions – especially for vulnerable groups. You cannot pilot your way out of structural challenges, and behavioural change is thus inherently linked to systemic change through structural policy. Dialogue & Action Against Wildfires went to great lengths to increase inclusion in their participatory work (e.g. improving gender balance) but noted that while targeted activities can help bring underrepresented voices to the table, more comprehensive mentorship programs or policy interventions may be required.

• In Dialogue & Action Against Wildfires, deeper structural issues (cultural norms, time constraints for caregiving, and limited familiarity with civil protection roles) also continued to hinder many women from taking on formal leadership positions in particular. For school food systems, Food4Schools similarly notes that behavioural change needs to be examined and pursued in the context of broader systemic change that cannot exclude public institutions, authorities and the market. Similarly, their Local Action Plan notes that transition towards more sustainable school food systems in nurseries cannot be ventured as a pilot. Instead, change needs to be incremental and applied gradually across all nurseries.

• In this regard a holistic, multi-dimensional approach is usually needed to enable sustainable behavioural change. This needs to consist of various factors including a) awareness- / motivation-raising activities, b) support for skills / capacity, c) advocacy to change structural conditions, and d) influencing social dynamics in communities. EduMove uses the example of lack of safety as a central barrier for a modal shift to cycling. They argue that this multi-dimensional phenomenon can only effectively be tackled as such through actual infrastructural change to increase road safety, awareness campaigns for drivers and other transport users, and training and equipment for would-be cyclists to improve skills and subjective feelings of safety.

• To support ongoing sustainability of pilot work, there is potential in using graduates and/or former participants as multipliers for ongoing CSO work. This can keep the project running in its original location and help to ensure buy-in of local (vulnerable) communities – creating role model figures. A clear example is seen in School goes green, where a past graduate of the school volunteering programme is employed in the project co-ordination team, allowing future volunteers to more easily see themselves in the project.

• Finally, it is worth highlighting that the success of projects does not depend only on the quality of the project put forward, but also that it is simply the right project at the right time (see Success #7). InclusivECs awards’ challenges with many energy communities (ECs) not registering for the inclusive award ceremony, arose because many existing ECs did not know how to design inclusive actions.
  The topic of inclusive energy communities was simply too new in Spain, requiring a partial shift in approach to providing more practical guidance. It might have been more useful to have a project that from the start builds capacity for inclusive actions, instead of one that sought to celebrate such actions prematurely.

Conclusion

The ACCTING pilot projects were successful in promoting inclusive, collective action towards sustainability foremost through their direct engagement with the target community. Through their efforts in promoting inclusive co-creation and community ownership, they successfully empowered vulnerable groups to play an active role in transition processes. Collective behavioural change was furthermore promoted through engaging and fun methodologies, breaking down EGD priorities to the lived realities of target groups and ensuring that communities derive tangible benefits. Pilots were able to build sustainable impact by building platforms for ongoing collaboration, bringing diverse stakeholders together as intermediaries, promoting the public institutionalisation of the piloted approaches, and facilitating translocal learning and multiplication.

These successes provide evidence regarding the value and effectiveness of the approach, trusting CSOs and community-led initiatives to drive place-based transformations in line with EGD policy goals. On the other hand, the successes serve as valuable source of insights and inspiration for similar projects, and of policy recommendations to strengthen such work.

At the same time, the pilot projects encountered a range of challenges and barriers that served as a bottleneck for sustainable impact. Two major clusters emerged: On the one hand, CSOs struggle with the lack of secure and sustainable funding mechanisms. Financial constraints, “projectism” and competition for funds also leads to other operational challenges, like capacity constraints, the lack of personnel continuity and exclusionary practices. On the other hand, the PAs struggled with collaborating with political and administrative authorities, leading for instance to difficulties in obtaining government permission for project activities. Reasons are top-down administrative cultures and intransparencies, but also limited capacities of (local) governance to pursue in-depth partnerships.

Pilots highlight that a shift in perspective is necessary, so as to prioritise investment in (community) resilience and social infrastructure in times of increasing uncertainty. Civil Society Organisations can play a key role in providing this, especially in partnership with local governments and supported through sustainable funding arrangements. The learnings also point to the importance of education in promoting behavioural change, targeting educational actors and policy makers as key actors. At the same time, behavioural change is often enabled or restricted by broader systemic conditions, especially for vulnerable groups. This includes infrastructure, cultural norms and the individual socio-economic situation, limiting the capacity to engage. Holistic, multi-dimensional approaches are needed that consider individual capabilities, structural conditions and social dynamics.

This article is part of a three-part series focusing on the successes, challenges and lessons learnt from ACCTING’s pilot projects.

This article is part of a three-part series focusing on the successes, challenges and lessons learnt from ACCTING’s pilot projects.

Three years ago, the ACCTING project set out to explore how to make the European Green Deal more inclusive and just, especially for communities often left behind. Alongside research activities, ten pilot projects across Europe were funded. The context in which pilots were implemented however vary greatly – this includes the sectoral (from fire resilience to cycling) and geographic context (from rural Zagori to urban Palermo), as well as the primary target group (from Roma communities to disadvantaged youth). Nevertheless, there is a range of shared successes, challenges and obstacles as well as general lessons learnt that can be identified as cross-cutting.

What were the challenges that pilots faced?

Challenge #1 Lack of secure / formal funding mechanisms

Arguably the greatest challenge was the lack of long-term funding for the work of the pilots, making it difficult for them to plan or commit to medium- to long-term actions. Given the fixed, one-year nature of the ACCTING funding, the ACCTING project team were repeatedly approached by the pilots, asking about possibilities for further ACCTING funding or knowledge of other funding opportunities. It is clear that this is part of a pattern of ad-hoc, short-term funding, which likely contributes to the high turnover rate of personnel and indeed CSOs themselves (see Challenge #7). Indeed, not all organisations involved in the ACCTING pilots will necessarily be able to continue running in and beyond 2025.

Regarding the specific work of the pilots for instance, Dialogue & Action Against Wildfires noted in its final report that despite clear plans to continue the pilot work, that it has not yet secured any formal funding mechanism that would guarantee ongoing support for work such as training, equipment upgrades, or scenario-refinement exercises. Food4Schools noted similar difficulties in relation to its work on sustainable food in Greek schools.

Challenge #2 Financial constraints excluding certain demographics

The funding constraints mentioned above have implications not only on the sustainability but also on the inclusivity of the initiatives. For instance, some initiatives, like the Urban Gardens in Mapko have to collect a membership fee for their functioning, which serves as an access barrier for participation of lower income groups. Similarly, many initiatives cannot pay compensation for engagement of participants, which similarly serves as a barrier for deeper engagement.

Challenge #3 Ensuring equitable distribution of benefits and recognition

Regarding the tangible benefits discussed, such as infrastructure, equipment, and awards (see Success #6), equitable distribution and clear explanation of criteria is essential, with a number of pilots noting tensions in this regard. EduMove noting frustration by participants as regards to sub-par and/or differing quality of the bicycles donated.

In the case of Supporting Roma micro-entrepreneurs in Albania towards better environmental sustainability, they noted that vulnerability is not a self-evident concept, and the criteria for who qualifies as “vulnerable” was challenging during the implementation of project activities. This is also the case in relation to awards and prize ceremonies to recognise good work. Again, the selection process can lead to similar disagreements and perceived bias from those not selected.

Challenge #4 Difficulty obtaining government permission

While a few pilots had success engaging municipal actors (see Success #7), many faced significant delays or lack of responses from government actors at various levels. This often significantly held up their ability to progress with their planned projects.

While Mapko was able to conduct their own project work of mapping and supporting community gardens, they noted that many gardens struggle to secure operational permissions from municipalities, and others even face displacement due to land being repurposed for other projects (e.g. real estate development).

EduMove noted challenges to receive approval to conduct bicycle riding and safety training in schools. While they had good relationships with the local municipality, the school curriculum is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education. They note that while videos and other materials can be produced and delivered to school libraries, they risk gathering dust unless actively included in curricula. Thus, “The key to making this initiative successful is to create a clear structure, training schedules, and ensuring ongoing access to the materials.”

Todas en bici’s work to advocate for a safer and more inclusive cycling city for all Barcelona residents ran into difficulties engaging the municipality with a variety of policy proposals. With no clear contact within the municipality, plans to influence the city’s plans and infrastructure development were stillborn. This is clearly more crucial for some topics (e.g. cycling), where infrastructure and other top-down support is so necessary for influencing long-term outcomes.

InclusivECs awards similarly noted that the competencies for regulation of energy communities are shared across three levels of government – local town councils, regional state actors (the autonomous community) and the central government. While support was obtained from the former, lack of dialogue with the latter two created challenges. Better multi-level governance is required.

At other times, even where (local) governments wished to support, capacity issues sometimes arose. Thus, for instance, Food4Schools noted that pressing professional commitments and time constraints created difficulties in engaging local policy-makers who might otherwise have participated more actively.

Challenge #5 Top-down administrative culture

In the process of seeking institutional support for their work, some PAs noted difficulties with hierarchical, top-down administrative cultures. While Dialogue & Action Against Wildfires had some success working with their municipality of Messina, they noted challenges for multiplication across Greece owing to the “top-down administrative culture of most regions in Greece and may slow the adoption of bottom-up planning.”

This unwillingness to give up centralised control can sometimes make it hard for “outsiders” looking to support the work of public actors. Thus, for instance Food4Schools work on sustainable food procurement was made challenging from the start by a lack of consistent documentation on how this is dealt with in the Greek context, compounded by a very low response rate from ministries and regional authorities on requests for information. This required additional unexpected research work – the third part of the project’s final research report.

Challenge #6 CSO time-constraints

Many pilots worked to tailor support and/or project outputs to specific geographical contexts or (vulnerable) target groups.  Here it was noted that any work to this effect was enormously time-consuming. Supporting Roma micro-entrepreneurs in Albania for instance, had challenges tailoring their business support and tools to vulnerable Roma micro-entrepreneurs, especially owing to the beneficiaries’ limited experience with formal business planning.

Challenge #7 Lack of personnel continuity

Finally, as repeatedly hinted at, changes in leadership create substantial challenges for CSOs. Thus, for instance, EduMove noted that any work and communication with schools and students depends entirely on the subjective personal engagement and reliability of the contact point at that particular school.

Mapko in particular noted a trend of leaders in community gardens moving or reducing engagement for personal reasons after around three years of involvement, substantially impacting long-term project goals, community cohesion, and the kinds of fruitful personal relationships previously discussed. They cite a number of specific policy recommendations in Section 4 of the report to overcome this (in addition to the need to simply provide more funding for CSOs).

This article is part of a three-part series focusing on the successes, challenges and lessons learnt from ACCTING’s pilot projects.

This article is part of a three-part series focusing on the successes, challenges and lessons learnt from ACCTING’s pilot projects.

Three years ago, the ACCTING project set out to explore how to make the European Green Deal more inclusive and just, especially for communities often left behind. Alongside research activities, ten pilot projects across Europe were funded. Each one was a real-world experiment, shaped by the local context, contributing to ACCTING’s core mission: to understand how Green Deal policies affect different communities, and to find inclusive, practical ways to support sustainable behaviour and reduce inequalities.

The specific objectives of each pilot project as well as the context in which they were implemented however vary greatly – this includes the sectoral (from fire resilience to cycling) and geographic context (from rural Zagori to urban Palermo), as well as the primary target group (from Roma communities to disadvantaged youth). The strong engagement with the specific context of the target groups is one of the strengths of the pilots. At the same time, they make a synthesis of results challenging.

Nevertheless, there is a range of shared successes (and enabling factors underlying these successes), challenges and obstacles as well as general lessons learnt that can be identified as cross-cutting.

What made the pilot projects successful?

Success #1: Community ownership

“Projects may start and end, but people remain”.

Many of the pilot projects succeeded in ensuring the involvement and ownership of local communities in the planning and implementation of their projects. This was highlighted as instrumental for the project’s success, particularly in relation to ensuring long-term buy-in and project sustainability – by remaining relevant and adaptive to community-needs.

Specific examples include the village coordination committees established in Dialogue & Action Against Wildfires at the very outset of the project (and continuing right through all project stages). The School goes green project engaged a group of high school students (‘Sindacato’) from the onset in the design, implementation and peer-to-peer facilitation of the volunteering experience. According to their experience, this was a key factor for the high turnout and satisfaction of participating students and distilled a sense of ownership and self-actualisation in the Sindacato students. Similarly, the project Todas en bici decided to set-up a multi-organisational steering team with decentralised and collective decision-making processes. According to the organisers, such collective ownership increases the likelihood of continuing beyond the project’s timeframe.

Success #2: Inclusive co-creation

“Nothing about them, without them.”

Here, a strongly related point is the commitment to involving affected / vulnerable stakeholders as much as possible throughout the pilot process. As highlighted in Dialogue & Action Against Wildfires, this was not only a question of justice but also served as a valuable source of insight. The implementation team highlighted the decisive role of local knowledge in shaping effective disaster management strategies, with community mapping scenario-based worksheets unearthing a wealth of insights regarding local terrain, water sources, and historical fire patterns. These had not been considered in previous official fire prevention strategies. The Echoversity project took a similarly inclusive approach throughout the project’s design and implementation phases, seeking the active participation of a diverse group of stakeholders, farmers, artisans, educators, and residents, in the design and implementation of the project activities.

Success #3: Empowerment of marginalised groups

“Pride in my heritage, strength in my traditions, harmony with my land.”

Through their continued consultation and involvement, a noticeable change was observed in many of the marginalised communities included in the pilots. This relates to an increased sense of self-efficacy and -empowerment in relation to the topic at hand. Through the project, communities understood the value they bring to the achievement of larger goals.

For example, the inclusion of local villagers in Dialogue & Action Against Wildfires’s fire prevention strategies through interactive workshops, including identification of different roles for individuals in emergencies, related training programmes, etc. This workshop methodology (rather than relying on the usual top-down public information campaigns), contributes substantially to imparting both knowledge and confidence.

At other times, this also contributed to wider social goals beyond environmental protection, boosting a community’s sense of identity and self-esteem, and instilling a sense of pride for one’s own cultural and natural heritage and traditions. The importance of the Zagori region’s transhumance practices in Echoversity, linking to protection of the area’s strong biodiversity, maintenance of local trails, and wool-crafting heritage, was a clear example. This was made evident to local communities through the project as a whole, and particularly through the participation of prestigious local organisations, such as the University of Ioannina.

Success #4: Making climate protection fun and engaging

Piloting the party method

There has been widespread societal discussion on the need to make environmentalist activities fun and exciting, as opposed to an additional burden. Failure to do so can lead to the disengage of the public from sustainable lifestyles and activism, despite climate change remaining a real and present concern. In this context, a number of the Pilot projects presented a genuine alternative, grounded in a sense of playfulness and community co-creation.

For instance, the educational programme of Echoversity was successful in linking the topic of biodiversity protection to positive experiences through direct interaction with their natural environment. This connection of children with their natural environment and awareness raising about the links to cultural heritage, creates meaningful memories for future decision-makers, fostering a lasting appreciation for heritage and sustainability. Similarly, School goes green highlighted the importance of informal moments, or the “party method”, into the project experience to build relationship and foster engagement.

Success #5: Raising consciousness around vulnerability and inclusivity

Local communities and stakeholders were at times challenged to think about their own positionality and how they too could maximise inclusivity. In Uključi se! (Get involved!), for instance, a question was added in the application form relating to inclusion of vulnerable groups. This motivated the youth applying to the project’s volunteer programmes to think about which demographics and social groups were still missing from the project, providing the project organisers with a clearer overview on shortcomings to address.

Success #6: Translation of Green Deal policies to lived realities

ACCTING’s pilots successfully translated high-level concepts of the Green Deal to the lived reality of their target groups – an explicit rationale for the ACCTING project’s overall motivation regarding work with bottom-up organisations.

For instance, School goes green made a conscious effort in linking the high-level policy priorities of the European Green Deal with the lived reality of the students through participatory and reflexive methods during the initial workshop, the volunteering experience and the final event. As a result, students reported a considerably higher level of understanding of the European Green Deal and its principles.

Supporting Roma micro-entrepreneurs in Albania towards better environmental sustainability had significant success supporting participating SMEs by providing them with equipment and materials valued at €1,000 per enterprise. This proved highly labour-intensive, owing to the beneficiaries’ limited experience with formal business planning. Nonetheless, the results were highly effective in ensuring real value for the day-to-day business realities of each enterprise, leading to cost savings and reduced environmental impact. The main effect being the effective change in management – budgeting makes it feasible to take decisions on how the business is managed and ensure environmental impacts are minimised.

Success #7: Ensuring communities derive tangible benefits

Other success factors point to the project’s legacy and longer-term impact. Plans, strategies, worksheets and other typical deliverables can be valuable from a policy and replication / multiplication perspective. Yet several Pilot projects cited the importance of also linking the project outcomes to tangible benefits for participants and the wider community, making it easier to position the project as successful from the perspective of local communities.

One example is creation of new and/or increased opportunities for employment and income-generation. Echoversity established a foundation for eco-tourism and regenerative tourism by mapping and marking the transhumance trail – creating opportunities for local communities generally, and breeders in particular to generate income. Supporting Roma micro-entrepreneurs in Albania listed an ability to stimulate local economies through increased employment as one of the evaluation criteria for selecting which micro-enterprises to support.

Other tangible outcomes could be infrastructure (such as the development of a new bicycle lane and bicycle parking in EduMove) or equipment (€1,000 tailored support for local SMEs for Supporting Roma micro-entrepreneurs in Albania; bicycle donation to local school children for EduMove). Here, and in awards and prize ceremonies to recognise good work (InclusivECs awards and Supporting Roma micro-entrepreneurs in Albania) it is important to consider equitable distribution to avoid promoting tensions and further inequities, as discussed under challenges.

Success #8 Providing platforms for ongoing collaboration

In a number of cases, the pilots as a whole, or specific project outputs, provided an important networking role with other CSOs. (Usually online) platforms were thus provided for collaboration and networking, resource-sharing, and highlighting the work of different CSOs. This platforming helps to provide peer support and inspiration between CSOs, but also to provide visibility of their good work to potential future funders.

Thus, for instance, Supporting Roma micro-entrepreneurs in Albania established an informal Coalition of Roma Green Micro-entrepreneurs group for meetings and mutual support. As part of the project, an online platform was also developed to serve as a central hub for resources, opportunities, and communication among coalition members.

Mapko also conducted a comprehensive revamp of its community garden map, adding a host of new community gardens and documenting the closure of others, which significantly enhanced its usability. New features were introduced, including an interactive menu, a comprehensive knowledge bank, and user recognition through special badges, confirming the entity’s status on the platform. In today’s version, the badges are divided into four categories depending on the status and level of maturity of the given garden, providing a superb overview of the state of play in Czechia.

Something similar was done in Uključi se! (Get involved!), where the project team developed a website “Get involved!” that connects informal groups with donors to implement climate projects in local communities. The positive feedback of both companies and informal groups led to a decision to maintain this website after the project ends for at least the next three years – “We see great potential to activate many more young people with more companies and donors that would then open more calls for support.”

Success #9 Public institutionalisation of pilot approaches

What are the crucial conditions making such institutionalisation successful?

Many pilot organisations noted that the long-term sustainability and scaling of impact depends on the engagement of institutionalised actors, like public administrations and policy makers. Pilot projects had some success in engaging municipalities towards the institutionalisation of their approaches (albeit to varying degrees). For example, Dialogue & Action Against Wildfires notes that:

“Local stakeholders have begun discussing ways to integrate the project’s bottom-up approach into municipal civil protection plans, which could lead to greater institutionalisation of community-led disaster risk reduction. These early signs of official endorsement suggest that even though formal budget lines have yet to be established, the pilot action’s methodologies and ethos stand a good chance of being recognised and sustained in future, supposing that some of the community members continue to continuously push forward the political agenda.”

Similarly, Mapko had success engaging not only local communities but also municipalities and developers to establish a collaboration regarding community gardens in the Czech Republic. This resulted in agreements to include community gardens in urban planning, with a memorandum of understanding facilitating green spaces in new residential projects. EduMove, meanwhile, benefited from good relations between the implementing organisation and the local municipality to implement actions like permanent bike lanes and a public campaign with permanent banners.

In contrast, other Pilot projects faced significant difficulty gaining public support, including municipalities (e.g. Todas en bici) and national actors (InclusivECs awards). The burning question from a policy perspective is: What are the crucial conditions making such institutionalisation successful? The following success factors are posited:

• Public priorities and consciousness:

Bottom-up innovations are more likely to be picked up and supported if they are in line with current public priorities and political pressures. It is no surprise, for instance, that the topic of wildfires in Greece found resonance with local politicians, given the level of discourse around the topic. Vice versa, InclusivECs awards clearly struggled simply due to the level of maturity of energy communities in Spain generally, meaning that less public support was forthcoming.

• Windows of opportunity:

Some projects clearly benefit from being the right topic at the right time in relation to current policy agendas (and vice versa). To have political impact it is crucial to link on-going policy processes and priorities, i.e. helping policy makers solve problems they are currently concerned with. Thus, for instance, Food4Schools have done well to link their project (nominally about food in schools) to the highly publicised 100 Climate Neutral Cities Mission, noting how food systems transformation is intimately linked with climate resilience, and linking this to the work of Greek Mission cities – including Thessaloniki, Ioannina, and Kalamata.

• Leveraging existing relationships with political actors

Some of the projects were able to leverage positive relationships between the pilot contacts and the municipalities to push for joined projects (Messinia in Greece, and Tirana/Kamëz in Albania, respectively). Vice versa, the projects are then opportunities to build dialogue and trust for future collaborations. This is compromised whenever there is a lack of personal continuity, as outlined in challenge #8.

Success #10: Facilitating translocal learning & multiplication

A number of Pilot projects had success developing plans & templates that are modular, generalised and process-oriented. This approach supports replication and multiplication, allowing projects and planning to be adapted and/or tailored to other contexts and account for distinct legal frameworks, cultural practices, or geographical constraints – an essential element for translocal learning. Dialogue & Action Against Wildfires ’s Forest Fire Risk Reduction Toolkit is one great example of this and is currently translated to English.

Others explicitly began the hard work of identifying promising NGOs and CSOs who would have interest in collaborating on similar projects in the future. Mapko did this in the context of food gardens in and beyond the Czech Republic (Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Poland, and Bosnia). The project leads suggest starting with regional groupings such as the V4 (Czechia, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia). Doing this through a unified platform such as the Mapko site, will allow for a better understanding of the varying approaches to urban agriculture, legislative frameworks, and socioeconomic conditions, nonetheless fostering collaboration across borders.

Success #11 CSOs as mediators

Lastly, the role of CSOs as mediators between diverse stakeholders was repeatedly emphasised, indicating their value in building trust and lowering transaction costs. This networking role could be with individual stakeholders, but in other cases it was between organisations – a network of CSOs (illustrating the importance of similar organisations like ECOLISE at the EU-wide level).

Supporting Roma micro-entrepreneurs in Albania and Mapko thus for instance helped to provide recognition and a voice for smaller organisations (SMEs and community gardens respectively) who would not have had the size or capacity to do this on their own. Dialogue & Action Against Wildfires similarly acted as a single broker and contact between small, isolated villages with fluctuating populations (summer versus winter) and the public authorities responsible for creation of disaster planning (fire departments, municipalities generally).

In some cases, this was an explicit aim of the project. Thus, Uključi se! (Get involved!) had the core objective of acting as a broker between companies and volunteers/informal groups. The organisation, Young Researchers of Serbia (YRS), thus established a methodology for mentorship and financial support, giving many companies to plan their own CSO work. This was a safer way for the companies to support individual climate ideas because YRS’s co-ordination provided the institutional credibility and organisational skills to lower the risk of working with fully grassroots actors. Through the application and selection methodology, companies could also be sure that selected projects had been adequately vetted.

This trust and brokerage relate not only to reputations but also to legal and financial capacity. For instance, Uključi se! (Get involved!) noted that replication in countries beyond Serbia would require “an umbrella association that can handle the financial weight and be the contact point for smaller organisations on [the] local level that would work directly with the local community.” They highlight that their methodology is invaluable for the involvement and support of informal groups who, as individuals, cannot be supported or held accountable for financial spending through projects and donations. “YRS has therefore created a system that enables them to still do projects and YRS would cover the costs through invoices provided by them in our name. This is due to the legal framework in Serbia, but also in many other countries.”

In other cases, the careful involvement of key multipliers to further this networking potential. PA10 had success in also involving individuals with high multiplier potential in their school volunteering project. For instance, 14 teachers, many of whom will be moved to new schools in Palermo in 2025 – boding well for replication of the project ethos in further regional schools in the future.

This article is part of a three-part series focusing on the successes, challenges and lessons learnt from ACCTING’s pilot projects.

On 29 April 2025 the ACCTING project held its Final Conference in Brussels, bringing together researchers, policymakers, civil society leaders and community voices for a day of rich discussions and shared learning. With just one month to go before the project’s conclusion, the event marked a key moment to reflect on ACCTING’s contribution to building a fair and inclusive European Green Deal.

A huge thank you to all speakers, pilot project representatives, poster presenters, and every attendee who contributed to the day’s meaningful conversations.

The recordings of the event are now available, watch them below!

Opening statements

Keynote speech: Tunç Soyer

Session 1: Research
Learning from the grassroots: Engaging with marginalised groups to co-create a just transition 

Session 2: Innovation
From innovation to impact: Leveraging commons for a just transition

Session 3: Action
Advancing behavioural change through partnerships and collaboration

Final conclusions: Sofia Strid

What’s next

Stay tuned as we continue sharing insights and outputs from the project. Make sure to register for our upcoming webinars!

Online Webinar

Women, Villages, Forests:
Local Struggle and Solidarity Experiences from Greece and Türkiye

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This event, held in Turkish and Greek languages, shares the struggles and solidarity experiences led by women and local communities in rural areas and forest villages in Türkiye and Greece against the risks of forest fires. The event begins with the presentation of the policy recommendations titled “Valuing Indigenous and Local Knowledge in Disaster Management and Nature Protection” prepared within the scope of the ACCTING project. This is followed by the presentation of the toolkit “Reducing Forest Fire Risk for Local Communities,” developed by DOCK – Social Solidarity in the Economic Sector, an organization based in Greece, as part of a project supported by the ACCTING project. After the presentations, a panel discussion and short Q&A are held with the participation of all participants.

Participants

Ilias Anagnostopoulos, Manganiako Village Head, organic farmer – Greece 

Danae Athanassopoulou, President of the Cultural Association of Ancient Messene – Greece 

Sevil Duman, Izmir, Urla Birgi Village Head – Türkiye  

Panagiotis Giannakopoulos, Nostos and Villages in Action – Community Based Institute Founding member – Greece 

Şerife Güzel, Izmir Municipality Fire Department Forest Villages and Rural Areas Fire Intervention Unit Head – Türkiye  

Nejla Işık, Muğla Ikizköy Village Head, farmer – Türkiye  

Dimitra Papaioannidou, Ecomuseum Zagori – Greece  

Pervin Savran, Head of the Sarıkeçililer Life and Solidarity Association, shepherd – Türkiye  

Elena Tzamouranou, DOCK and Villages in Action – Community Based Institute Founding Member – Greece 

Moderator

Esin Düzel, Researcher, Sabancı University, EarthSky Solidarity Association Member  
 

Concluding Notes 

Ayşe Gül Altınay, Researcher, EarthSky Solidarity Association Chair 

Online Webinar

More Inclusive Sustainability Policies

22 May, 11.00 – 12.00 CET

ACCTING’s research on climate-related topics – ranging from sustainable food and biodiversity to sustainable mobility and energy communities – identified in its Research Agendas a number of key knowledge gaps and research questions which will be promoted to researchers and research funding organisations.

This webinar is part of a series of three webinars that will highlight the project’s future research agendas. Click here to discover the other two webinars!

This webinar will discuss how future research can actively shape sustainability policies and support Green Deal objectives. More concretely, the focus lies on knowledge gaps related to sustainability policies and institutional frameworks, i.e., unanswered questions with regard to the (co-)design of policies, the decision-making processes in policymaking, and ensuring the inclusiveness of policy frameworks. To frame this discussion, the webinar focuses on the following area:

Inclusive and sustainable mobility, focusing on topics in need of further research like the institutional, cultural and political factors that shape the uptake of intersectional approaches in mobility policies and make local authorities either adopt or avoid co-design approaches while designing policies.

An external speaker (see below) will offer their reaction to this research agenda, and share their expert insights. The session is particularly relevant for researchers, civil society actors, and research funding organisations interested in shaping inclusive environmental policies.

Speakers from the ACCTING project

• Dag Balkmar is Associate Professor and Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies at Örebro University, Sweden. His current research focuses on transport poverty, mobility justice and sustainable mobility from a gender+/ intersectional perspective.
• Francesca Pugliese is a researcher at Knowledge & Innovation in Rome, currently working on the Horizon 2020 ACCTING project. She has worked on various European-funded projects exploring social inequalities through a gender+ lens.

External speaker

Hélène Bouscasse is a research fellow at INRAE (National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment), where she specialises in spatial and transport economics. Her work focuses on individual behavioural modelling related to residential location, mobility, and health, drawing on interdisciplinary collaborations across social sciences, life sciences, and climate research.

Online Webinar

Research Supporting Social Impact – Sustainability through Innovation 

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ACCTING’s research on climate-related topics – ranging from sustainable food and biodiversity to sustainable mobility and energy communities – identified in its Research Agendas a number of key knowledge gaps and research questions. This webinar is part of a series of three webinars highlighting the project’s future research agendas. Click here to discover the other two webinars!

This webinar explores how research can support innovation and social impact for environmental sustainability. It highlights pertinent knowledge gaps and research questions in this regard, with particular focus Inclusive and sustainable food systems, focusing on topics in need of further research like the role of bottom-up initiatives in facilitating sustainable food systems, i.e., how they can effect behavioural change with regard to consuming sustainable food and what factors enable/constrain their efforts.

An external speaker (see below) will offer their reaction to the research agenda on inclusive and sustainable food systems, and share their expert insights. The session is particularly relevant for researchers, civil society actors, and research funding organisations interested in shaping inclusive environmental policies. 

External speaker

Dimitra Papaioannidou

Dimitra Papaioannidou is an MSc environmental scientist, a graduate of the University of the Aegean, with postgraduate studies in “Environment and Development” at NTUA. Her work focuses on environmental protection, biodiversity conservation and regenerative development. She has been active in environmental organizations, engaging in environmental education, communication and awareness-raising. She has also explored regenerative lifestyles through permaculture projects addressing biodiversity loss and land use change. Currently, she is Project Manager at Ecomuseum Zagori, where she promotes ecotourism and sustainability through educational programs, cultural trails, field research and community-based heritage conservation, supporting innovative approaches to social and environmental impact. 

Online Webinar

Advancing Social Science Research

for a Just Green Transition

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ACCTING’s research on climate-related topics – ranging from sustainable food and biodiversity to sustainable mobility and energy communities – identified in its Research Agendas a number of key knowledge gaps and research questions. This webinar is part of a series of three webinars highlighting the project’s future research agendas. Click here to discover the other two webinars!

ACCTING emphasises the need for future research on social inequalities, inclusion and intersectionality, as well as how these relate to environmental sustainability. This webinar highlights pertinent knowledge gaps and research questions in this regard, focusing in particular on two areas:

• Inclusive energy communities, focusing on topics in need of further research like specific barriers to participation and factors that drive behavioural change.

• Sustainable food systems, focusing on topics in need of further research like the factors enabling inclusivity in sustainable food movements.

Two external speakers offer their reaction to these research agendas and share their expert insights. The session is particularly relevant for researchers, civil society actors, and research funding organisations interested in shaping inclusive environmental policies.

Speakers

Rosie Day, Researcher at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham

Cecília Delgado, Researcher, Co-founder and President of Alimentar Cidades Sustentáveis

Online Webinar

Transformative Resistance: Engaging marginalised groups for a just green transition

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How can resistance become a catalyst for inclusive climate action?  

This ACCTING webinar explores how marginalised groups can act as key agents of transformation, driving equitable climate transitions through everyday practices of resilience, resistance and innovation. Moving beyond top-down policy approaches, we examine how acts of resistance, whether quiet or collective, hold critical insights for just and sustainable change. 

Drawing from ACCTING research and real-world examples from Turkey, Hungary and Italy, the session highlights how grassroots mobilisation and community-led action challenge structural inequalities, redefine power relations and offer valuable lessons for inclusive policymaking.

Read the factsheet on Transformative Resistance

What to expect

• A conversation on the concept of resistance as a force for environmental justice and systemic change
• Examples of how marginalised communities have resisted exclusion and led transformation efforts
• Insights into how policymakers can recognise and work with these forms of resistance to develop more inclusive, equitable strategies for the green transition

This session is particularly relevant for:
Policymakers, civil society organisations, grassroots movements, environmental justice advocates and researchers working on inclusive climate strategies.

Speakers

• Dr Ana Maria Vargas Falla
• Dr Hikmet Batuhan Günşen