A Country of Platform Paradoxes - Digital Communication Tools used by Green Citizen-Led Initiatives in Denmark

Green Citizen-Led Initiatives (GCLI) have been a long-standing research topic in the area of sustainable human-computer interaction with mixed success. In this paper, we present a larger investigation of the digital tools used by such initiatives in Denmark. We conducted semi-structured interviews with key people in 20 GCLI’s with different goals, sizes, and level of maturity. Our findings revealed that nearly all GCLIs relied mainly on standard tools that came with a variety of drawbacks and problems for them. Furthermore, we uncovered an ubiquitous platform paradox - the need to use Facebook to recruit and contact members despite the misalignment of their own and Facebook’s values - that seems hard to overcome. The challenges and directions outlined in this paper can guide future civic-tech work in this area to tackle common issues of multiple GCLIs and increase the impact of their work.