Sustainable Communities as a Policy Frame: The Case of the Climate Challenge Fund in Scotland

As concern about climate change has moved up political agendas, the concept of sustainable community has emerged as one-way societies might respond to the challenge. In Scotland this has been operationalised in the Climate Challenge Fund, a Scottish Government fund designed to financially support communities become more sustainable through local carbon reduction projects. Drawing on recent debates in Policy Studies and Science & Technology Studies related to framing processes, in this paper we ask: how did the goal of sustainable communities become part of the policy agenda? And, how was the idea constituted in particular ways? We suggest that electoral politics matters for shaping shifts in discourse and policy and that in the movement from identification of problems, to the articulation of solutions and the mobilisation of action, a range of options is available as an outcome of the policy process.