Building sustainable futures: The micro-foundational dynamics behind energy community ecosystem

Energy Communities (ECs) are increasingly recognized as collaborative ecosystems that support energy transition. However, existing research has predominantly explained their emergence from macro- and meso-level perspectives, offering limited insight into micro-level mechanisms. Although broader ecosystem research has only recently begun to explain ecosystem-level outcomes from a micro-level perspective, treating individuals as the primary unit of analysis, it has paid limited attention to the relational mechanisms through which individual actions and interactions contribute to ecosystem emergence. To address this gap, this study adopts a microfoundational perspective to examine the creation and development of an energy community ecosystem through an in-depth qualitative case study conducted in Southern Italy. Drawing on semi-structured interviews triangulated with multiple documentary sources analyzed through Reflexive Thematic Analysis, the findings identify three relational microfoundational mechanisms, namely micro-level collaborative initiatives, micro-relational engagement toward cultural change, and relation-driven energy inclusion that explain how energy community ecosystems progressively emerge from individual actions and interactions across the ideation, formalization, and growth phases. The study advances the explanatory capacity of the microfoundational perspective by extending its application to energy community ecosystems, providing actionable insights for designing inclusive, context-sensitive interventions tailored to different phases of ecosystem development.