Abstract: Urban communities often encounter challenges in environmental governance, such as insufficient resident participation and a lack of public space management. The promotion of community-based environmental governance collectives emerges as an important strategy for addressing deficiencies in multi-stakeholder collaboration and the persistence of effective governance mechanisms. Utilizing Y Community in Guangzhou as a case study, this study conducted participatory action research to investigate a multi-stakeholder community garden co-construction initiative. Adopting the analytical framework of “space–participation–empowerment”, this study examines the practical process through which environmental social work intervenes in the construction of community-based environmental governance collectives. The findings show that the logic of environmental social work practice has shifted from a “linear” task progression to a “closed-loop” mechanism. Internal coordination and external linkage are identified as primary relationship strategies that facilitate relationship adjustment and resource transformation among multiple stakeholders. On this basis, an evaluation model for assessing the effectiveness of community-based environmental governance collectives is constructed, encompassing three dimensions: spatial production, stakeholder participation, and social work services.

Key words: environmental social work, community garden, community environmental governance, participatory action research