Essential elements at play in local environmental policy change: A guide for the perplexed

•Empirical studies report three types of factors linked to local policy change: governance, environment and innovation design.•Most factors are common to multiple theories; change agency and social context are common to all.•Other factors shared by nearly all theories are power, organizational capacity and natural environmental conditions.•Two theories – the Advocacy Coalition Framework and the Multilevel Perspective – include the most factors studied.•Convergence is apparent in the empirical and theoretical work, giving us a holistic understanding of how local change occurs.