From Fridays for Future to Communities for Future. Co-creating community-led system change.

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Communities for Future

10 min readJun 16, 2022

This event was part of the “Cities for Change” summit, a 2-month online program showcasing world-changing ideas in digital and interactive events for “building a just, sustainable and equal society from the ground up”. The “Transition Talks” section happened from May 24th until May 28th. This was the 4th “Transition Talk”, focusing on “Climate and Energy”. It happened on May 26th 2021, from 14–16h CEST (13h Lisbon), was fully online and had 37 participants, most from Europe, some from Latin America.

From Fridays for Future to Communities for Future. Co-creating community-led system change.

To combat climate breakdown, regenerative action is required. Degrowth criticises sustainability’s relationship to perpetual quantitative growth on a finite planet. Permaculture’s post carbon pathway shows us where we must go. Doughnut economics gives us the compass to get there. Since the eruption of “Fridays for Future” demonstrations on world streets in 2019, the ECOLISE network has been developing the “Communities for Future” action platform to accelerate the eco-social just transition. This event explores how best community-led initiatives that have been hovering at the periphery, can emerge to become catalysts for system change, making the old structures obsolete.

On May 26th, ECOLISE invited 8 communities to respond to 4 specific questions about Regeneration; Social, Cultural, Ecology, Economy.

Social: How can we bring regenerative design ideas from ecovillages to our cities, especially when urban injustice continues to grow? (Global Ecovillage Network & UrbanA*)
Cultural: How can we bring about a culture of resistance and regeneration that is accessible to all? (Fridays for Future + Communities for Future)
Ecology: How can we bring our ecological ideas out of the academic and activist ghettos to the streets and everyday social movements? (Degrowth & Transition Network)
Economy: Imagining an end to capitalism, instead of the end to the world… How best can community-led initiatives bring about territorial transformation, policy change and system change? (Doughnut Economics & Regenerative Practitioners)

The video of the event is on Vimeo:

Cities for Change Forum was organised by Amsterdam city council , who embraced the Fearless Cities movement in recent years and explored how to implement change through its think and do tank De 99 van Amsterdam!. A follow up step happened in early July.

ECOLISE is the the European Network for Community-Led Initiatives on Climate Change and Sustainability. Communities for Future is its Action Platform. More infos at: UrbanA events + Cities for Change + UrbanA Twitter.

Findings from the Event:

Structure and Speakers

The Structure of the event was the following:

5 min: Introduction
25min: Framing of Questions
40min: 4 Simultaneous Breakout Rooms
10min: Plenary
40min: Open Discussion (Audience Q+A)

Each Breakout Room explored 1 separate question with 2 guest networks, represented by the following activists:

Social: Taisa Mattos (Rio da Janeiro, Brazil) Global Ecovillage Network) & Sophia Silverton, (Freiburg, Germany), UrbanA
Cultural: Laila Vivas, Fridays for Future + Juan Del Rio (Cardedeu, Spain), Communities for Future
Ecology: Filka Sekulova (Barcelona, Spain), Degrowth & Nick Anim (Brixton, London, UK), (part of) Transition Network
Economy: Roisin Markham (Wexford, Ireland), Doughnut Economics & Constança Belchior (Tavira, Portugal), Regenerative Practitioners

The event was inspired by Global Ecovillage Network‘s “5 Dimensions of Sustainability” (Whole System is the workshop itself). Key insights were harvested an online document. Key findings, shared resources and further reading recommendations are shared below.

Other guests included:

Lara Freitas (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Ecobairro São Paulo, municipalities in transition (video)
Adolfo Chautón Pérez (Porto Alegre, Portugal) Doughnut Economics Network Portugal
Guilherme Serôdio (Montemor-o-Novo), Degrowth Portugal
Nuno Da Silva (Faro, Portugal) Regenerative Practitioners
Flor Avelino (Amsterdam, Netherlands), UrbanA, DRIFT & Vitial Cities & Citizens.
Ana Margarida Esteves, Brussels, Communities for Future, ECOLISE, CEI-IUL

The event was co-facilitated by Nonty Sabic and Duncan Crowley, Co-presidents of ECOLISE council 2021.

Community responses

Here are the four group responses to their four individual questions:

SOCIAL: How can we bring regenerative design ideas from ecovillages to our cities, especially when urban injustice continues to grow?
(Guests: Global Ecovillage Network & UrbanA*)

Opening Qs/food for thought during introductions:
How to reach people that are very “business as usual”?
Role of translocal networks in sustainability transitions?
How are examples of initiatives in ecovillages shared with urban centres?
GEN set up in 1995, looks at multiple aspects of sustainability — how to live together, build trust, work together?
Tools for doing this? Communication, conflict management, peacebuilding, shared leadership (i.e. decision-taking via consensus, sociocracy)
We need to unlearn this capitalist model where we live in separate boxes, so how to create community in a city?
In response to last Q: neoliberal turn of 70s has intentionally engineered isolation, individualism, separation in order to make society more ‘manageable’
Social centres as typical places to have conversations, create change, but society now has fewer connections like this -> we need a shift in mentality/lifestyle to slow down, connect more
Ideas for community building?
Community forums (i.e. cork community food forum — person running it is paid by the city -> financial support and formal recognition from local governments is important so that the task of community building isn’t a burden placed on those with limited capacity )
Make use of digital tools for creating connections (Covid has enhanced possibility for global connection and exchange)
Create opportunities for change-making (yes, a small group of people can actually do something! i.e. improve their neighbourhood)
This brings in a spirit of community and co-creation (from ecovillages, and cities alike)
“I can do something! I am a part of something!”
Covid has presented opportunity for emphasizing/reviving social supports -> more people wanting to live in ecovillages!
Especially important to make sure that community building happens outside ‘eco-bubbles’, helps with financial and social sustainability

CULTURAL: How can we bring about a culture of resistance and regeneration that is accessible to all?
(Fridays for Future — Barcelona & Communities for Future)

Is our culture of resistance a culture of failure? We can’t fight a system that is set up to grow, they don’t listen
How to change culture of resistance in the time-frame we have?
Deep Adaptation 4Rs
How does it happen within us? Auscultation implies self awareness — globalized north very little space for this exploration.
Lost capacity of organisation — lack of participation in gatherings, lack of acquaintance or democracy, capacity to mobilise — we put our emphasis too much in the political groups.
Subtle decolonisation is happening, could be good starting point for
The power of imagination: moving from problem-solving to potential
Is our of resistance is a culture of failure?
- 4 R’s (The Four “R’s” of Deep Adaptation)
Resilience: building resilience on the community level
Relinquishment: what do we need to let go and the ones we don’t need?
(Restoration)
Reconciliation
Stop and really look at the stories that live within me (inner narratives that drive my behaviour)
The power of imagination: moving from problem-solving to potential
Is our of resistance a culture of failure?..
Moving out of the cities as a first step for creating resistance
Demonstrations are loud, but they don’t have the capacity to continue to the driving energy that started it
Little shocks to the system, anticipate the fall
How to make radical thinking attractive to others?

ECOLOGY: How can we bring our ecological ideas out of the academic and activist ghettos to the streets and everyday social movements?
(Degrowth & Transition Network)

Staying critical while being active — academic AND activist
How can activism really break the “border” of privilege?
Addressing how our movements are actually so unconscious on social justice and beyond
Recognising how even studying sustainability power dynamics can be ignorant to social justice, race, etc…
All the combined crises are bringing issues usually kept under the carpet
What if activism is “part of the problem”: us vs them, forcing views…
Creating local fields of care where needed conversations can be had in a truly diverse space
Where people from activism go to listen
Putting privileged people who take the lead to listen to those in the margins
Seeking responses not in the traditional places of power
Marginalised people have been facing collapse for a long time and we can learn a lot from them
Creating such spaces has no blueprint — but they need to create safe spaces where everyone can open up
This requires time — not just a one-off event
Changing the “ivory towers”
Recognising that education without context is blind
Activist teachers?
Getting rid of the feeling that “you have to know”, of making mistakes
Switching from problem->solution mindset to a more healthy approach:
Recognise we have a problem
stop, grieve, listen, recognize
and then move forward
White activists feel they “need to know” and paralyze
Lack the willingness to listen (especially marginal people)
Environmental justice and social justice is a marriage of convenience — but they in fact work in different ways

ECONOMY: Imagining an end to capitalism, instead of the end to the world… How best can community-led initiatives bring about territorial transformation, policy change and system change?
(Doughnut Economics & Regenerative Practitioners)

From a regenerative perspective, it’s crucial to define what we’re ending and what we’re aiming to start — the focus on growth is one that is facing a sunset
There are other sorts of capital that are currently neglected by those who make economic policy
Vested interests include the health and vitality for those who are planning and running urban or rural municipalities
Livelihood work, pro-bono work and invisible work constitute typologies that exist within system — acknowledging the latter is a challenge for a just transition
Building conversations to mobilise and project system change now
Go beyond the simplification of human beings as “homo economicus”; instead we understand that humans have diverse motivations, not only monetary.
Being sensitive to landscape of souls entering conversation from different vantage points involves recognising trauma that individuals have confronted in the recent or distant past
Need to moderate expectations due to political sensitivity to transformational change — community-led initiatives can show that people can thrive in smaller scale transitions
Calling out those who are habituated to default BAU mode by finding where a portfolio of opportunities are and piloting these, and leveraging power by amplifying and scaling successes across territories and regions
Creating participatory spaces allowing for everyone to engage in policy design and active listening

From Fridays for Future to Communities for Future. Co-creating community-led system change.

Findings from the Event:

Community responses

Suggested links and materials — Shared by participants

Further Reading — Shared by event organisers

Written by Duncan Crowley