Community-based propagation: Systems science insights for rapid scaling of climate action and cooperation

Research shows that community-based propagation is the most effective strategy for scaling innovations in sustainability education in formal settings like universities. It builds a community of “ambassadors” who share the innovation with their social networks, for whom they serve as trusted messengers. A backbone organization facilitates and elevates ambassadors’ work, spurring interest in joining the community and thereby creating a reinforcing feedback loop that spreads the innovation.

Systems analysis shows that community-based propagation can generate exponential scaling of adoption when word-of-mouth diffusion and direct outreach have little impact. Like educational innovations, efforts to scale climate action via word-of-mouth and direct outreach often fail, even if those actions carry economic and health benefits.

Here, we share initial findings from an ongoing community-based propagation effort to accelerate participation in residential decarbonization among an immigrant community in the US. Working in partnership with a local civil society organization (CSO), we built a program that supports community members who learn about energy efficiency and decarbonization incentives, participate in them, and share their experiences with their own social networks in culturally and in the community’s primary language (here, Khmer). Ambassadors’ work is celebrated by their peers and the CSO, creating a reinforcing feedback loop that amplifies their efforts as more community members become interested in the ambassador program and its work.

We are currently assessing how this approach can be replicated and scaled to other communities and contexts. This largely bottom-up strategy builds trust and participation in climate solutions, which is critically important in a democracy. Perhaps equally importantly, it also strengthens social fabric and civic engagement, which, in turn, strengthen democracy.