The paper suggests the ‘middle out’ as an additional, and sometimes alternative approach to ’bottom-up’ and ’ top-down’ efforts to drive low carbon innovations and practices in society. Individuals are often seen by policy makers as the target agents for changing their own behaviour. To induce bottom-up change in energy demand patterns, governmental and non-governmental organizations have produced information tools such as carbon calculators, real-time feedback, and media based campaigns encourage individuals to reduce their carbon emissions voluntarily. At the same time, government employs top-down regulatory approaches to reduce emissions. These are being demonstrated in the introduction of market mechanisms (e.g. emissions trading [...]