Scaling local climate niche initiatives for regional transformation

Climate change mitigation and adaptation require transformative changes at multiple scales. While local initiatives often develop innovative solutions to climate-related challenges, many remain confined to their niche environments, limiting their potential societal impact. Despite a growing amount of literature from different fields, how and under which conditions such local climate niche initiatives (LCNIs) scale out, scale up or scale deep remains under-researched. SCALE aims to improve our knowledge on the successful scaling out of LCNIs, i.e., their geographical expansion and replication in new locations, scaling up of LCNIs, i.e., the institutional embedding and integration of initiative elements at the superordinate regime level, and scaling deep of LCNIs, i.e., the transformation of local practices, beliefs, and behaviours in communities. This is accomplished through an investigation of enabling factors for scaling at the regional level as well as a detailed case study analysis of three LCNIs in different regions and their scaling potential. The primary research focus is to identify if and how social and human capital may act as enabling factors for scaling out, scaling up and scaling deep of LCNIs, building on a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. Following a transdisciplinary research approach, participatory interventions in the case study regions aim to support the scaling process of the LCNIs and foster social and human capital. Through a cross-case integrative analysis of the LCNIs, SCALE contributes to both theoretical understanding and practical implementation of transformative change by bridging the gap between local innovation and regional adoption. We aim to advance generalizable scaling criteria for the Austrian regional transformation policy which may inform the design of future programmes for model regions.