This session aimed to bring together social science energy researchers interested in gaining an understanding of the various ways in which energy citizenship affects the clean-energy transition process across Europe. Approximately 40 attendees participated in the 90-minute workshop, which adopted a Q&A style format after the presentations. All the projects featured at this event are funded under the EU H2020 programme.
Each of these projects is proposing a different, but mutually complementary definition of energy citizenship:
- In DIALOGUES, energy citizenship is the degree to which, and the ways in which, the goals of a sustainable energy transition enter into the everyday practices of an individual. Energy citizenship can be shown through individual and collective actions, or felt internally through reflection and concern.
- In EC2, energy citizenship is people’s rights to and responsibilities for a just and sustainable energy transition.
- ENCLUDE wants to develop a definition from the ground up through the Delphi approach. It has no working definition yet.
- Energy citizenship is defined in EnergyPROSPECTS in the following way: "energy citizenship refers to forms of civic involvement that pertain to the development of a more sustainable and democratic energy system. Beyond its manifest forms, energy citizenship also comprises various latent forms: it is an ideal that can be lived up to and realised to varying degrees, according to different framework conditions and states of empowerment."
- According to GRETA, energy citizenship means that citizens actively participate in taking action towards climate neutrality. This can take many forms, from homeowners opting for renewable energy solutions or electric vehicles, to participation in energy communities or advocating for change on a global scale. For GRETA energy citizenship is individual and social. Its emergence rest on interdependences of collective and individual behaviours.
EnergyPROSPECTS presentations:
- Title: "EnergyPROSPECTS: Conceptualizing "ENCI"", Presenter: Dr Bonno Pel, ULB
- Title: "EnergyPROSPECTS: Towards an ENCI typology", Presenters: Martina Schäfer and Ariane Debourdeau, TUB, Germany
The project objectives are similar, but approaches are very different. We are looking forward to see cross-fertilization of results since they will be drawn from different contexts all over Europe. Energy citizenship is not inclusive by definition, it is important that different projects look at this from different angles and in different contexts. In order to collaborate, there will be an alliance of sister projects created.
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