The double-edged sword of grant funding: a study of community-led climate change initiatives in remote rural Scotland

Emily Creamer

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Community-led initiatives are commonly advocated as an effective way of encouraging individuals to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Since 2008, the Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) has distributed over £40million in grants to community-led, carbon-saving projects across the country. Drawing on participant observation within two CCF organisations in remote rural Scotland, this paper examines the assumption that the receipt of government funding is necessarily of overall benefit to community-led initiatives attempting to facilitate more sustainable communities in the long term. Observations indicate that funding can bring with it a number of significant complications to community-scale action as a result of: i) misaligned output timeframes, ii) administration demands, and iii) local competition. It is concluded that the design of funding schemes can in fact hamper the full potential of grassroots initiatives to engender more sustainable lifestyles throughout the community.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-19
Number of pages19
JournalLocal Environment
Early online date13 Mar 2014
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2014

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • sustainable lifestyles
  • community-led organisations
  • grant funding
  • rural Scotland
  • Climate Challenge Fund

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