[ENVS] Community-based scaling for innovations in sustainability

Society currently faces many, interconnected and accelerating sustainability challenges. We also have many innovative solutions that, if rapidly scaled, could help address these challenges. But most solutions do not scale or, if they do, only do so at rates that cannot keep up with intensifying problems. What if scaling could be accelerated through strategies that work? We’ll use an interactive, dynamic model of community-based scaling approaches to explore when this strategy is needed, how it works, and why it can be far more effective than outreach, advertising, or word-of-mouth scaling approaches. We’ll explore how community-based scaling has been used to innovations in sustainability education, regenerative agriculture, and political movements. The model and its initial application are described by Rooney-Varga et al. (2024): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-024-01446-z.