Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue empirically and theoretically explores the hitherto under-researched concepts and roles of volunteers and volunteering in responding to climate change. It calls for papers on a variety of related themes and issues: volunteering for climate mitigation and adaptation, volunteers as citizen scientists, volunteering as climate citizenship, the role of volunteering and volunteers in the world’s most vulnerable regions and in delivering the Sustainable Development Goals, volunteers as climate protesters and socially embedded agents of change, and volunteering in the case of extreme weather events. In covering this diverse portfolio of themes, authors will also be asked to consider and engage with some cross-cutting themes: the theory of volunteering including the difference between formal and informal volunteering, the link between volunteering and resilience, the relevance of place emplacement for volunteering, and—more broadly speaking—volunteering and the social contract. Overall, this Special Issue seeks to explore the experience and potential of volunteers in many aspects of tackling climate change, whether social, ecological or political.

Focus

This Special Issue explores the hitherto under-researched roles of volunteers and volunteering in responding to climate change. Globally, one billion people volunteer (UN 2020), but volunteering comes in many types and is carried out in various places and sociocultural contexts. UN Volunteers defines formal volunteering as activities undertaken in an organized structure or on a platform that provides support, whilst informal volunteering is undertaken as part of routinised everyday activities, such as helping a friend or neighbour (UN 2020). UN Volunteers also propose broad categories for the types of activities undertaken by formal and informal volunteers, ranging from mutual aid, service, campaigning to participation and leisure, noting that such activity can be online, emplaced, in person, episodic or regular and driven by altruism and a recognition of the benefits that volunteers themselves derive.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of climate change, the role of volunteers and voluntary organisations in mitigation, adaptation, disaster management and citizen science are not well understood. Similarly, there is little work on the social mechanisms and cultural prerequisites through and by which volunteers can mobilise to tackle local climate impacts or participate in the delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (especially goal 13, Climate Action). Meanwhile, popular protest such as Extinction Rebellion, School Strike and Fridays for Future are underpinned by voluntary effort, the motivations for which have not yet been systematically interrogated and empirically researched.

Figure. 1. Volunteering Categories UN 2020.

Therefore, this volume aims at understanding how, why, where and in which contexts people participate in climate-related ‘voluntary activity’ in its broadest sense. First, what is the potential and motivation of volunteers, both informal and formal, to grow resilience in communities, contribute to climate change knowledge-making and its dispersion, instigating community responses to mitigation, adaptation and recovery from extreme weather events? Volunteers are at the heart of community-led responses, bringing local knowledge to disaster management and recovery in place-based social networks. Second, what mechanisms exist or need to be created to mobilise, incentivise, recruit and train volunteers across all categories so to support action on climate change through collective action, civic engagement, communities of practice and participation of all? Third, what is the potential of volunteers to improve climate justice and reduce inequality, building more equitable relationships between science, policy, administration and citizens? Fourth, is it possible or appropriate to expect such activity to grow and meet the demands of a normatively defined  changing climate and the risks it poses to individuals, communities and societies? Fifth, what are the risks and politics of deflecting or relegating the responsibility of organisations, businesses and government to act on climate change?  There are several cross-cutting themes that will be explored in the introduction to this Special Issue. These are: i) concepts  of formal and informal volunteering and the emerging motivations that volunteers bring to a range of climate actions, ii) the links between volunteering and resilience and the relevance of place emplacement for volunteering, and iii) volunteering and the social contract, exploring the relationship between volunteering and the role of the state, regional and local government and the public and private sector in delivering climate actions.

Scope

Volunteering for Mitigation (Including Social Innovation)

What part can and do voluteers play in climate change mitigation, and how can this activity be promoted, enhanced and extended? Mitigation involves reducing the flow of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere either by reducing the sources of these gases (e.g. burning of fossil fuels) or by enhacing sinks such as oceans, forests and soil which can store such gases.

Actions for climate change mitigation cover a huge range of potential activities. The IPCC identifies nine broad areas of activity: energy systems, transport, buildings, industry, land use, human settlement, international cooperation, regional development and cooperation, and policies and institutions (IPCC 2014). Research on the ways in which volunteers might participate in local, regional or national initiatives in these areas is patchy, however (Eliasoph 2013). Amongst a few examples, Pitt and Congreve (2017) showed how collaborative approaches to the development of local climate change plans and energy conservation, efficiency, and renewable energy initiatives sought to include volunteers and the third sector who were crucial to implementation (Pitt and Congreve 2017). Margerum, moreover, showed that third-sector groups are important in coordinating volunteer-led energy audits and energy efficiency training for residents of low-income neighbourhoods (Margerum 2008), while Van Veelen showed that the governance of many Community Energy projects lies in the hands of volunteers (Van Veelen 2018).

Though not exclusively focused on climate change mitigation but also on resource depletion and economic contraction, the Transition Town movement in the UK and elsewhere has also attracted attention from some researchers interested in the ways in which grassroots, community-based action for climate change mitigation can be nurtured or stimulated and in how successful and long-lasting these efforts are (Reeves, Lemon et al. 2014). The role of volunteers in promoting or enabling the most effective individual mitigation actions—such as living car-free or eating a plant-based diet (Wynes and Nicholas 2017)—is under-researched.

Overall research on volunteers, volunteering and various forms of climate change mitigation is concentrated in just a few areas (especially energy) We, however, do have a less complete picture of the role of volunteers, their contributions, motivations, norms and morality touching upon other issues and aspects within the context of daily life, places, political environments or informal and formal institutional settings.

Volunteering for Adaptation

The IPCC defines climate change adaptation as the “process of adjustment to actual or expected climate and its effects. In human systems, adaptation seeks to moderate or avoid harm or exploit beneficial opportunities. In some natural systems, human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate and its effects” (IPCC 2014: 5). Examples of adaptation actions include using water resources more efficiently, adapting buildings and building codes to withstand extreme weather events, building flood defences, developing new growing techniques or new crops, managing invasive species and creating habitat corridors for species to successfully migrate. There is the potential for volunteers to participate in many of these activities, for example through changing people’s perceptions of nature and promoting eco-friendly lifestyles and practices (Frantzeskaki, Borgström et al. 2017) or by working with their communities to educate them about climate change or plan and implement local climate change projects (Eiseman, Armstrong et al. 2020, Seebauer and Babcicky 2018)

However, the academic literature in this area is largely dominated by work on environmental volunteering which can take a range of forms: conservation, habitat restoration, environmental monitoring (e.g., species distribution), ecological restoration and outreach with the public. Rural settings dominate such work, with limited examination of the role of volunteers in urban stewardship, though see, for example, (Fisher, Svendsen et al. 2015).

Holifield and Williams examined the challenges of implementing high-quality stakeholder participation from ordinary citizens without giving explicit consideration to the varied voluntary effort of such stakeholders—from participating in meetings or educational activities to hands-on activities such as habitat restoration (Holifield and Williams 2019).

Seymour and Haklay explored analytical approaches that might assist practitioners in environmental volunteering to understand, recruit and retain volunteers, thereby improving the design of environmental volunteering projects and increasing their long-term sustainability and aligning them with volunteer engagement typologies and overall participatory patterns (Seymour and Haklay 2017). Schild (2018) showed that the motivations of those who participate in civic recreation—which she defines as recreation-based volunteerism aimed at preserving, creating, and restoring recreational resources—tend to match those of other kinds of volunteers. However, the degree to which project outcomes and volunteer interests and satisfaction are aligned is sometimes in doubt (Pagès, Fischer et al. 2019).

Volunteering and Climate Science: Citizen Science

The work on the role of volunteers as citizen scientists is well developed, though tends to be tangentially related to climate change specifically. For example, Ellwood, Crimmins et al. (2017) noted that, for conservation, “citizen science can expand research capacity while providing stimulating opportunities for participants, engaging volunteers directly in conservation science and management, and improving science and environmental literacy” (p.1) but did not align this with the potential benefits for climate change adaptation or mitigation. Barrows, Hoines et al. (2016) asked whether the use of citizen scientists to collect data on climate change impacts on species distribution compromises the quality of those data. They concluded that, with “carefully designed survey protocols and supervision by biologists, citizen scientists can be an important component of achieving sustainability of scientific research, without losing scientific rigour” (p.1). Arcanjo, Luz et al. (2014) demonstrated the risk that volunteers will simply be viewed as a source of cheap, unpaid labour. Despite arguing that using volunteers to, in this case, review satellite images to confirm automatic assignments of forested and deforested regions creates public engagement, this is treated as a collateral benefit and one which is not purposefully built into citizen science projects. What is the potential of citizen science to actively contribute to climate change action for adaptation or mitigation? How can data sourced from citizen science provide us with new and more localised or regional insights into the impacts of climate change providing food for thought on national and global scales?

Volunteering and Climate Action in the World’s Most Vulnerable Regions

Voluntary climate action forms an important part of the response to climate change in the world’s most vulnerable regions. For example, Pacific Island Countries (PICs) endure the extreme, immediate and increasing effects of climate change with concomitant threats to livelihoods, security and wellbeing (Learmonth 2020). Learmonth showed that the culture of informal volunteering is strong in the PICs, though expressed through concepts such as service, duty of care, sustaining the community, fulfilling cultural obligations, and expressing love and reciprocity relating to kinship and protocol. While informal volunteering dominates, formal volunteering is increasing, managed primarily by governments, faith-based groups, research organisations, non-government organisations, civil society organisations (CSO’s) and international organisations. Learmonth (2020) showed that volunteers are working on activities linked to awareness and advocacy (protest, climate justice, legal activism, leadership), resilience and adaption (supporting ecosystem resilience, community-based adaptation planning and volunteer involvement in disaster response) and policies and systems (education and training in decision-making, communication and citizen science).

The Role of Volunteers in Achieving Sustainable Development Goal 13: Climate Action

The UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development was adopted by UN member states in 2015, leading to the development of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Goal 13: Climate Action UNGA 2015. This goal aims to mobilize US$100 billion annually by 2020 to address the needs of developing countries to both adapt to climate change and invest in low-carbon development (UN 2021). At the time of the adoption of the SDGs, the then-Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon stated that “The newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals offer another opportunity for individuals to show solidarity through volunteerism (UN 2015)”. However, Paine, Allum et al. 2020) argued that ,while there is growing recognition of the role that volunteering can play in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), evidence of its contribution remains relatively weak (Paine, Allum et al. 2020). This, they argued, is in part because there is limited cross-over between academics interested in volunteering and those interested in development. Nevertheless, volunteering has the potential to make a unique contribution to the SDGs. For example, volunteering has the ability to engage and provide support for marginalised or vulnerable groups, provides the means for self-organisation, potentially strengthening social cohesion and is a fundamentally people-centred approach in which agency and ownership are key (Paine, Allum et al. 2020). Notwithstanding this recognition of the value of volunteering, little is understood about the potential role of volunteering in the delivery of SDG13 specifically.

Volunteers and Climate Protest

The year 2018 saw the emergence of two new forms of climate protest: Extinction Rebellion and School Strike for Climate, the latter inspired by Greta Thunberg and known variously as Fridays For Future, Youth for Climate, Climate Strike or Youth Strike for Climate. These have attracted thousands of participants to marches, sit-ins and demonstrations globally. Despite being based almost entirely on voluntary action and participation, little is known about the role of volunteering in these new forms of climate protest or climate activism more generally—not only during specific events such as marches but behind the scenes in organisation, education and engagement. As Gunningham notes, more understanding is required about whether large-scale grassroots activism such as this is a necessary condition for achieving transformational change (Gunningham 2020).

Volunteering during Extreme Weather Events

Waldman, Yumagulova et al. (2018: 396) argued that “as the frequency and intensity of natural disasters are seen to be growing due to climate change, citizens are increasingly presenting their labour and resources as assets to be drawn on in emergency and post-emergency situations”. What motivates such action on the part of citizens? How can governments and organisations adjust their governance practices to make best use of this transient resource? What financial and political benefits do governments enjoy through effective management of volunteers? How does community resilience benefit from integrating volunteers into emergency preparedness, response and recovery?

Purpose

The purpose of this Special Issue is to call attention to the role that volunteers and the voluntary sector have in developing community-led responses to climate change, as well as to understand the untapped potential of volunteers in securing lasting gains in adaptation, mitigation and resilience. We also call attention to the governance challenges that face governments at all levels, NGOs and the voluntary sector in mobilizing volunteers effectively. Finally, this Special Issue aims at building concepts for future research on volunteering and volunteers, including spatial, ’placial’, social cultural, political, institutional and ethical dimensions.

Dr. Catherine Leyshon
Dr. Michael Leyshon
Prof. Dr. Beate Ratter
Dr. Martin Döring
Guest Editors

References

Arcanjo, J. S., E. F. P. Luz, A. L. Fazenda and F. M. Ramos (2014). "Evaluating Volunteers' Contributions in a Citizen Science Project." 2014 Ieee 10th International Conference on E-Science (E-Science), Vol 1: 21-28.

Barrows, C. W., J. Hoines, M. S. Vamstad, M. Murphy-Mariscal, K. Lalumiere and J. Heintz (2016). "Using citizen scientists to assess climate change shifts in desert reptile communities." Biological Conservation 195: 82-88.

Eiseman, D. L., A. K. Armstrong and A. M. Chatrchyan (2020). "Designing an extension Climate Stewards volunteer program: incorporating sense of community, social practice, and self-efficacy theories." Environmental Education Research.

Ellwood, E. R., T. M. Crimmins and A. J. Miller-Rushing (2017). "Citizen science and conservation: Recommendations for a rapidly moving field." Biological Conservation 208: 1-4.

Fisher, D., E. S. Svendsen and J. J. T. Connolly (2015). Urban Environmental Stewardship and Civic Engagement: How Planting Trees Strengthens the Roots of Democracy.

Frantzeskaki, N., S. Borgström, L. Gorissen, M. Egermann and F. Ehnert (2017). Nature-Based Solutions Accelerating Urban Sustainability Transitions in Cities: Lessons from Dresden, Genk and Stockholm Cities. Nature-Based Solutions to Climate Change Adaptation in Urban Areas: Linkages between Science, Policy and Practice. N. Kabisch, H. Korn, J. Stadler and A. Bonn. Cham, Springer International Publishing: 65-88.

Gunningham, N. (2020). "Can climate activism deliver transformative change? Extinction Rebellion, business and people power." Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 11: 10-31.

Holifield, R. and K. C. Williams (2019). "Recruiting, integrating, and sustaining stakeholder participation in environmental management: A case study from the Great Lakes Areas of Concern." Journal of Environmental Management 230: 422-433.

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Seebauer, S. and P. Babcicky (2018). "Trust and the communication of flood risks: comparing the roles of local governments, volunteers in emergency services, and neighbours." Journal of Flood Risk Management 11(3): 305-316.

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• climate change
• volunteering
• voluntary sector
• adaptation
• mitigation
• resilience
• citizen science
• social contract