The Blue Community Economy is a citizens’ movement that combines the passions and talents of neighbourhood citizens and values of the neighbourhood to develop a pleasant living environment, climate proof neighbourhood and vibrant neighbourhood economy. Keywords are local, inclusive, social enterprises, circular and community. One of the initiatives of the movement is the green social community enterprise.
This social enterprise will take care of all the green in the neighbourhood. Its aim is to create a safer, more attractive, more connected neighbourhood by taking care of the green space by local citizens. It will be a social enterprise that generates jobs and learning trajectories for local citizens. Different types of stakeholders show enthusiasm and are participating in the initiative like the municipality, TEAM 3.0 (coaching), green enterprises, local schools etc. The initiative is supported by the municipality with an innovation budget. The involved citizens have great confidence in the initiative and its approach. They want to strengthen the initiative by monitoring the added value of the approach. They are interested to monitor the social, ecological and economic impacts. This will help them in their discussions with the municipality and with companies involved in green maintenance. In the autumn of 2017 the collaboration of the green social community enterprise with different types of stakeholders will start. In a living lab setting they hope to develop a process of joint co-creation and learning.
Questions for the action research are
- Who are relevant stakeholders for the green social community enterprise?
- What is/could be their motivation to be involved?
- What can be learned from evaluations of comparable initiatives?
- What kind of learning evaluation would suit this initiative?
- What is the impact of the living lab approach?
- What is the added value for the different stakeholders?
- Are different types of knowledge integrated?
- Do the meetings and other interactions instigate a learning process?
Patrick Hoogenbosch, is the initiator of the Blauwe Wijk Economie, together with a group of other citizens. They have established a network and a diversity of initiatives. As a key initiative the preparation of the Green Social Community Enterprise (buurtgroenbedrijf) has started two years ago and it is now in a crucial stage.
The Green Social Community Enterprise has asked Science Shop Wageningen University and Research for support to monitor the impact of their approach. The proposed action research with a learning evaluation is part of this research project.