In a newsletter, I wrote the following:

“Through the contact form this came to me: “the current social and ecological crises have led to lively debates about transformative change toward more sustainable and just societies. In the Netherlands, ‘degrowth’ is a transformative proposal that has received attention. Many bottom-up initiatives have sprung up like mushrooms in recent decades. While having a respectable impact, many of these initiatives report difficulties in scaling up from local experiments to broader institutionalized alternatives. What explains these difficulties?”

Soon I may spend a day in Wageningen thinking and talking about answers to this question. But first I would like to consult your reader. Would you email me your answer by answering this newsletter to the question: Why is it that bottom-up initiatives face so many difficulties in scaling up?”

I received over sixty shorter and especially longer replies, very personal ones from people who spoke from their own experience to very general ones from academics who had studied theories. I answered and analyzed all the mails one by one.

Here is an initial summary of all the answers:

1. The original energy of the initiative is diluted as it scales up

Example: Marloe

• Initiators often begin with a strong vision and intrinsic motivation. But as the initiative grows, new people are involved with different ideas and energies, so the original strength diminishes.
• She compares it to an energetic tug-of-war: the more people there are with their own ‘I Am’ and the same passion, the easier the initiative can spread.
• However, scaling up, she says, often entails dilution of intent, making the initiative less powerful.

Solution according to her:

• Initiatives should focus on organic growth where resonance and alignment are paramount, rather than forced scaling.

2. Clashes with existing structures and regulations

Example: Gjalt & Leonne

• Their farm experience shows how existing regulations can be a major obstacle. Gjalt wanted to transfer his farm to a successor, but legal and financial regulations made this impossible.
• They also cite the influence of large landowners and landlords who block initiatives to protect their own financial interests.
• Their experience with grants is another example: a grant for roof repair had to be repaid because the legal situation surrounding their farm was unclear.

Example: Alex Pielaet

• He points to institutional forces that consciously or unconsciously block change.
• Multinational corporations influence legislation, making it harder for alternative systems to get off the ground.
• He mentions how sustainable initiatives often cannot compete because they do include all social and environmental costs, while large companies do not have to.

Solution according to them:

• New legal structures must be established in which community ownership and alternative economic ideas do have a place.
• The government must adopt a more experimental and learning attitude.

3. Difficulty with cooperation and internal conflicts.

Example: Raymundo

• He sees that collaboration often fails because people have not learned to truly work together.
• Many initiatives fail despite their ideals, not because of a lack of vision, but because the way of working together is not effective.
• He advocates a new model in which people experience the freedom to take initiative but also take full responsibility.

Example: Gjalt & Leonne

• A young man who wanted to help on their farm had a very different work style and was unable to work well together. This led to tension and eventually to the cessation of cooperation.

Example: Linda Dijkstra

• She mentions that our thinking is still heavily influenced by dualism and individualism, which makes it difficult for truly collective initiatives to succeed.

Solution according to them:

• Increased awareness and education in co-creation and community building.
• Self-managing structures that can better handle internal conflicts.

4. Lack of financial sustainability

Example: Jan Peter van Diemen

• Many initiatives do not have a sustainable financial model and burn money without structural revenue sources.
• He sees that initiatives sometimes ride on hype, but when the attention disappears, so does the money and energy.

Example: Hetty Buitelaar

• Large companies, such as in agriculture and health care, keep smaller sustainable initiatives out of the market because they want to protect their own interests.
• This makes it difficult to find sustainable funding.

Example: Gerdien Kleijer

• She cites examples such as Land of Existence, Land of Us and Herenboeren, all of which have to do with the fact that sustainable alternatives often remain niche markets and therefore have difficulty growing.

Solution according to them:

• Alternative financing models, such as community finance, cooperative banks and experimental economies.
• Adjust taxes and regulations so that sustainable alternatives are no longer financially disadvantaged.

5. Resistance and passivity of potential participants

Example: Gjalt & Leonne

• They offered a piece of land for a community garden, but got hardly any active participants. People want to participate, but only after everything is already organized.
• They see that many people are not used to taking responsibility themselves, making it difficult for initiatives to grow.

Example: Our Green House (residential cooperative Haarlem)

• Many people drop out because they find it difficult to break away from conventional ways of living and thinking.
• They experience resistance to new structures, such as the idea that a home does not necessarily have to be privately owned.
• They see people struggling to imagine a life without a profit on their home.

Solution according to them:

• Create awareness about alternative lifestyles.
• Offer more collective experiences, such as joint pilot projects where people can get used to other ways of living and working.

6. Whether scaling up is desirable at all

Example: Marloe

• She doubts that scaling up is always the way to go.
• Many initiatives lose their original strength and authenticity as they grow larger.
• Instead of scaling up, she suggests creating inspiring networks in which initiatives reinforce each other without losing their core.

Example: Wladimir Stuit

• He argues that scaling up within the current system means initiatives have to adapt to bureaucratic and market logic, losing their original intent.

Solution according to them:

• Decentralization and networking rather than economies of scale.
• Allowing locally rooted initiatives to flourish rather than pressuring them to grow.

Conclusion

The personal stories show that bottom-up initiatives face not only external barriers such as regulations and funding, but also internal challenges such as collaboration, loss of original energy and the passivity of potential participants.

Key factors that make scaling up difficult:

1. Dilution of original energy and intention in growth.
2. Clashes with regulations and existing economic structures.
3. Cooperation problems and internal conflicts.
4. Lack of financial sustainability within a system that values profit over value.
5. Resistance and passivity from people who want to benefit from initiatives but do not actively contribute.
6. The fundamental question of whether scaling up is always desirable - perhaps a network of smaller initiatives works better than one large initiative.

Possible solutions:

• Develop new legal and economic structures that support community ownership and alternative financing.
• Invest in collaboration skills and co-creation within initiatives.
• Working to raise awareness and education about alternative lifestyles.
• Commit to networking and decentralized structures rather than forced scaling up.