More than just a factor in transition processes? The role of collaboration in agriculture - Transition Pathways towards Sustainability in Agriculture: Case Studies from Europe - page 90

shareholders and the partner businesses; however, there have been ideas about ways to
intensify collaboration beyond financial relations. To facilitate mutual learning, which is
another core objective of the initiative, a platform for knowledge exchange between the
businesses has been institutionalized in the form of a bi-monthly entrepreneur forum.
Besides the innovative financial collaboration between citizens, shareholders and
partner businesses, another innovative objective which is an integral part of the
Regionalwert AG concept, is regional sustainability. Regional sustainability is set as an
objective and is advanced through including not only regional economic but also social and
environmental criteria in annual business reports expressing achievements towards
sustainability of agriculture in the region. As a practical approach, the Regionalwert AG has
developed a set of 64 indicators, in 13 groups, to assess the sustainability of individual
partner businesses.
Despite the rather limited scope of the initiative (in terms of partner businesses), a
number of activities and events are considered signs of anchoring. The innovative concept
of the Regionalwert AG and its success has raised broad media interest and has been
covered in both scientific and public media, which may play an important role in the
scaling up of the initiative. Furthermore, the founder has received several awards which
further increase public visibility and credibility; he became an Ashoka fellow in 2009 and
was nominated 'Social entrepreneur of 2011' by the Schwab Foundation, Boston
Consulting Group and Financial Times Germany. As a consequence of increasing public
interest in initiating similar concepts in other regions, the Regionalwert Trust was founded
in September 2011.
The role of collaboration in transitions towards sustainability of agriculture
As the 'success' of an initiative, understood as the emergence of a transition at the regime
level, can only be considered in retrospect, it is not yet possible to make definite statements
about whether the three case studies referred to in this chapter have been 'successful'.
However, the introduction and development of machinery rings in Scotland has resulted in
incremental changes at the regime-level and assured them an established position within the
agri-food regime. The other two initiatives have not (yet) advanced beyond the take-off
phase (when a niche engages with the regime to initiate radical changes, see Darnhofer, this
volume). However, the Regionalwert AG initiative, in particular, has demonstrated the
potential to induce regime changes.
All three cases show that successful collaboration between the actors in each initiative
is crucial for initiation and development. Moreover, joint analysis of cases suggests that
collaboration takes a range of forms over time and at different stages of the development of
the initiative and subsequently has different roles in the phases of potential transitions. This
has, in return, variable effects on the initiatives themselves.
In the initial stages of niche establishment (and of potential transitions), interpersona l
relations are important, in particular for the development of common concepts and
strategies and the establishment of functioning structures, which was evident in the
Regionalwert AG and CRIE Montado cases. At a later stage, the formalization of rules and
structures can sometimes be a substitute for interpersonal relationships, as can be seen in
the machinery rings case.
We could also verify the role of collaboration in the alignment between niche, regime
and landscape to advance the transition, evident in the example of machinery rings. It was