Main Objective
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.
Specific Objectives
Develop a validated typology of energy citizenship at multiple scales (local, regional, national, supranational) and within an inclusive range of cultural, social, economic, and political contexts.
Reach an integrated understanding of the individual and collective factors that lead to the emergence and consolidation of energy citizenship. Through the analyses of group dynamic processes, ENCLUDE will integrate individual and collective factors for understanding the emergence and consolidation of energy citizenship through studying cognitive norms, energy practices material culture, and group dynamic actions.
Assess the decarbonization potential of energy citizenship based on an improved understanding of energy citizenship types, an identification of clusters of citizens, and through the emergence and consolidation of factors of energy citizenship. ENCLUDE will integrate qualitative factors governing energy decision-making and practices into the design of decarbonization pathways. We bring together the outputs from O1 into an ensemble of models including agent-based, demand-side management, and integrated assessment models. With this integration, we quantify decarbonization pathway potentials and determine the trade-offs between the drivers, barriers, uncertainties, and impacts of energy citizenship.
Create context-appropriate guidelines for local and regional policymakers that help to mobilize an inclusive range of stakeholders for decarbonization. Through an online, interactive platform, with information offered on the basis of the needs and context of the reader, the guidelines will support policy and decision-makers, who want to mobilize citizens for decarbonization from diverse communities. The content of the platform will be a synthesis of ENCLUDE outcomes that is refined and co-created through citizen engagement.
Develop novel forms of citizen engagement that support co-creation and effective implementation. Based on the insights on energy citizenship from ENCLUDE and further literature review of collective action strategies, a 5-module program will be developed to train 50 citizens from around the EU and internationally, recruited especially from regions with little decarbonization activity. These participants will launch their own community initiatives after the program.
Provide participants not only with new knowledge but also capture and document participants’ experiences and knowledge in order to promote learning across different countries and regions to improve future training materials and research questions. The participants of the ENCLUDE school for energy citizen leadership will become a network of “decarbonization ambassadors”, who will spread the knowledge of energy citizenship to seed future collective action.