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Low impact development (LID) has been characterised as a radical approach to housing, livelihoods and everyday living which began in Britain in the 1990s as a grassroots response to the overlapping crises of sustainability (Halfacree, 2006; Maxey, 2009). It employs approaches that dramatically reduce humans’ impact upon the environment, demonstrating that human settlements and livelihoods, when done appropriately, can enhance, rather than diminish ecological diversity. However, LID is not solely concerned with the environment. It is also a direct response to social needs for housing, an anti-capitalist strategy forging alternative economic possibilities, and a holistic approach to living that pays attention to the personal as well as the political needs (Douthwaite, 1996). Thus, LIDs are a good vehicle through which to explore radical and innovative forms of sustainability and to critically assess their potential as a response to environmentally damaging ways of living. Rather than seeing LIDs as a rural back-to-the-land phenomena (Halfacree, 2007b; Jacob, 2006), this chapter argues that the movement is ‘engaged in social transformation through everyday-lived practice’ (Woods, 2008, p. 132).

As the first decade of the 21st century drew to a close, the threats associated with economic crises, social inequalities, and human-induced environmental change focused unprecedented attention on global development trajectories. While questions about how the nature and impact of economic growth should be managed have long featured in environmentalist thought, the stark conditions created a new policy landscape of opportunity for alternative development strategies. National governments around the globe began to disseminate policy statements calling for ‘green growth’ and some, for example the United States, even developed stimulus packages aimed at restructuring economies towards a low carbon future. At the same time international non-governmental organisations such as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have developed entire initiatives focused on shaping what has come to be termed the ‘green economy’ (UNEP, 2011). Even large multinational corporations, such as Shell and their dialogues mechanism, are engaging with green economy discourses. New partnerships are emerging across governance sectors with Microsoft Corp and UNEP signing an agreement in 2009 to share knowledge collaboratively around green economy issues. In the United States, the BlueGreen Alliance is consolidating activity of labour unions and environmental organisations in order to maximise the number and quality of jobs in the green economy. With such a broad spectrum of actors and interests involved, it is unsurprising that there is no one agreed vision for a green economy. Some argue for development scenarios that promote reduced or no-growth pathways (Scott-Cato, 2009), others see the current crises creating innovation opportunities for new growth in different areas through processes of ‘creative destruction’ (Florida, 2010).

The purpose of this paper is to use a case study of an online parenting forum to theorise how mothers’ everyday environmental and caring labour is a form of environmental and social activism in the home, that while not organised as such, is still collectivised in a “hybrid activist collective”.

Using ethnographic data and content analysis from an online parenting forum for the nappy-free infant hygiene practice known as “elimination communication”, the author compares the matters of key concern arising for this group of mothers with economic activist concerns as identified by Gibson-Graham et al. (2013) in their community economies work.

The paper finds a high degree of resonance between the key concerns of the elimination communication forum members with the key concerns of community economies. Furthermore, the author identifies the components of what might comprise a “hybrid activist collective” of mothers and others undertaking direct action for environmental and social change.

Mothers and others acting for social and environmental change through domestic practices should be recognised for their important environmental and caring labour.

The paper proposes the “hybrid activist collective” as a way of understanding the human and non-human elements that gather together to act for environmental and social change in a collectivised, but not formally organised manner.