CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVES
In the transformation of the energy system, citizens are becoming increasingly important as engaged, involved and shaping participants. This role of participatory energy consumers is reflected in the term “energy citizen”. ENCLUDE aims to share new knowledge and motivate the broadest possible population to contribute to the energy transition.
This transdisciplinary project will create a typology of the energy citizenship concept for diverse communities of citizens by investigating on-the-ground case studies of existing decarbonization activities. For the first time, insights about who is affected by energy citizenship and how this concept might affect decarbonization pathways will be incorporated into new models of managing and interacting with the energy system. The research aims to therefore operationalize the energy citizenship concept at multiple scales of policy and decision making.
MISSION MODALITIES
The concept of « energy citizenship” is not yet a fixed and scientific approved concept. It rests on the idea that citizens have a particular relationship, a particular link with the energy system but that relation can have many forms. Three workpackages will focus their research on understanding and developing this concept : how is it used and explained so far, how does it express from an individual point of view, and how does it express from a collective point of view. Another member of the consortium will design models showing how the different forms of energy citizenship could lead to decarbonization pathways.
Aside this more theoretical and research oriented missions, the project want to be linked with on-the-ground activities through the creation of the ENCLUDE Academy for Energy Citizen Leadership, that Missions Publiques will design and animate. The Enclude Academy will be composed of more than 50 stakeholders, active in the field of energy and who wants to develop this concept of energy citizenship within their own communities. The program aims to help people that are interested in making a change in their own communities to reduce carbon emissions. It is for people who want support in realizing concrete ideas they already have related to the energy transition or those who would like to find that idea. The envisioned impact of this program is to launch a bottom-up mobilization of energy citizenship by training influential individuals that can help change energy behaviors and engage other citizens in the transition.
ADDED VALUE OF THE APPROACH
Enclude starts with the assumption that citizens and civil society have a role in the energy transition and are able to fill the gap that the public authorities have left in managing the energy system. It reverses the balance of power and the current acknowledgement that those issues must be solved only by the public authorities. There is a willingness to empower the citizens to get interest, create and develop local solutions and retake control on the energy’s stake. Accordingly, it will lead to a new concept of citizenship, of empowerment that could be compared with the political citizenship.
The Energy Citizens for Inclusive Decarbonization (ENCLUDE) project addresses the need to better define, contextualize, and integrate energy citizenship into decision making processes by acknowledging and including different types of knowledge from diverse groups in order to co-produce strategies for mobilizing and scaling up energy citizenship initiatives for inclusive energy transitions. Through the implementation of a mixed-method and transdisciplinary research framework, ENCLUDE aims to rethink and redesign engagement processes between government, business, civil society organizations, and citizens for a decarbonized future for and by all.
« The Changemaker’s Guide to the Energy Transition », un livre de jeu qui vise à amener les citoyens, étape par étape, à concevoir, mettre en œuvre et réfléchir à une initiative qui leur est propre et qui est liée à la transition énergétique.
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