SWITCH

The prevailing economic and social approach, which is geared towards growth, returns and efficiency (Rosa 2013, Paech 2012, Brand & Wissen, 2006), "undermines our prosperity because it destroys the natural foundations of economic activity." (UBA, 2022). New community-supported enterprises are countering this: cooperation instead of competition, a focus on needs instead of the need for growth, securing resources instead of overexploiting them. The concept of community-supported agriculture (CSA) in particular, with its specific principles of (1) direct contact between producers and consumers, (2) a solidarity-based method of financing and (3) the resource-conserving organisation of production (Rommel et al., 2024), is regarded as a new, sustainable way of doing business. There are now some attempts to transfer these principles to other areas of supply (CSX = Community Supported X), such as solidarity-based energy companies. The agglomeration of various CSX in a region harbours the potential of community-supported value creation spaces (Community Supported Economy (CSE)), which stabilise themselves in a way that complements the traditional economic system.

SWITCH aims to take important steps from community-supported agriculture (CSA) through resilient community-supported enterprise models (CSX) to a comprehensive community-supported economy (CSE). To this end, we want to analyse, better understand and, if possible, scale such a transformation process. SWITCH is investigating how these new economic models can contribute to sustainable value creation spaces and providing concrete impetus for transformative business start-ups.

We in SWITCH ask ourselves what limits and possibilities the innovative CSX business model has in different supply fields (e.g. energy, mobility, nutrition) (system knowledge). In order to support the dissemination of the approach, we are also investigating ways and means of assessing and promoting the connectivity and feasibility for founders (target and transformation knowledge). Therefor it is on the one hand important to clarify what willingness exists in which social milieus to participate in CSX companies (target knowledge), and on the other hand, which (target group-specific) approaches can support the broad participation of social actors (transformation knowledge). Furthermore, in SWITCH we analyse which current physical, planning and political framework conditions favour or prevent the emergence and existence of community-based forms of economy (system knowledge). At the end of the project, we also want to be able to make statements on how framework conditions need to be adapted so that community-supported enterprises (CSX) and economies (CSE) can be initiated and established more easily (transformation knowledge).

Methodologically, the project pursues a transformative research approach (WBGU 2011, Schneidewind & Singer-Brodowski 2014). It is the associated philosophy of “learning by doing” and “doing by learning” that promises transformational knowledge (Rotmans & Loorbach, 2009). In SWITCH, we therefore want to analyse active CSX companies in a transdisciplinary way, identify and select groups and organizations that potentially want to found new CSX, convert to CSX or expand their existing CSX company (e.g. solidarity-based farm) to CSX and support CSX in its implementation in real-life laboratories (Beecroft & Parodi 2016) and learn together what the paths of foundation, expansion and conversion can look like in concrete terms.