Yesterday, I was given four in-cohesive minutes to respond to the question, "Can the transition to a sustainable future can be locally led?". This is what I said:
First off, an observation: from a climate change mitigation point of view, it's not going particularly well. At least, if the yardstick of (dis-)progress is to be measured by human greenhouse gas emissions (the size of the actual flux of CO2 into the atmosphere).
In connection with my MSc thesis I am interning at Scene to develop an initial version of a framework to measure the socio-economic benefits of community renewables. My thesis aims to be a starting point for a potentially larger research project on the assessment of the socio-economic impacts of community renewables to be carried out by Emily Creamer (Edinburgh University) and Anna Harnmeijer (Scene).
From feasibility to construction - Scene have supported the development of a micro-hydro scheme in the Scottish Highlands, with the scheme recieving official FiT pre-accreditation in December 2014.
Since the end of November I have been in India along with my colleague, Anna Harnmeijer. We are working on a project, seed-funded through the Scottish Government International Development Small Grants Programme. This is the first field trip in a three year long project which aims to pilot a communications solution for degrading renewable energy projects in rural parts of the state of Odisha.
The following is an excerpt from Scene's Scottish Community Energy Policy Statement Draft consultation response, written by Vijay Bhopal.
The Dutch Research Institute for Transitions takes us through their transitions management approach to achieving transformative sustainability initiatives, based on their recent experiences with five cities around the world. Representing Scotland was Aberdeen City Council, who undertook a school energy efficiency project and the 'Celebrate the Street' initiative, as well as numerous other projects.
My colleagues are going to hate me for posting this, but ... well, I'm not Elon Musk*, okay? So here's a bit of a beginnings for constraints on the future of renewables. And when I say 'beginnings' I mean 'beginnings'! If one wants to do this properly one needs to start with so-called 'boundary conditions' and work inwards from there.
A report from Scene's free community energy workshops, attended by community groups, councils & civic societies from all over Scotland. A productive introduction to community renewables, where attendees discussed and developed their energy ideas and projects with staff from Scene, Local Energy Scotland and Fintry Renewable Energy Enterprise, amongst others.
Community Energy Fortnight is almost upon us. As part of these promotion of the series of events, in which we are running a workshop. I answered from questions in an interview with Blue and Green Tomorrow.
An approachable bunch of theorists, empiricists, and some practitioners from various fields convened at the 5th International Sustainability Transitions Conference in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Most of the influential thinkers in the field were there, partaking in a carefully designed programme that centered on developments at the fringes of the fields of ‘sustainability transitions’ and ‘technology innovation systems’ research. The programme was a testament to just how much has happened in the last decade since transitions theory was first introduced as a theory of socio-technical change.
