How policies can put people at the heart of energy transitions

SONNET and three of its sister projects are proud to present a Joint Policy Brief on how policy makers can better put people at the heart of energy transitions.

Today, in the highlight session of the Putting people at the heart of energy transitions conference, SONNET joined its sister projects SocialRES, COMETS and NEWCOMERS to present a joint policy brief to the European Commission. This Policy Brief draws on three years of in-depth research by the four projects to present evidence-based recommendations and insights on how to centre people for successful energy transitions.

The Policy Brief was presented by Alessandro Sciullo and Winston Gilcrease (COMETS), Mark Andor (NEWCOMERS), Regina Betz (SONNET), and Jan Fjornes (SocialRES). Following its presentation, an esteemed panel responded to the Brief – namely: Charlotte Koot (DG CLIMA), Dirk Vansintjan (REScoop.eu), Sascha Gabizon (WECF International), Laurent Bontoux (European Joint Research Centre), and Cristiana Marchitelli (DG ENER).

This Policy Brief draws on concrete research that looks across governance levels – with citizen survey, experiences from local governments, case studies at the country level, and EU-level policy research.

During her presentation, Cristiana Marchitelli, Policy Officer at DG ENER expands on why this is so critical, saying: “I want to point out how crucial it is to have multi-governance initiatives to drive social innovation together”.

It was heartening to see that the Joint Policy Brief was universally welcomed by our European panellists. We look forward to seeing it used to chart a pathway forward for a sustainable and people-centred energy future.

Read the Joint Policy Brief now at: bit.ly/JointPolicyBrief.