This proposal is based on an investigation carried out as part of a study entitled “Localizing ecological, democratic and social transitions”, funded by the TEES programme of ADEME. The aim of our project is to study ecological, democratic and social transitions as a whole, by examining the measures that aim to enlarge the groups participating in public debates and decision-making and in transition trials. To this end, we have been able to monitor the work of a Life project - the Local Energy Transition Strategies Going for Climate Change - carried out under the auspices of the French Centre-Val de Loire region in partnership with ADEME, with funding for the period 2021 to 2025. The aim of this project is to speed up energy transition by encouraging the collective appropriation of energy issues by local stakeholders. More concretely, the aim is to set up a system of citizen involvement every year for three years, in the form of collective actions in six areas (groups of municipalities) within the Region. The aim of the “collective intelligence” training programmes and workshops and of the support of the project leaders is to train groups of citizens who will set up actions for energy sobriety or production. This enhanced role of community groups and local collectives can be found in numerous domains of public action for the environment and ecological transition. However, putting this aim into practical action is generally achieved by aid provided on a thematic rather than a regional basis through a call for projects for existing collectives. This Life project takes a different approach, involving the creation of new citizen groups by putting workshop participants in contact with “inspiring” initiatives. By offering so-called “sobriety” initiatives, the aim of this project is not only to create citizen energy communities, but also to develop actions in different domains of energy and ecological transition (housing, mobility, consumption, food, re-use). One of the interests of the Life project for our research is that it makes it possible to take a different viewpoint of the incentive measures and of the expected effects of collective action. Our investigation through the project 376 leaders and the workshop participants provides us with a way of viewing the situation upstream of the action and of examining the ways and means of encouraging commitment, how this is seen by the participants, and the difficulties of getting the new groups involved in concrete actions. Our proposed text is organized around two main questions: 1) How do the effects of incentive measures for collective engagement vary in different socio-spatial contexts? 2) Does calling on citizen involvement have an effect of politicization or depoliticization of environmental issues?