Collective support in livestock sectors is a major issue to face sustainable transitions (Lema et al, 2021, Scotti et al, 2023), but it raises complex questions about practical implementation in sectors under GI (Dernat et al, 2022).ADAoPT project wants to mobilise the whole GI collective in French cheese sectors. Six pilot GIs are aiming to design and implement their own collective strategy to face transitions. The mobilisation methods used range on two metrics: i) from a large organisation scale covering the whole GI’s territory to small local working group, ii) from a focal on technical issues to a global understanding. A transversal analysis was set up to follow the GIs.This project shows the difficulty of mobilising GIs actors, despite the diversity of participatory methods used. Results show that several parameters inherent in GIs limits the support:•The geographical extent of some of the GIs and the inherent heterogeneity of production systems and climatic conditions.•The lack of clear governance (traditional top-down organisation), which usually delegates the investigation of a topic to a non-representative working group.•Most of the levers for adaptation are related to production, which faces challenges in engaging in sector-wide debates due to political and socio-economic obstacles.•The dependence on processors, who can restrict the choices made by the sector and farers.•The overlap between the players providing support in the territories, generating an over-solicitation on similar subjects but pursuing different goals.This work highlights the need to develop support methods that will make it easier for collectives under GI to act.