ABSTRACT
Web 2.0, and specifically social media, has the potential to be more effectively harnessed to promote sustainability through enhancing effective online and offline participation in order to achieve social learning. Although social media is a powerful tool for increasing active stakeholder participation, involved in sustainability research or management have been reluctant or unable to develop strategies and allocate resources to engage effectively with social media. It is the potential for mass multiscale, multicontinent interaction and engagement that gives social media the possibility for enabling greater collaboration and increased participation with stakeholders in environmental sustainability initiatives. The Sustainable Uplands project engaged stakeholders in research about the sustainability of UK peatlands and uplands via both face-to-face interaction and via social media, with an explicit goal to facilitate social learning. Creating and cultivating meaningful online participation does take time that will extend above and beyond an average workday and time should be accounted for and costed into research grants and environmental projects.
