Balancing scaling and autonomy: Municipal modes of engaging with grassroots initiatives

Abstract

In cities across the world, grassroots groups organise around alternative forms of provisioning, for example in the form of energy cooperatives, food-sharing networks and repair cafes. Many local governments recognise the potential of grassroots initiatives to spearhead and provide civic engagement for sustainability transitions. In this article, we explore how municipalities relate to grassroots initiatives (GIs) in the fields of food, mobility and repair. We also examine how these relationships affect both the scaling of grassroots-initiated practices and the autonomy of GIs. The analysis is based on empirical studies in Berlin and Gothenburg. Our analysis identifies six different municipal modes of engaging with GIs: (1) tolerating – letting unauthorised grassroots practices continue, (2) authorising – granting formal permission to GIs, (3) coordinating – inviting or making GIs visible on public platforms, (4) adjusting bureaucracies – facilitating the operation and expansion of grassroots-initiated practices, (5) partnering – using public procurement of GI services and (6) municipal replication of grassroots-initiated practices. Our contribution lies in the identification of different municipal modes of relating to GIs and how these modes shape the scaling of grassroots-initiated practices on the one hand, and the autonomy of GIs on the other. We furthermore highlight the emerging municipal replication mode, which implies rethinking the very idea of what municipal infrastructure should encompass. Learning from GIs, municipal responsibilities may include not only the infrastructures for transport, energy, water and recycling but also infrastructure for repairing, reusing and sharing.

Introduction

In cities across the world, grassroots initiatives (GIs) organise around alternative, bottom-up forms of sustainable provisioning and city life, for example in the form of energy cooperatives, the making of car-free spaces, food-sharing networks and repair cafes. These initiatives are often less centred on campaigning for governments or corporations to change, and more focused on altering practices, that is to say building and engaging in alternative ways of living and doing things. Scholars have variously conceptualised these types of GIs in terms of creating alternative systems of provisioning (Seyfang, 2006), as forms of commoning (Sanchez, 2023; Zapata Campos et al., 2020), as part of a sharing-cities paradigm (McLaren and Agyeman, 2015) or as grassroots innovation movements (Smith et al., 2017). In a review of civil society initiatives for sustainability transitions, Frantzeskaki et al. (2016) point to how they can act as drivers of such transitions by demonstrating feasibility and legitimising and tailoring alternative practices to local circumstances, networks, social contexts and policy processes.

In parallel, many local governments have adopted goals and agendas to become ‘circular cities’, ‘sharing cities’, ‘zero waste’, ‘climate neutral’ or to simply reduce their environmental impact. A core challenge for cities is how to make transition projects socially inclusive and engaging. The support and involvement of GIs and civil society groups have been identified as key (Frantzeskaki et al., 2016). As evidenced in a large study of GIs across Europe, however, the vast majority of GIs feel undermined by authorities, and many aspire to closer collaboration (Celata and Coletti, 2019). While some local governments actively cooperate with civil society initiatives towards a sustainability transition, others lack the tradition, knowledge or political orientation to do so.

The aim of this article is to enhance knowledge on the relations between local governments and grassroots initiatives and on what role these relations may play in contributing to sustainability transitions. Both public–GI cooperation and GI autonomy, we argue, can drive transitions, but they may be difficult to combine. While strong municipal engagement can provide resources, legitimacy and stability that enable grassroots-initiated practices to scale and reach broader publics, GI engagement is often motivated by the desire to establish autonomous forms of organising and provisioning. Such autonomy may also be crucial for sustaining these practices over time, particularly in contexts where political priorities shift or municipal support is withdrawn (Tornhill et al., 2024). With this tension in mind, we explore the potential and challenges of different modes of interaction. We ask: what are the implications of different forms of municipal engagement with GIs for (1) the potential of scaling grassroots-initiated practices and enhancing their societal impact and (2) the autonomy of the GIs? These questions are addressed through empirical studies in Berlin and Gothenburg, two cities with ambitious climate and environmental goals that are also hotbeds for GIs. The empirical material is drawn from GI practices in the realms of food provisioning, mobility, repair and reuse.

Inspired by previous conceptualisations of modes of local governance (Bulkeley and Kern, 2006; Bulkeley et al., 2009; Voytenko Palgan et al. 2021; Warlenius and Nettelbladt, 2023), our contribution consists of a typology of municipal modes of engaging with grassroots initiatives for sustainability transitions, which pays specific attention to the effects that the identified governing modes may have on the scaling of sustainable practices and the autonomy of GIs. We furthermore highlight municipal replication as an emerging mode that implies rethinking the very idea of what municipal infrastructure could encompass. Learning from GIs, municipal responsibilities may include not only the traditional infrastructures for transport, energy, water and recycling but also infrastructure for repairing, reusing and sharing.

The article is structured as follows. The second section presents our theoretical take on scaling and GI autonomy, followed by a third section on methods, material and the empirical context. The fourth section is based on our empirical study and presents the six modes of municipal engagement with GIs through illustrative examples. This is followed by a discussion, where we illustrate how the different modes of governance may relate to scaling and autonomy. Finally, we conclude by discussing the policy relevance of the findings.

Municipal governing modes, scaling and autonomy

Scholarship on sustainability transitions offers various typologies for understanding the role of municipal governance. Bulkeley and Kern (2006) present a typology of municipal modes of governing in relation to climate change: self-governing, governing by authority, governing by provision and governing through enabling, later adding a fifth mode – governing through partnerships (Bulkeley et al., 2009). However, their focus is not specifically on governance relations vis-a-vis GIs but rather governance vis-a-vis a multitude of societal actors within and beyond municipal bodies. Warlenius and Nettelbladt (2023) use three of Bulkeley and Kern’s (2006) governance modes – governing by provision, co-production and self-governance – and build their own analytical framework to conceptualise the relations between energy cooperatives and municipal companies. Voytenko Palgan et al. (2021) have studied the relations between municipalities and sharing-economy organisations, both commercial and non-commercial, and built a typology of 11 different governance roles that the municipality can adopt (i.e. the municipality as data provider, investor, host, owner, sharer, consumer, partner, negotiator, matchmaker, communicator and regulator). Building on this scholarship and our empirical study of GI practices, we offer a typology that focuses on municipal modes of engaging with GIs, considering their implications for (1) the uptake and transformative impact of grassroots-initiated practices and (2) GIs’ autonomy.

Scholarship on sustainability transitions has conceptualised increased societal impact in terms of ‘scaling’, ‘amplification’ and ‘acceleration’ (e.g. Bosch and Rotmans, 2008; Ehnert et al., 2018; Hermans et al., 2016; Lam et al., 2020; Naber et al., 2017). While much of this work focuses on innovation projects or sustainability initiatives more broadly, we draw on Moore et al.’s (2015) framework for civil society organisations, which distinguishes between three strategies through which non-profit actors can achieve systemic impact: scaling out, implying reaching a greater number of people either by replication or growth of an individual initiative; scaling up through achieving policy or legal change that facilitates sustainable practices; and scaling deep, referring to cultural transformation of ‘people’s hearts and minds, their values and cultural practices, and the quality of relationships’ (Moore et al., 2015: 74).

Previous research shows that GIs may pursue different strategies in parallel and their choice is guided by multiple motivations that may also change over time (Hermans et al., 2016). Marletto and Sillig (2019) distinguish between GIs based on (1) their inward or outward orientation and (2) the depth of their criticism of the dominant system. At one end of the spectrum, initiatives operate mainly for their own sake, engaging in single issues without ambitions for system change. At the other end of the spectrum, initiatives target dominant actors and prevalent practices as they attempt to transform wider society. Moreover, GIs may not always wish to scale out (Pesch et al., 2019), since growing in size or striving for broader adoption can threaten their identity or niche character (Augenstein et al., 2020; Marletto and Sillig, 2019). Yet since our study focuses the potential roles of GIs in sustainability transitions, some degree of impact beyond the immediate group remains relevant.

Our approach differs from earlier work in the sense that we are interested in how different modes of municipal engagement enable the scaling of grassroots-initiated practices rather than the scaling of GI organisations themselves. Whereas Moore et al. (2015) apply scaling out/up/deep to the systemic impact of civil society organisations, we use these forms of scaling to analyse how different forms of municipal engagement may diffuse, institutionalise or reshape the cultural meanings of practices introduced by GIs. This practice-centred perspective highlights that municipal actors can influence the scaling of grassroots-initiated practices even when they adopt, adapt or institutionalise these practices independently of the original initiatives.

While scaling out can, in principle, be pursued by GIs themselves through the diffusion or replication of their practices, scaling up and scaling deep typically depend on engagement with actors who shape institutional and cultural conditions. In a municipal context, scaling up occurs when a grassroots-initiated practice is embedded in governance arrangements – ranging from administrative routines to more general policy or regulatory change.

Scaling deep, meanwhile, entails shifts in meanings, norms and narratives surrounding a practice, processes that can be influenced by public recognition and everyday interaction with municipal actors. In this way, municipal engagement can strengthen the cultural resonance and legitimacy of grassroots-initiated practices.

These different pathways of scaling also create tensions for GIs, as institutional embedding or cultural recognition may support their practices but simultaneously challenge their organisational autonomy. This makes autonomy a crucial dimension in understanding GI–municipal relations. The autonomy of organisations is generally defined in terms of capacities to self-govern and maintain independence from state, corporate or other powerful actors (Bach, 2018). Autonomy in this article refers to the possibilities of GIs to govern themselves and choose their own strategies. Almost by definition, GIs are controlled by their members or active participants, though they can be more or less dependent on external actors such as municipalities to reach their objectives. Partnerships and external funding, for example, risk limiting autonomy. Moreover, as pointed out in theorisations of new social movements (Buechler, 1995), GIs such as those studied here often have organisational forms and decision-making structures that promote the autonomy of participants. They are often ‘leaderless’ with non-hierarchical decision-making processes and do not necessarily require formal membership. In contrast to more traditional NGOs and political organisations, GIs’ emphasis on social practices often implies that autonomy is valued more than maximising influence (Buechler, 1995).

The potential contradiction between GI impact and autonomy has been highlighted in previous research. In a review of civil society organisations for sustainability transitions, Frantzeskaki et al. (2016: 45–46) indicate that organisations that strive for autonomy from local governments risk remaining marginal in terms of impact. They further argue that while new organisations can often maintain autonomy for a period, more established ones usually need to ‘find a balance between maintaining autonomy and becoming a credible and legitimate alternative to the status quo’ (Frantzeskaki et al., 2016: 46). Our analytical framework extends Frantzeskaki et al.’s (2016) analysis by differentiating between forms of scaling (up, out and deep), thereby unpacking ‘impact’ into analytically distinct dimensions rather than treating it as a singular outcome.

To conclude, there seems to be a delicate balance between maintaining GI autonomy and scaling grassroots practices for wider societal impact. Crucially, our analysis shows that this balance is not fixed but varies depending on how municipalities engage with GIs and their practices. That different municipal modes of governing influence GI autonomy is expected; what we add is an analysis of how these modes enable, shape or constrain the scaling (up, out and deep) of grassroots-initiated practices.

Case study contexts and method

The contexts of Berlin and Gothenburg

With the aim of advancing knowledge on how municipality–GI relationships can contribute to sustainability transitions, we selected two cities with vibrant alternative social movements and high environmental ambitions: Berlin and Gothenburg.

Berlin is Germany’s capital, as well as a federal state. It is formally ruled by the Berlin Senate, the Land government. It is divided into 12 districts, Bezirke, that operate under delegated administration from the Senate. Berlin is a pioneer regarding citizen-led urban development (Overmeyer, 2007). The city is also a breeding ground for green politics. Berlin was one of the first cities to declare a climate emergency in 2019, followed by an extensive climate action plan (Berlin Senatsverwaltung für Mobilität, Verkehr, Klimaschutz und Umwelt, 2021). Furthermore, Berlin has set out to become a Zero Waste City, with projects focusing on circularity and waste prevention (Berliner Stadtreinigungsbetriebe, 2021; Wuppertal Institut, 2023). Several movements work for a mobility transition in Berlin. Pressure from local cyclists and the organisation Radentscheid motivated Berlin to pass an ambitious cycling law, to considerably increase its budget for cycling infrastructure and to institutionalise cycling on the political agenda (Werschmöller et al., 2024). Autofrei Berlin (Carfree Berlin) and Bündnis Temporäre Spielstrassen (Alliance for Temporary Play Streets) are two of several initiatives that use different tactics to press for further changes towards a more cycle-friendly and less car-dominated city. There are also many initiatives for repair and reuse, for instance networks of around 30 repair cafes in the city (Schägg et al., 2022). Berlin has, furthermore, many grassroots-driven food practices, such as community gardens and community kitchens, many of which challenge corporate models of food production while also promoting vegetarian and vegan diets (Véron, 2023).

Gothenburg is Sweden’s second city. In a Swedish context, Gothenburg stands out for its governance model that actively includes civil society organisations (Arvidson et al., 2018). The municipality has actively supported GIs working with non-profit forms of sharing, such as tool libraries, repair cafes, bike kitchens, etc. (Enarsson et al., 2024), which is not to say that the city–GI relationships have always had successful outcomes (Tornhill et al., 2024). The cooperation with the GIs is in line with the city’s high climate policy ambitions. It is one of 100 cities appointed by the EU to champion the work on climate transition and become climate neutral by 2030 (European Commission, 2024). It is also one of the first European cities to adopt consumption-based climate goals and programmes for reducing the climate footprints of its residents (Hult and Larsson, 2016).

While the municipal modes of engaging with GIs identified in the two case study contexts may also be found elsewhere, the capacity for municipal–civil society engagement is likely to be particularly mature in Berlin and Gothenburg, limiting empirical generalisability. Nevertheless, the observed trade-offs between GI autonomy and different forms of scaling provide analytical insights relevant beyond the two cases.

Method and material

Grassroots initiatives for sustainability transitions operate across a range of domains. In this study, we focus on GIs related to mobility (such as promoting cycling and walking or restricting car use), food (including initiatives around plant-based food, food sharing and urban agriculture) and reuse and repair (such as spaces for repair, remake or reuse). Whereas GIs are also active in other domains, such as housing and energy, in the two urban contexts activity is particularly pronounced around the issues of mobility, food and reuse/repair. Together, these domains capture a broad variety of municipality–GI relationships.

The methodology was inspired by typological theory aimed at identifying both actual and potential types, or in our case different ‘modes’ of municipal engagement with GIs (George and Bennett, 2005). To this end, we conducted semi-structured interviews with a total of 77 respondents: 32 in Gothenburg and 45 in Berlin. Of these, 19 were municipal officials (working in city administrations, municipal companies or district-level units), 56 were individuals with key organising roles within their respective GIs, while two represented a mediating organisation. The interviews, most of which lasted between 60 and 90 minutes, were conducted by members of the research team or the team’s research assistant between September 2020 and June 2023, in Swedish, German or English, either online or in person. Interviewees were asked about their understanding of the GI’s work, the factors that facilitated or hindered it, their perspectives on the municipality–GI relationship and their assessments of the potential for scaling activities.

All interviews were transcribed and deductively coded using qualitative data analysis software. In the analysis below, the interviewees are referred to by city (B for Berlin and G for Gothenburg) and then number. Members of the research team also visited the GIs that had some form of physical location. Contextual information was obtained from websites, other materials detailing GI activities and operations and documents produced by the two municipalities.

Analysis: Six modes of municipal engagement with GIs

In the following analysis, we use examples from Berlin and Gothenburg to illustrate each of the six modes of municipal engagement with GIs (see overview in Table 1).

Table 1.

Modes of municipal engagement with grassroots initiatives.

Mode of municipal engagement	Initiative	Thematic area	City
Tolerating	Foodsharing.de	Food	Berlin
	Solikyl	Food	Gothenburg
Authorising	Foodsharing.de	Food	Berlin
	Prinzessinnengarten	Food	Berlin
Coordinating	The Smart Map	Reuse, repair, food, etc.	Gothenburg
	Got United	Several, sharing economy	Gothenburg
Adjusting bureaucracies	[Enabling municipal funding]	Several, sharing economy	Gothenburg
	Bündnis Temporäre Spielstraßen, Kiezblocks	Mobility (streets)	Berlin
Partnering	Folk Space	Reuse, repair, food	Gothenburg
	fLotte	Mobility (shared)	Berlin
Municipal replication	Fixotek	Reuse, repair	Gothenburg
	ReUse Superstore, NochMall	Reuse	Berlin

Tolerating GIs

The least interactive but still enabling mode of engagement, tolerating, means that the authorities abstain from inspecting and regulating grassroots practices, even if they know or suspect that they do not operate according to regulations. While the municipality does not formally approve these practices, it also does not suppress them, but rather chooses to look the other way. This mode of operation has been observed in different domains – for example in the mobility domain, where tactical urbanism initiatives create guerilla pedestrian crossings and bike lanes that municipalities often know about but choose not to intervene in immediately (Lydon and Garcia, 2015). In our material, this mode of engagement is most clearly manifested in the case of food-sharing initiatives in Berlin and Gothenburg.

Foodsharing.de started in Berlin in 2011 and has since spread nationally as well as internationally. Through partnerships with supermarket chains and the launching of an online open-source platform, the rescuing and sharing of unsold food, with roots in the phenomenon of ‘dumpster diving’, became more widespread (Morrow, 2019). After a few years of increasing presence in the city, Berlin authorities began to inspect the public fridges used for food sharing. According to a 2017 decision, Foodsharing.de is obliged to follow the same food-handling regulations as private companies. Their capacities and ideals, such as collective responsibility and food as a commons, thus clashed with requirements such as holding individuals responsible for the contents of the fridges and ensuring the traceability of food to its destination, which would require registration of all drop-offs and pick-ups (Davies et al., 2019; Morrow, 2019).

Several years later, however, fridges in some parts of the city remain open and the Berlin Senate even awarded Foodsharing Berlin a prize in 2021 for its innovative approach to rescuing food. In other districts, activities are closed or remain open on an uncertain basis. As one activist described it:

Actually, all our fridges are just tolerated because the situation in Berlin is that they are only allowed in closed spaces under permanent supervision with someone registering everything and all of that, which we as volunteers cannot do. And in some districts, they have obviously decided to ignore this. (B52)

Solikyl (Solidarity Fridge) in Gothenburg was directly inspired by Foodsharing Berlin. Since its start in 2015, operations have been established in several parts of the city. One of the active members explained that, so far, the city had not attempted to regulate their practices, but they suspected that this could change, especially if the initiative was to grow:

I know that [the Food Inspectorate] knows about us […] They could require us to register with them […] We’re not registered, and we don’t do that because it would create a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of things that we can’t live up to […] it would be a major obstacle. If we had checked from the beginning and tried to get their approval, it wouldn’t have led anywhere. You shouldn’t ask for permission to save food. (G37)

While municipalities’ choice to ignore certain GIs might have an enabling effect, the unclear regulatory conditions make it difficult to anticipate if, when and why governing bodies may choose to intervene. Hence, the tolerating mode is inherently uncertain: it is enabling in the short term but precarious in the long term. That said, as long as the food-sharing GIs above stay under the radar of government regulation, the mode grants them a high degree of autonomy. In terms of scaling, tolerating offers limited pathways for scaling up, since practices remain outside of formal regulatory frameworks. A greater uptake of the practice (scaling out) may still occur and expose more people to alternative ways of handling surplus food. Yet, as our examples show, greater visibility also increases the likelihood of municipal intervention and stricter regulation, potentially undermining the initiative. Finally, tolerating offers only limited prospects for scaling deep. Although the food-sharing practices in our examples promote alternative cultural understandings of food waste and food as commons, their ambiguous legal status and limited visibility make broader shifts in public meanings and norms unlikely.

Authorising GIs

Representing a higher degree of formal engagement than tolerating, authorising refers to a mode of municipal engagement in which GIs are explicitly allowed to operate under defined conditions. Unlike tolerating, authorising entails formal approval and possibly access to public space or resources but stops short of deeper collaboration.

While Foodsharing Berlin was used above as an example of municipal tolerance, the same example can illustrate municipal authorisation. In response to increasing regulation and possible shutdown by local hygiene authorities, Foodsharing Berlin approached the local consumer advice centre to ask for help in securing their activities. Within an ongoing climate project, the centre set up a pilot project with Foodsharing Berlin, through which fridges were placed in various locations and managed in accordance with a regulatory framework developed by the local authorities. One of the fridges was placed in a municipal library in the Pankow district, which prompted a Foodsharing Berlin representative to reflect on the trade-offs between accessibility and bureaucratic institutionalisation:

The library I think is a very good place, because this idea to share something, it fits very well. And there are a lot of different people who go to the libraries, so I think it’s very good. But the problem is, of course, that if it works well, then he [the municipal regulator] can argue ‘Yes, this worked well, this is how we should do it everywhere’. (B52)

On the one hand, the fact that the municipality authorised sharing activities by granting access to public space enabled inclusive sharing practices. On the other hand, the representative saw a risk that GI autonomy could be undermined by municipal supervision.

Another example of tolerating evolving into authorising is the way in which community gardens have been established in Berlin. Here, many community gardens on former wasteland areas have been displaced as construction has boomed. Due to high property prices, the gardens’ presence is often dependent on support from municipalities or other actors. A well-known community garden, Prinzessinnengarten, is established in two locations, one enabled by a contract with the city and the other by a contract with a church. An active member described the journey of the garden from an uncertain existence to a somewhat more stable one. A few years after the first garden was founded on an ‘empty’ lot in Kreuzberg, it was threatened by eviction when an investor wanted to develop the space. After protests and a petition signed by thousands, its presence was secured through a six-year leasing contract with the city. The member related this to an increasing appreciation and active support by the municipality:

In recent years, the city administration has realised that urban gardens, especially in Berlin, are a really nice thing, and also that urban gardens provide, on the one hand, ecological functions and also social functions. So they just have set up something like a community network between urban gardens and they are at least trying to support the structures. (B40)

While the autonomy of the initiatives considered here remains relatively high, authorising entails a somewhat greater degree of adjustment to the requirements, expectation and oversight of governance actors. In terms of scaling, authorising constitutes a weak form of scaling up, as it involves the partial institutional embedding of grassroots-initiated practices but without fundamentally altering existing regulatory frameworks. Formal authorisation also improves the conditions for scaling out by making practices more visible and accessible to broader publics beyond the most dedicated participants. The conditional and often site- or context-specific nature of authorisation, however, may constrain scaling deep, as practices are framed as exceptions or pilot arrangements rather than as ‘standard’. In sum, authorising stabilises grassroots-initiated practices and can enable broader participation, but it also risks introducing forms of oversight that may gradually circumscribe GI autonomy and shape how practices are defined and reproduced.

Coordinating GIs

A yet more active role that the municipality can take is that of coordinating, here understood as enabling connections between GIs, other actors and wider publics without directing or taking over GI activities. In this mode, the municipality does not enter into partnerships or forms of co-production with GIs but acts as an intermediary that lowers barriers for collaboration and visibility. This can be in the form of the municipality acting as a matchmaker – facilitating connections between GIs and housing companies, other GIs, more established civil society organisations or private firms. Another example is the offering of publicly available digital maps indicating where different GI-led activities and spaces can be found.

In Gothenburg, the municipality has joined forces with a local grassroots organisation that promotes collaborative economy practices to create a digital map called Smarta Kartan (The Smart Map; www.smartakartan.se/en). The map shows spaces where one can borrow, rent, swap or get things for free. It was launched in 2020 on an open-source platform so that other cities could easily copy the concept and build their own ‘Smart Map’. Since then, it has spread to seven other cities and regions in Sweden. While these digital maps are interactive in the sense that they invite residents and organisations to submit information about new spaces and events, they are moderated by the grassroots organisations. The core idea of the Smart Map is to make circular practices more easily accessible to everyone:

Both we at the municipality and they [the grassroots organisation] saw this need to map what is going on in Gothenburg. It is bubbling everywhere: free shops, bike kitchens, clothing libraries and things like that. So the idea to make Smarta Kartan was developed jointly and we managed to find funding for it. (G36)

While GI activities tend to be known amongst niche groups, city officials described this approach – making reuse practices, hidden in the urban fringes more visible – as a way of spreading them to larger segments of the population.

Apart from mapping activities, public officials in Berlin and Gothenburg mention how they coordinate different grassroots initiatives and connect them with people at housing companies or private firms that could be helpful for GIs (G66). In Gothenburg, the municipality initiated a forum for municipal–civil society collaboration (Got United) and arranged a series of meetings for non-profit and smaller sharing-economy actors, who took the chance to formulate and direct demands at politicians. As one GI activist explained, this gave them a certain momentum to mobilise politically (G37). Coordinating – through matchmaking, convening and making practices visible – comes across as an open, low-cost mode of municipal engagement, with low expectations on GIs and hence limited restraints on their autonomy. By increasing the visibility and accessibility of grassroots-initiated practices, coordination can facilitate scaling out, as practices reach broader publics beyond niche circles. Where such interactions contribute to shifts in how practices are understood and valued by other actors, this may support elements of scaling deep. Coordination hardly entails scaling up. However, our examples suggest that it can contribute to the emergence of more organised local practice networks, enabling GIs to articulate shared needs and demands to municipal actors (G37). Such mobilisation may open pathways for scaling up where municipalities actually move beyond coordination and respond by adjusting policies or administrative routines to support the continued enactment of grassroots-initiated practices.

Adjusting bureaucracies for GIs

A municipality may also adjust bureaucracies to facilitate grassroots-initiated practices, representing a more supportive mode of engagement compared to those discussed above. In this mode, municipalities adapt administrative procedures, criteria or support structures in ways that make it easier for such GIs to operate within existing governance frameworks. This may include clarifying or adapting existing routes to apply for municipal support, as well as providing templates, guidelines or processes that facilitate the establishment, continuation or replication of grassroots-initiated practices. In Gothenburg, city departments investigated ways for sharing initiatives to be granted funding through the municipal financial support system. These have traditionally been geared to suit cultural and sports organisations, which has made it difficult for those working with sustainability or sharing initiatives to attain funding (G62). The City Council hence revised its instructions to explicitly enable civil society sharing initiatives to receive funding (City of Gothenburg, 2024).

In Berlin, the city administrations at different levels have taken measures to simplify and assist the procedure for neighbourhood groups wanting to temporarily close off street sections to car traffic, turning them into temporary ‘play streets’ for social activities instead of traffic on certain days. In 2021, a senior official in a district administration recorded and posted instructive videos on YouTube, one to popularise play streets and another with detailed instructions outlining the tasks, rights and obligations of the persons responsible for the local initiative. In September 2022, the Berlin Senate moreover provided guidelines, developed together with the Bündnis Temporäre Spielstraßen, which coordinates local initiatives, for how to establish a temporary play street, supplemented with dedicated funding to help with organisation and implementation (Bündnis Temporäre Spielstraßen, n.d.). ¹ In this way, the municipality provided support to grassroots groups with limited resources and knowledge about municipal processes.

Municipal funding, however, comes with expectations for recipients to comply with certain criteria, such as being open to everyone, registering members and having statutes. While this is beneficial from an inclusion perspective, it matches poorly with the more flexible organisational structure favoured by some GI networks (G62).

Despite these challenges, adjusting bureaucracies comes across as a governing mode that can stabilise grassroots-initiated practices and facilitate their replication or diffusion (scaling out) in particular. Access to municipal support mechanisms may also push GIs to broaden their organisational base and formalise certain aspects of their activities. Adjusting bureaucracies therefore enables a limited form of scaling up: practices become easier to sustain and replicate within existing administrative frameworks, without being generalised into broader policy or regulatory change. It can also contribute to a modest form of scaling deep, as recognition by municipal administrations may lend legitimacy to grassroots-initiated practices as ‘normal’ and acceptable ways of organising everyday activities. While adjusting bureaucracies can thus enable practices to persist, spread and gain legitimacy, it also introduces new dependencies and compliance requirements that may constrain GI autonomy. In addition to municipal support being contingent on GIs’ compliance with agreed terms, there is also a risk that they become dependent on external funding, which may disappear when political priorities change.

Partnering with GIs

Municipal organisations may also form partnerships with GIs. These are instances when a municipality engages more closely and directly with GIs to develop, deliver or scale grassroots-initiated practices. In contrast to coordination or bureaucratic adjustment, partnering entails more sustained collaboration and a clearer distribution of roles, responsibilities and resources between municipal actors and GIs, for example through formal collaborations or the procurement of services delivered by a GI.

Entering various forms of partnerships with GIs, for example, voluntary sector organisation public partnerships or quadruple-helix innovation models (including civil society organisations) allow a municipality to work together with specific GIs (G14; G36). An example is the Gothenburg branch of the Sharing Cities Sweden programme (www.sharingcities.se), where the municipality established a ‘testbed’ and invited both commercial and grassroots initiatives to work collaboratively to develop urban sharing concepts. For instance, public officials tried to establish a partnership in the form of physical space hosting several sharing initiatives: a so-called ‘folk space’ located in a new high-profile central district. Although the folk space has not yet materialised, the core idea was to provide a more permanent space for sharing initiatives and also to make their practices available to larger segments of the public.

Another form of partnering is when a municipality procures services that grassroots initiatives provide. fLotte Berlin, for example, was initiated by the German Cyclists’ Federation (ADFC) and expanded through the joint support of the Berlin Senate (city/state government) and several local district administrations (Bezirke), which funded and helped institutionalise a free-of-charge, shared cargo-bike service across the city (fLotte Berlin, n.d.).

And then, it shifted [and] many organisations and private persons approached the ADFC and said, ‘Hey, this is a great project. I have a cargo bike. I’m going to put it on to your platform’. So, the focus shifted from […] getting money for the bikes, into having a platform where it’s possible to book it, and to define all the processes and get the maintenance of the cargo bikes somehow organised. And then, after a while, some districts came and said, ‘Hey, that’s a great idea, we’re going to sponsor’, to finance 10 bikes per district. So, roughly half of the bikes, of the 150, are somehow paid by [the local] government, and the other half was paid by organisations and private persons. (B4)

This example is particularly interesting because it is a case where a GI was able to develop and provide a free-of-charge public bicycle scheme, which are otherwise often operated on a commercial basis (Bradley and Emanuel, 2024).

Municipal partnering with GIs can bring about a combination of scaling out, up and deep, as grassroots-initiated practices are jointly developed or embedded through collaboration. Partnering, however, comes with a heightened risk of constraining GI autonomy, as closer collaboration often involves shared decision making, expectations and accountability. Our examples suggest that the outcome in terms of both the scaling of practices and GI autonomy depends on how roles, power and responsibilities are distributed between municipal actors and GIs. In the Gothenburg case, municipal leadership required GIs to adapt to testbed circumstances over which they had limited influence. Had it been successful, the associated practices could have been scaled out, though at the expense of GI autonomy. In the Berlin cargo bike scheme, the grassroots actors retained greater room to manoeuvre. While municipal funding came with expectations of providing a publicly available service, the expectations largely aligned with the original intentions of the initiative.

Municipal replication of grassroots-initiated practices

What we term municipal replication are instances when local authorities, or their public companies, set up and run GI-inspired spaces or activities. This can be in the form of municipally run repair spaces, reuse markets or sports libraries, for example. Although this mode does not necessarily involve ongoing interaction with GIs, it represents a form of engagement insofar as municipalities explicitly draw on and institutionalise practices that were originally developed within grassroots initiatives.

In Gothenburg, the municipality initiated a pilot project that set up four spaces for do-it-yourself repair and reuse, all named ‘Fixotek’. They contain tools and spaces where anyone can come and repair items such as electronics, furniture, clothes and bikes, as well as a ‘swap corner’ where people can leave and take things (Bostadsbolaget, n.d.). The Fixotek spaces are similar to GI-run repair cafes but have more generous opening hours and paid staff. The manager of one of the Fixotek spaces, which is now run by a public housing company and located in a low-income area, stressed their inclusive ambition:

You can come here and get things, borrow tools and so on, irrespective of your situation. We do not ask for ID or have any demands. (…) These types of spaces ought to exist in all districts. They have social, environmental and economic benefits – they are an integral part of this circular society that we are working towards (…) and we want to expand this. (G61)

While several officials in Gothenburg saw a value in civil society-run spaces, they pointed to the risk of them becoming more niche and temporary. They argued that the involvement of the municipality gives stability and makes the spaces accessible and welcoming to all. The Fixotek manager explained that they try to hire staff who are locally anchored, speak several languages and make everyone feel welcome (G61).

A public official in Gothenburg highlighted the Fixotek spaces as inspirational in testing the boundaries of municipalities’ role in innovation towards sustainable lifestyles. She referred to the Environmental Action Plan:

‘The City of Gothenburg shall use all tools and policies that the city controls to create conditions for sustainable lifestyles’. That is a fine sentence. And it is open to interpretation, I think. What kind of possibilities do we have and where are our boundaries and how can we push those to really innovate. (G66)

The official argued that the role of the municipality can also be to create prototypes, test operations for a few years and then perhaps hand over the responsibility to another municipal entity such as a municipal housing company (G66). Officials in Berlin reasoned in similar ways: they initiated and ran a reuse store located in one of the larger department stores in central Berlin, called ReUse Superstore, for three years. Thereafter, the concept was developed into monthly pop-up neighbourhood reuse stores, with workshops and events, offering free deliveries with cargo bikes (ReUse Superstore, n.d.). Similarly, Berlin’s municipal waste company has set up a large reuse department store called NochMall that hosts different repair and upcycling workshops (www.nochmall.de). The idea here is to fund and operate NochMall for a few years and then find another organisational form (B57).

Municipal replication refers to cases where the municipality takes the lead in scaling the practices originally developed by GIs by establishing and operating their own facilities inspired by those practices. In this mode, it is the practice (not the GI as an organisation) that is scaled, and the municipality becomes the actor expanding and institutionalising the initiative’s underlying idea, which essentially is scaling up. It also involves the scaling out of GI-inspired practices, though without the growth of GIs themselves; the municipality does the scaling (of the practice). Whereas this does not directly affect the organisational autonomy of GIs, they no longer shape how ‘their’ practice is interpreted and spread, implying low GI control over its further development. When practices are taken over and institutionalised by municipal actors, they also risk becoming subject to municipal budget cycles and political re-prioritisations, making their survival contingent on shifting political agendas rather than on grassroots commitment. It may also create a situation where municipal provision competes with or crowds out existing or potential GI-led initiatives promoting similar practices.

The effects in terms of scaling deep are ambiguous. The municipal entity in charge is not necessarily imbued with the values that inspired GIs to develop their practices in the first place, which were often in reaction to mainstream practices. For example, while the reuse spaces presented here might encourage people to buy used instead of new things, they are not necessarily embedded in broader criticism of consumer society. On the other hand, by attracting consumers without strong ideological convictions, municipal legitimacy can help normalise sustainable practices beyond the alternative niche.

Discussion

Based on our findings, we adapted previous conceptualisations of municipal roles for climate governance (Bulkeley and Kern, 2006; Bulkeley et al., 2009) and municipal roles vis-a-vis sharing initiatives (Voytenko Palgan et al., 2021) to offer a new typology that focuses on municipal modes of engaging with grassroots-driven transition initiatives and the practices they initiate. We discern six modes of municipal relations to GIs that entail different levels of engagement from the municipality, ranging from weak to strong (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Levels of municipal engagement.

The first mode, tolerating, essentially means the municipality is doing nothing. Tolerating is a mode of non-governance that has been absent in previous conceptualisations, yet it is included here as our study identified several examples of municipalities choosing non-intervention despite knowing or suspecting that GIs were not operating according to existing rules. Authorising is a positive form of regulation (a form of ‘governance by authority’ in Bulkeley and Kern’s terms). Coordinating and adjusting bureaucracies correspond to Bulkeley and Kern’s ‘governing through enabling’, though with more active engagement and support from the municipality in the latter mode. In partnering (similar to Bulkeley’s ‘governing through partnerships’), our fifth mode, GIs are regarded as trusted assets to be collaborated with. The sixth and final mode, municipal replication, implies even more engagement from the municipality as the practices originally developed by GIs are taken up and run within the realm of municipal responsibility (resembling Bulkeley and Kern’s ‘governing by provision’). There are, however, no clear-cut boundaries between these modes; they should rather be thought of as ideal types.

Beyond offering a new typology, we address how these different modes of municipal engagement affect both the potential for grassroots-initiated practices to scale and the autonomy of the GIs. In terms of autonomy, the modes with weaker (or no) municipal engagement imply a high degree of autonomy, particularly the first mode (tolerating), but also in the third (coordinating), where GIs can operate independently of the municipality. The modes with a stronger degree of municipal engagement, on the other hand, imply less autonomy in organisational and strategic terms. When the GIs become partners with the municipality, they also become reliant on them, and their goals and working methods need to be aligned.

Table 2 illustrates the relationship and trade-offs between GI autonomy and the potential for scaling in the various modes of municipal engagement. It shows how scaling out, that is, spreading the grassroots-initiated practices to greater numbers, has the largest potential when the municipality has a high degree of involvement, that is, in partnering and municipal replication. This is not to say that practices operating under weaker municipal governing modes cannot grow and replicate – indeed, Moore et al. (2015) suggest that scaling out is a frequently chosen scaling strategy especially among young GIs, diffusing or replicating the practices they develop. Yet the municipal muscle and investment, such as in centrally located reuse and repair spaces, mean that sustainable practices become more accessible to larger groups.

Table 2.

Modes of municipal engagement with grassroots initiatives and their potential effects on autonomy and scaling.

Municipal engagement mode	Typical municipal role	GI autonomy	Scaling out (practice diffusion)	Scaling up (institutional embedding)	Scaling deep (meanings and norms)
1. Tolerating	Non-intervention despite awareness	High	Low–moderate (fragile, informal)	Very low	Low–moderate (within niche)
2. Authorising	Formal permission within existing rules	High–moderate	Moderate	Low (limited formalisation)	Low–moderate
3. Coordinating	Visibility, matchmaking, facilitation	High	Moderate	Low	Moderate
4. Adjusting bureaucracies	Adaptation of administrative procedures	Moderate	Moderate–high	Moderate (case specific)	Low–moderate
5. Partnering	Formal collaboration/procurement	Low–moderate	High	Moderate–high	Moderate–high (dependent on power relations)
6. Municipal replication	Municipal provision of GI-inspired practices	Low (practice control) / GI autonomy intact	High	High	Ambiguous (mainstreaming with possible dilution)

While inspired by Moore et al.’s (2015) distinction between scaling out, up and deep, we adapt these concepts to a practice-centred perspective that foregrounds how grassroots-initiated practices – rather than organisations – are embedded, diffused and reinterpreted through municipal engagement. Hence, our understanding of scaling up refers to the institutional embedding of grassroots-initiated practices, that is, changes in laws, rules, policies or administrative routines that stabilise and embed such practices within existing governance structures. From this practice-centred perspective, scaling up is not defined by who initiates institutional change but by whether and how practices become supported through formal structures. While such changes may result from deliberate efforts by GIs to influence policy, they may equally emerge through municipal decisions to accommodate or adopt grassroots-initiated practices. Understood in this way, scaling up is unlikely to occur under weaker governing modes. Adjusting bureaucracies, by definition, entails practice-specific institutional change and can therefore constitute a pathway towards scaling up. Partnering and municipal replication do not necessarily involve the introduction of new regulations but do imply shifts in municipal priorities, responsibilities and modes of provision that can further institutionalise grassroots-initiated practices.

Finally, we understand scaling deep as changes in values and norms related to particular practices – for example, when dominant narratives around an issue are reframed, or when learning processes reshape how practices are understood and practised. While weaker municipal governing modes allow GIs to pursue their ends autonomously, we argue that stronger municipal engagement can be instrumental to deep-scaling practices beyond the niche. It is important to note that partnering, and even more so municipal replication, might dilute grassroots-initiated practices, as GIs have less control over how such practices are promoted and engaged with (e.g. for practical reasons rather than following GIs’ core values). Though municipal involvement comes with the risk of losing grassroots engagement – including the radicality and ambition towards community building that characterise many GIs – it allows for more mainstream (and therefore less controversial or subcultural) engagement with sustainable practices.

While the modes that offer GIs the most autonomy allow for scaling out and scaling deep their practices, the modes where GIs have somewhat lower (yet still high) autonomy (authorising, adjusting bureaucracies) also potentially involve scaling-up practices. Partnering and municipal replication also enable all forms of scaling (and with higher potential effects), though at the cost of diminishing the organisational autonomy of GIs (partnering) or the risk of losing influence over the further development and interpretation of ‘their’ practices (municipal replication).

Municipal replication has a high potential to spread GI-inspired sustainable practices but its potential for deep scaling is ambiguous. Municipal replication does not necessarily rule out continued collaboration with GIs, however. In both Gothenburg and Berlin, replication of grassroots-driven initiatives sometimes continues to offer a structure (e.g. in the form of premises or administrative support) within which GIs provide content and activities. Examples in our material include when the municipally driven NochMall in Berlin invited GIs to arrange repair workshops, and when a municipally initiated bike repair space in Gothenburg collaborated with GIs to give repair courses. These forms of collaboration suggest that municipal replication does not necessarily foreclose bottom-up GI engagement. They provide a structure through which GIs can – without scaling out organisationally or losing their autonomy – reach more people and potentially achieve deep scaling through municipal collaboration, even as the municipality retains primary control over how the practice is institutionalised and expanded.

Conclusion

What policy lessons can be drawn for municipalities from this study? First, our study has shown that municipal engagement with GIs is meaningful as it can increase the possibility of grassroots-initiated practices engaging a broader population. Engagement can take different forms and result in different outcomes. Our typology offers a spectrum of possible avenues that can be pursued in parallel, and the choice between them depends on the nature of the GI, how established it is and how its goals and practices align with municipal agendas. The municipalities in Gothenburg and Berlin both view GIs as assets for spearheading sustainable practices and they operate in all six modes. Cities with weaker civil society traditions might be more likely to operate in the first two modes – tolerating or perhaps authorising GIs. However, if the intention is to actively use GIs as sources of innovation for scaling sustainable practices and to make these more socially inclusive, the stronger governing modes are likely to be more appropriate.

Second, our study shows how municipalities can also actively experiment and test new roles, which is relevant for the field of sustainability transitions. Historically, civil society and grassroots initiatives such as playground movements and bike-sharing groups have paved the way for municipal playground programs and bike-sharing schemes (e.g. Ploeger and Oldenziel, 2020; Verstrate and Karsten, 2011). What is regarded as a municipal responsibility is continually revised. In this article, we have highlighted the emerging roles that municipalities are adopting, such as providing spaces for reuse, share and repair, which can be interpreted as a form of ‘municipal roll-out’. This stands in contrast to the often-debated ‘roll-back’ of the state and public actors, where municipal or state responsibilities are outsourced to operators in the private or civil society sector – a risk that is highlighted in scholarship on grassroots initiatives (Augenstein et al., 2020).

What policy lessons can then be drawn for GIs? The answer depends on the goals that the GIs in question have, if and how they wish to scale and to what extent they value autonomy. GIs are not passive entities, waiting to be sanctioned or chosen to be a municipal partner, but can instead decide what forms of relations they seek with the municipality. Our analysis suggests that if the intention is to scale sustainable practices beyond the niche of those already engaged, some form of involvement with the municipality is likely to be effective. This conclusion is drawn from the contexts of Berlin and Gothenburg, whilst in other socio-political urban contexts GIs may, perhaps rightly so, have low trust in the local government and may thus find it wise to avoid collaboration and reliance (cf. Adil, 2024).

Our conclusion is that there is a trade-off between GIs’ organisational autonomy and the potential to scale grassroots-initiated practices, at least in terms of scaling out and scaling up. While each mode has its benefits and drawbacks, there appears to be a sweet spot between the governing modes of partnering and municipal replication. Here, the municipality provides long-term basic infrastructure, such as premises and administrative support, crucial success factors that have been highlighted in previous studies (Tornhill et al., 2024). Infrastructural support can preserve a degree of organisational autonomy for GIs, while enabling the institutionalisation and wider diffusion of the practices they have initiated. Such forms of cooperation could be relevant for municipalities and GIs to jointly explore.