The failure of recent international negotiations to progress global action on climate change has shifted attention to the emergence of grassroots sustainability initiatives. These civil society networks display the potential to implement social innovation and change processes from the ‘bottom up’. Recent scholarship has sought to theorise grassroots community-based low carbon practices in terms of their sustainability transition potential. However there are few empirical examples that demonstrate the factors for success of community-based social innovations in achieving more widespread adoption outside of their local, sustainability ‘niche’.