Examining the emergence of collective climate agency in a multiprofessional work community

Climate change is manifesting globally in diverse ways and on different timelines and is challenging communities to find ecologically sustainable ways of living. It transcends the conventional boundaries of decision-making and power. A transdisciplinary approach is often needed to integrate the varied interests, experiences and expertise of different groups (McClure et al., 2023; Teperi et al., 2025).

Existing research has predominantly examined ecological sustainability and climate-friendly behavior in societal policymaking and sociotechnical transitions, and from individual consumer perspectives (Markrad et al., 2012; Wittmayer et al., 2017). Although sustainability agency has been explored in terms of, for example, employees’ roles and its influence on others (Russell et al., 2022), the role of work communities remains under-researched. Sustainability literature emphasizes the importance of local groups in developing practices (Thiele, 2016), but a review by Moilanen and Alasoini (2023) has highlighted a gap in the research, noting that limited attention has been paid to work communities in sustainability transitions.

Cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) and Developmental work research (DWR) offer a development methodology (Virkkunen and Newnham, 2013) based on the theory of collective learning (Engeström, 2015/1987). Scholars in this framework have extensive experience of workplace development. In addition, the framework has recently advocated for extending workplace-level innovations to drive societal change, which is also critical for climate change mitigation (Engeström and Sannino, 2021). CHAT-based research projects have succeeded in promoting ecological sustainability by combining collective learning theory and methods with transdisciplinary development forums (Lindley and Lotz-Sisitka, 2019; Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2017; McClure et al., 2023; Sannino and Engeström, 2018; Sannino et al., 2018; Weaver et al., 2023). These projects have enhanced participants’ agency and provided practical solutions, although they have focused on pressing environmental issues and lengthy development processes rather than workplace-specific challenges.

DWR methodology enhances collective transformative agency (TA) (Sannino, 2022; Virkkunen, 2006), which is vital during challenges such as the climate change. TA emerges as a result from a systemic contradiction in work activity, which the individual experiences as a personal motive conflict and expresses by, for example, questioning prevailing practices (Engeström and Sannino, 2011; Sannino, 2022; Virkkunen, 2006). However, the need for climate change-related development is emerging in different sectors and workplaces, as different everyday challenges and at very different paces. Thorough renewal of work takes time, as it requires collective learning; combining the skills and knowledge of different professionals (Edwards, 2005; Sannino and Engeström, 2017). In addition, finding time for learning is often challenging, due to the general intensification of working life (Mauno et al., 2023).

What kind of collective climate agency can brief processes achieve if the pressure for development is not yet evident in everyday work but stems from a desire for a more sustainable future? Our study used CHAT and DWR to explore how collective climate agency can emerge in a climate-related experiment in a brief DWR-based intervention involving a school’s multiprofessional work community. The intervention yielded concrete results, and the participants were enthusiastic, even though the pressure for change was not apparent at the beginning of the process. It manifested as motivation based on moral and ethical considerations to act. The article aims to investigate how collective climate agency emerged during the intervention and to contribute to workplace interventions that facilitate climate actions.

We examine collective climate agency through CHAT’s and DWR’s principles of TA, which refers to the capacity to transcend existing constraints in work activity (Sannino, 2022; Virkkunen, 2006; Virkkunen and Newnham, 2013). TA is set in motion by contradictory motives that employees personally perceive at work, and which they often articulate as verbal expressions (Engeström and Sannino, 2011; Sannino, 2022). In professional settings, the renewal of activities requires collective TA. It requires shared recognition that change is needed to facilitate questioning of existing concepts and practices – an essential component of learning. (Virkkunen, 2006.) Edwards (2005), who has investigated the collaborative dimensions of multiprofessional working and development, emphasizes the importance of “knowing how to know who” in professional decision-making, especially when working on demanding objects of work. There is always the risk that if professionals refuse to see the new possibilities and demands for professional development (ibid.), the object of work does not expand.

DWR advances collective TA via formative interventions that scrutinize work as an object-oriented, mediated and historically evolving activity system (Engeström, 2015/1987; Virkkunen and Newnham, 2013). These interventions are designed to initiate expansive learning processes through encouraging questioning of current practices, ideating new ones and modeling solutions – culminating in practical experiments and the establishment of a qualitatively new activity model (ibid). The method of double stimulation (Sannino, 2022; Virkkunen and Newnham, 2013) fosters joint analyses and TA by encouraging participants to reflect on their experiences and ideas (first stimulus) in conjunction with theoretical models (second stimulus, such as conceptual frameworks; Engeström, 2015/1987). Typically, interventions begin by identifying key disturbances and articulating the developmental trajectory of the activity through historical analysis to uncover any systemic contradictions that may underlie individual motive conflicts – dead ends that cannot be resolved with existing tools (Virkkunen and Newnham, 2013). A new model of activity is created to address the contradiction and the disturbances it causes in a novel way – not as a compromise, but as a germ cell, which reconciles the seemingly opposing needs of the activity in a creative way (Sannino and Engeström, 2017). It is put to the test through developmental experiments.

However, achieving qualitative transformations is a complex, time-intensive process, contingent upon the developmental stage of the activity. It is an interplay between a push caused by contradictions and a pull offered by new solutions (Sannino and Engeström, 2017; Sannino et al., 2018). Although the work community may recognize the need for development, an “intellectually understood motive” is insufficient to catalyze systemic change (Sannino and Engeström, 2017; Virkkunen, 2006).

The emergence of TA in interventions has been explored through the analysis of speaking turns: how participants question (resist or criticize) current practices, ideate new possibilities, commit to actions and report on actions taken (e.g. Haapasaari et al., 2016; Heikkilä and Seppänen, 2014). Participants’ facilitative actions that aim to enhance the intervention process are also important (Clottes Heikkilä and Kurki, 2024; Virkkunen and Newnham, 2013). Turning points have been analyzed to capture the way in which agency changes during an intervention. These are moments that shape the development of agency by changing the focus of an initiative or by widening or narrowing a perspective (Haapasaari et al., 2016; Scahill and Bligh, 2022). The quantity or quality of agency expression also changes distinctively (ibid.).

Even if the physical workplace is shared, forming a collective TA that transcends professional boundaries takes time. For instance, Spante et al. (2022) examined a CHAT-based intervention in a school setting and only noted a shift from individual commitment to collective engagement after nine development sessions. In their case, there was no initial clear, shared motive-related conflict in the work community (ibid.). In addition, their analysis (ibid.) did not show the dynamics between the different professionals when the collective emerged. In general, TA expressed by participants can reflect cultural, history-based assumptions about whose voice is heard at each stage (Lindley and Lotz-Sisitka, 2019, examining wetland management in Africa; Weaver et al., 2023, describing how participating in development led to a new agentic role). Power relations also have an impact in culturally and historically more homogeneous communities when, for example, professionals and their customers co-develop services. It has been observed that the customer’s voice is better heard if they downplay their experience, and that emphasizing the experience is more likely to lead to being ignored (Weiste et al., 2022).

We define climate agency as TA that focuses on climate change mitigation and adaptation. We investigated the emergence of collective climate agency using a short multiprofessional workshop process that was motivated by a moral-ethical vision of a sustainable future (an intellectually understood motive) but not pressured by the developmental phase of the activities. Based on earlier research, our starting point was that collective climate agency requires a conflict of motives or disturbances in everyday work, which leads to the awakening of TA and the further utilization of one’s own and others’ professional knowledge of joint climate-related development through multiprofessional collaboration. Our research question was: What kind of collective climate agency emerged in a brief multiprofessional intervention?

Our data came from a research project in which a primary school’s work community participated in an intervention that aimed to improve collective climate agency. The decision to participate was driven by the teachers’ desire to address sustainability. Approximately six teachers, an instructor, the principal, a nutrition service manager (NSM), a kitchen supervisor (KS) and a cleaning professional were invited to the process. No such multiprofessional forum had been previously utilized at the school.

The intervention was brief in design, making it easy for the participants to take part in it alongside their work. DWR methodology provided a framework for developing through ideating and conducting experiments. The intervention consisted of three workshops (WS) and interim tasks. Figure 1 presents the script, aims and tools of each WS. The participants were interviewed before and after the intervention.

The initial interviews revealed no specific disturbances (Engeström, 2015/1987) related to climate change in the professionals’ work. The interest in participating was primarily driven by common knowledge and moral-ethical considerations of environmental issues. WS1 thus focused on examining the current and near future of the professional groups’ work and how climate actions were integrated into these. Deviating from DWR interventions (Virkkunen and Newnham, 2013), WS1 started with an envisioning task to inspire the participants to imagine the sustainable school of the future. Next, the facilitators presented the results of the interviews and examples from the literature on topics on which the schools had focused in their climate work. The current and future states of different professionals’ work were analyzed using the Development Chart (Ahonen et al., 2020). As an interim task, the participants generated preliminary development ideas.

In WS2, the participants refined the development ideas, and selected three proposals for experiments: Sort Waste, Eliminate Food Waste and Choose Veggie (CV). During a three-month pilot phase, the participants put these experiments into practice. WS3 centered on evaluating the experiments and their development processes and on planning the next steps. Sort Waste and Eliminate Food Waste progressed to the implementation phase under considerable enthusiasm. CV’s idea of serving salad components separately to children led to an increase in vegetable consumption, but its main idea of enhancing vegetarian food encountered challenges. However, the participants remained positive, and generated ideas for further actions such as engaging families in the development process and influencing municipal decision-making.

Thus, despite setbacks and methodological deviations, the intervention appeared promising; the discussion was enthusiastic and focused on joint development. This prompted us to examine the emergence of collective climate agency in detail. We selected the challenging experiment, CV, for further analysis, because it evoked both critical comments and commitment.

The idea of CV was to introduce vegetarian meals to pupils and to increase the proportion of vegetarian options in school nutrition. The teachers advocated vegetarian food being served as the first option on both food lines. Meals were primarily prepared in the municipal central kitchen. During the experimentation phase, it became clear that the food distribution process was highly standardized, including its containers and carts. The full-scale implementation of CV required making changes to dishes, serving lines, transport carts and other equipment, which led to initial steps focusing on specific meals such as soups. Collaboration among the teachers, nutritionists, the municipal central kitchen and logistic services was essential for CV to be implemented.

The data consisted of recorded and transcribed discussions from the three WSs’ plenary discussions (∼3 h/WS). Prior to data collection, the research project underwent an ethical review by the authors’ affiliated institution. We informed the participants of their rights to voluntarily participate in the study verbally and in writing and obtained their written consent.

We read through all the data and discussed the overall expressions. As already noted, agency-awakening and learning are linked to motive conflicts and systemic contradictions, and often manifest as questioning (Sannino, 2022; Sannino and Engeström, 2017; Virkkunen, 2006). Thus, we studied the emergence of collective climate agency through the interaction chains of the challenging CV climate experiment.

The analysis consisted of several stages. First, we located the speech about CV by searching for sections that mentioned keywords such as “vegetarian” or “vegan.” The plan was to apply TA categories from previous literature (Haapasaari et al., 2016; Heikkilä and Seppänen, 2014) to classify the sections that we found. However, a review of the data highlighted that the professionals presented their expertise during the discussions and built collaboration through interaction. These aspects are essential for multiprofessional collaboration: the multiprofessional collective that the participants form should be capable of leveraging each other’s expertise for joint development (Edwards, 2005). We expanded the frame by incorporating two more categories. Building collaboration was the agency category for when one professional invited another to collaborate or offered supportive feedback, for example. The Providing a professional perspective category, on the other hand, was for when a specific feature of the speech content showed a person’s professional knowledge, facts or information related to professional experience. We also noticed that the speaking turns that expressed professional perspectives typically contained an expression of TA, such as questioning. Our final categorization of speaking turns was:

1. Questioning (resisting or criticizing, e.g. a topic or the WS).

2. Ideating (reflecting and envisioning possibilities and solutions).

3. Committing to actions (or development steps).

4. Reporting on actions (steps, actions or results).

5. Building collaboration (e.g. encouraging, expressing appreciation or inviting to collaborate).

6. Providing a professional perspective (referring to professional knowledge or experience).

First, both authors independently coded the data, then we compared our coding and resolved any differences through discussion. If a speaking turn contained elements from multiple agency categories, it was coded accordingly. We noted the speaker’s professional group to enable analysis of the collaboration between the professionals. If necessary, we verified the speaker’s profession by listening to the original audio recording.

The coding showed active participation in the WSs across all professional groups, and the number of agency expressions increased from WS1 to WS3. The share of each category varied by professional group: the teachers focused on ideation and collaboration, while the nutrition professionals contributed with professional perspectives, and questioned and committed to the actions. In particular, the NSM frequently questioned. In addition, questioning was most often accompanied by expressions of professional perspectives, but some expressions of ideation also included a professional perspective.

Questioning is central to TA and can reveal personal motive conflicts or disturbances in the activity caused by a systemic contradiction. As the nutrition service professionals often questioned, and the teachers expressed more building collaboration, we examined how collective climate agency was shaped through these different expressions of TA and professional perspectives. Our analysis continued by locating turning points (Haapasaari et al., 2016; Scahill and Bligh, 2022) in the agency expressions in relation to the CV experiment. Author 1 conducted this analysis and Author 2 reviewed and commented on the results section. When a turning point was located, it was examined as part of a larger speech segment: each utterance was examined in the context that contained the speech of both the participants and the facilitators. The length of the utterances varied from a few words to long summaries of group discussions. In this stage of the analysis, we identified a total of four turning points.

We describe the results of the analysis of these turning points (TP in this section) in chronological order and highlight the differences among the professional groups. The facilitators’ speaking turns were analyzed as part of the data to examine their role as promoters of the collective climate agency. Based on the descriptive result section, we answer the research question.

The following excerpts illustrate the four TPs in the emergence of collective climate agency, as examined through the expressions of TA and professional perspectives during the discussions in WSs 2 and 3. In the tables, the teachers’ speaker identifiers are workshop-specific and not speaker-specific. X marks an unidentified speaker. An omitted longer speech segment is marked by (- - -), to reduce sprawling discussion excerpts, for example, or overlapping speech that is not relevant to the analysis. Additions by authors are marked with parentheses [].

The discussion on CV had been preceded by the idea expressed by teachers in the WS1 (envisioning task: increasing the consumption of vegetarian food). The first TP (Table 1) occurred at the beginning of WS2 in the form of questioning by the NSM of both the intervention (the envisioning task) and the teachers’ idea (as being unrealistic). Table 1 shows how these critical, resistant viewpoints of the NSM regarding the vegetarian food initiative were silenced and softened by the teacher’s ideation and persuasive remarks. The facilitator eventually led the discussion to the following task in the WS2 script.

The second TP (Table 2) was marked by a shift in the NSM’s expressions from outright criticism to proposing alternatives during WS2. First, a teacher described the CV plan made during the group work. We interpret that the NSM was trying to find an alternative to CV by bringing up the tools already available in nutrition services: the printed menu and an electronic application that displays the menu and enables users to give feedback on the food. Eventually, one teacher committed to trying the application, for which the NSM was grateful. The facilitator led the discussion back to the next planning assignment, and the CV idea was not questioned any further.

After this, the teacher continued to present the development plan. We interpret the discussion that followed as reflecting the third TP, when CV became a shared object of development for both professional groups (Table 3). The NSM did not question CV any further but stated that vegetarian food was the first choice in some schools “as it should be nowadays.” This professional view indirectly indicated that the NSM believed the teachers were on the right track in promoting vegetarian food. Interestingly, the NSM then followed the CV and ideated how it could be implemented in the school with “certain foods.” They also emphasized the importance of increasing vegetable consumption instead of aiming for everyone switching to a vegetarian diet. A teacher questioned the NSM’s first proposal for implementing the service and appealed to the professional perspective of how the children would be able to take their food, after which they agreed with the NSM’s viewpoint that learning to taste vegetarian food was important.

We interpret that CV became a shared object of development during this discussion, but with the following specific features: the original idea was teacher-oriented and the NSM committed to but placed limitations on the implementation method and the original optimistic goal expressed by the teachers. The section ends with the facilitator supporting the idea that the order of the dishes is important, after which they indicated that the discussion phase was over by asking if anyone had any more comments.

The fourth TP (Table 4) occurred in WS3, i.e. in the evaluation phase. It was marked by expressions that we interpret as indicating that the leading role in the CV experiment had changed among the professional groups – because in practice the experiment required actions from nutrition services. Both the NSM and the KS committed to CV but the speech was strongly marked by the limitation that began in WS2. The statement that “soups and casseroles” should be placed first on the line was repeated several times. The NSM also questioned the CV experiment on the basis of professional experience again by saying that the placement of the dishes on the line might not affect consumption. They also repeated all the obstacles caused by the current infrastructure: the dishes and transport trolleys making it difficult or impossible to implement the experiment. The NSM’s expressions were somewhat internally dilemmatic. Speaking turns expressing both questioning and ideating occurred. The teacher, on the other hand, expressed building collaboration by showing their approval of the limitations and expressing empathy regarding the workload caused by the experimenting. The teachers’ playful statement about CV being a ‘their dream without considering practical restrictions’ served to diminish their own role and was indirect acknowledgement of the professional knowledge of the nutrition professionals.

The discussion continued as the nutrition professionals and the teachers co-ideated implementation and alternative practices. The nutrition professionals also pondered the CV practices from the pupils’ viewpoint (e.g. the risk of eating allergenic food); i.e. their questioning expressions contained a new kind of professional perspective. The teachers shared the concern and subtly questioned the implementation of CV. The facilitator eventually ended the discussion on CV and moved to discuss another experiment. Table 4 shows two excerpts of this long discussion.

WS3 aimed to evaluate and further develop practices on the basis of the experiences of the experiments. Later in WS3, the facilitator stated that CV was the experiment that most needed further development. The NSM questioned this viewpoint, underlining the commitment to experimenting with “soups and casseroles” – i.e. the limited commitment continued. The facilitator reminded the participants about the unanswered questions on the implementation of CV and the practices that may be challenging for the pupils. They also took part in ideating by trying to find solutions. The CV experiment initiated by the teachers or its limited implementation initiated by the nutrition services was no longer questioned.

Eventually, everyone expressed their commitment to experimenting but within the limitations discussed. The participants agreed to inform all the teachers and to make information sheets to put on the food line. In between the speaking turns expressing commitment, the building of collaboration was expressed – now primarily in the form of direct questions about the division of tasks and responsibilities. At the end of the WS, the professionals, guided by the task given by the facilitators, praised and acknowledged each other. On the basis of the TP trajectory presented above, we now answer the research question.

The trajectory showed that both professional groups eventually committed to CV, but their agency in developing the experiment differed. CV was ideated by the teachers, who also used various expressions of building collaboration, such as indirect persuasion and emphasizing others’ professional expertise, to sustain the CV idea. The agency of the nutrition professionals, especially the NSMs, emerged in WS2 and was largely built on questioning, which initially consisted of direct resistance of the idea of the experiment and the WS task that produced it, and later shifted to criticism of the implementation method of CV. However, the NSM’s expressions changed during WS2 from questioning to ideating, i.e. trying to find alternatives to CV, and eventually committing to the experiment, but placing limitations on the options of implementing CV by referring to the current practices and equipment of nutrition services. The facilitators took care of the timetable and often returned the discussion to the WS script; they also participated in ideating and reminded the other participants of the unresolved details in the implementation of CV. The role of the teachers’ expressions in building collaboration changed from softening and minimizing their own role (WS2) to clear invitations to act and share the tasks initiated by the nutrition professionals (WS3). The role of professional perspectives in this case was to highlight the speaker’s reasons for questioning or sometimes also ideation. The participants did not ask for the professional perspectives of other professionals.

Four turning points (TP) occurred in agency expressions. Through these, CV became a shared object for climate-related development – in this sense, a multiprofessional collective emerged that shared professional perspectives (Edwards, 2005; Engeström, 2015/1987). However, TPs raise the question of what kind of TA is involved from the perspective of CHAT and potential expansive learning: did the intervention address a motive conflict or the disturbances caused by a systemic contradiction (Sannino, 2022; Virkkunen, 2006)? We interpret that the NSM’s expressions indicated a personally experienced motive conflict between their role as manager of nutrition services and the offered role as a co-developer in a multiprofessional intervention (Engeström and Sannino, 2011). The motive to collaborate with teachers clashed with their knowledge of the realities of nutrition services and their view of the effectiveness of CV formed from previous experience. This motive conflict emerged when the first attempts to resist (TP1) and then offer alternatives to CV (TP2) received no support. Thus, in TP3, CV became a shared object of development, but NSM expressed commitment by limiting the original idea. We claim that the later repetition of the limitation (TP4) by the NSM and the KS was an attempt to ensure consensus on the implementation of CV within the prevailing framework of the kitchen’s operating model. Thus, TPs 3 and 4 led to the narrowing of the original experiment idea (Haapasaari et al., 2016; Scahill and Bligh, 2022).

Thus, the intervention, which began with only an intellectually understood motive (Virkkunen, 2006), brought a personal motive conflict to the surface (Sannino, 2022). However, it was not successfully facilitated by double stimulation to reveal a systemic contradiction. Consequently, what was criticized was the experiment’s idea – not the structures of teaching or the nutrition services. The experiment was an innovation of the teaching activity, which became a disturbance to the current mass-production-style organization of school meals from the perspective of nutrition services (Engeström, 2015/1987). Thus, although the intervention involved collective agency, it did not lead to a qualitative change in the way the participants perceived their current work (Engeström, 2015/1987; Virkkunen and Newnham, 2013). The experiment was narrowed down to such a degree that it did not force them to go beyond their existing practices. In this sense, the intervention did not make TA lead to expansive learning (Virkkunen and Newnham, 2013).

We identify a few reasons for this. The facilitators were more oriented toward effectively conducting the concise intervention (Clottes Heikkilä and Kurki, 2024) and supporting the participants’ joint experimenting than toward the rigorous analysis of prevailing practices. This was evident in the way in which the facilitators returned the discussion to the scripted task or suggested ideas for implementing the experiment. The teachers were skilled in building collaboration by using various speaking turns that diminished their own expertise (Weiste et al., 2022) or empathized with the others’ situation. Using these means, they played a part in facilitating the discussion (Clottes Heikkilä and Kurki, 2024; Virkkunen and Newnham, 2013). The teachers’ expressions also reflected “knowing how to know who” (Edwards, 2005) in the intervention setting, as their implementation of CV depended on the nutrition service professionals. These expressions challenged the NSM to resolve the motive conflict through compromise rather than continuing to question CV. The participants may also have perceived the starting point of the intervention and thus their power to speak and contribute in different ways (Lindley and Lotz-Sisitka, 2019). It is noteworthy that the turning points occurred during a very short intervention, which had only three workshops. The emergence of collective agency, and especially a new kind of understanding of the logic of the work activities, often takes more time (Sannino and Engeström, 2017; Spante et al., 2022).

Together, these aspects formed an intervention in which a good atmosphere and a general need for the ethically and morally justified development of work overrode the manifestations of motive conflict in the speech, and thus the identification of a more systemic contradiction. Only through addressing questioning and explicitly working through motive conflict could school meals have been conceptualized and organized in a new way that would creatively combine the motives of education and the nutrition services, as well as overcome the contradictions of the activity. However, this would probably also have required expanding the intervention at the municipal level. Based on these interpretations, we argue that during this brief, intellectually understood developmental motive-based intervention, a multiprofessional, but not necessarily transformative, collective agency emerged.

The need to mitigate and adapt to climate change is transforming the workplace, as it requires the ability to integrate professional expertise in novel ways (Edwards, 2005; Teperi et al., 2025). Work communities could play an important role in climate action, as they present a type of local interest group (Moilanen and Alasoini, 2023; Thiele, 2016) between the more investigated levels of societal policymaking and the individual consumer. We explored how collective climate agency emerged through a brief DWR-based intervention (Engeström, 2015/1987; Virkkunen and Newnham, 2013) that was motivated by a moral-ethical understanding rather than a motive conflict or disturbances in participants’ work (Sannino, 2022; Virkkunen, 2006). We analyzed the emergence of agency by applying a modified framework of TA expressions (Haapasaari et al., 2016) and the concept of turning point (Haapasaari et al., 2016; Scahill and Bligh, 2022).

During the intervention, the work community evolved into a multiprofessional collective with a shared climate-oriented object of development on a practical level. However, because the motive conflict that emerged during the intervention was not jointly analyzed in detail, the developmental experiment did not challenge the current practices and the logics of the work activities in question. The process was influenced by both the facilitators’ orientation toward following the intervention’s script (Clottes Heikkilä and Kurki, 2024) and supporting joint experimenting, and the participants’ speaking turns aiming to build collaboration by persuading and downplaying their own role (Weiste et al., 2022). Therefore, TA in the activity-theoretical sense of the term (Sannino, 2022; Virkkunen, 2006) – agency that has the potential to generate collective expansive learning (Engeström, 2015/1987) – did not emerge.

The results support those of previous studies showing that the formation of a collective agency and a new logic of activity that transcends systemic contradictions take time (Sannino and Engeström, 2017; Spante et al., 2022). They underline the importance of the development phase of the activity (Sannino and Engeström, 2017) and the manifestation of motive conflict in the formation of collective TA. However, we argue that our results do not mean that the opportunity for collective climate agency is unnecessary if disturbances and motive conflicts have not yet exacerbated the situation at work. Rather, they reveal development challenges and opportunities for intervention methodology and facilitation.

DWR methodology has so far been developed to respond to complex societal challenges in multiactor settings. It aims to promote solutions by catalyzing local innovation and broader societal decision-making in parallel (Sannino and Engeström, 2018). Such interventions have already been carried out in different countries, in transdisciplinary development settings, for example (e.g. Lotz-Sisitka et al., 2017; McClure et al., 2023; Sannino and Engeström, 2018; Sannino et al., 2018). However, because of the intensified pace of work, not all workplaces have the resources to participate in long processes (Mauno et al., 2023). Climate change offers at least an intellectually understood motive (Virkkunen, 2006) for joint development through, for example, an internal sense of moral and ethical duty.

Our case suggests that an intervention focusing on experimentation that unites the professional groups of a workplace offer one way to bring motive conflict to the surface, even if the initial situation lacks strong push and pull for development (Sannino and Engeström, 2017). The questioning of the ideas and implementation of an experiment is not an obstacle to development – it generates TA (Haapasaari et al., 2016; Sannino, 2022). Especially in brief interventions, facilitators should notice and have the courage to stop when questioning arises, and to guide participants toward even a rough historical analysis (Engeström, 2015/1987; Virkkunen and Newnham, 2013) of their work. Otherwise, a motive conflict and thus, a window into systemic contradiction, may be missed. The intervention may then rely on more randomly selected experiments instead of allowing the collective to create a new understanding of the activity, which would also make it easier to generate new solutions after the intervention.

The modified analytical frame contained professional perspective and building collaboration categories. Applying these raised the issue of the power dynamics and role expectations of the professional groups in the intervention. Collective climate agency does not consist of only critically ideating and experimenting climate-friendly practices. It also requires active incorporation of expertise and the building of collaboration (Edwards, 2005; Teperi et al., 2025). These aspects have not so far been actively examined as expression categories in relation to the emergence of TA in DWR interventions. The power dynamics between professional groups should be considered when planning interventions, and the construction of the collaboration during process should be consciously examined (Haapasaari, 2020; Weiste et al., 2022). The discussion may proceed in “good spirits and enthusiasm,” which may be taken as a sign of a successful intervention. However, a detailed analysis can show how different expressions minimizing one’s own competence or emphasizing the competence of another professional affect the progress of experiments (Weiste et al., 2022).

Thus, even in brief interventions, development topics that participants can easily influence can be ideated (McClure et al., 2023). However, climate change is a problem that cannot be addressed by development that maintains work activities’ familiar boundaries – new solutions that combine professional expertise are essential. Radical development requires not only the formation of a multiprofessional collective, but also collective TA that breaks the boundaries of current practices. We argue that such promotion of agency through brief processes is important to arouse motive conflicts that may ultimately encourage work communities to even transcend to the boundaries of organizations and hierarchies (cf. heterogeneous coalitions, Sannino and Engeström, 2018).

Due to practical obstacles, the recorded data lacked the small group discussions in the WSs. The analysis focused on one of three experiments and on further developing analysis methods to examine the formation of collective climate agency. In the future, it would be useful to examine all the experiments created in an intervention.

Multiprofessional work communities can play the important role of collective climate actors in the production of local solutions to a global challenge. This brief DWR-based intervention promoted experimentation and highlighted the importance of professional perspectives as well as building collaboration as part of climate actions. However, such brief processes require facilitators to be alert and responsive when questioning expressions arise. This enables reaching the core of motive conflict and systemic contradictions, and the creation of experiments that truly transform work into a more sustainable future.

The authors are grateful to the reviewers for their valuable feedback, which significantly helped us improve the quality of the manuscript. AI was used for translating the text and the data excerpts for the text. These were then checked by a native English-speaking professional language editor. The overall content and analysis are the authors’ own work.

The authors also thank their funder, the Finnish Work Environment Fund, for making this research possible.