Transition Initiatives (also known as transition towns) are grassroots networking within communities that are working to build resilience in response to peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability.[1]

Transition Towns was the intial brand for these environmental and social movements “founded (in part) upon the principles of permaculture”, based originally on Bill Mollison’s seminal Permaculture, a Designers Manual published in 1988.[2] The Transition Towns brand of permaculture uses David Holmgren’s 2003 book, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability. [3]

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These techniques were included in a student project overseen by permaculture teacher Rob Hopkins at the Kinsale Further Education College in Ireland. The term transition town was coined by Louise Rooney[4] and Catherine Dunne. Following its start in Kinsale, Ireland it then spread to Totnes, England where Rob Hopkins and Naresh Giangrande developed the concept during 2005 and 2006.[5] The aim of this community project is to equip communities for the dual challenges of climate change and peak oil.

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The Transition Towns movement is an example of socioeconomic localisation. In 2007, the UK-based charity Transition Network was founded to disseminate the concept of transition and support communities around the world as they adopted the transition model.[6]