Of expertise, social capital, and democracy: Assessing the organizational governance and decision-making in German Renewable Energy Cooperatives

Brummer, Vasco

doi:10.1016/j.erss.2017.09.039

Cited by 61 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…For example, KfW, the German government‐owned development bank, provides low interest loans distributed through networks of local and regional banks which have been instrumental in the growth of locally and cooperatively owned renewable energy in Germany (Hall et al, ). There were almost 1,000 renewable energy cooperatives in Germany in 2014 (Brummer & Herbes, )—a significant growth from 136 cooperatives 6 years earlier (Hoppe et al, ).…”

Section: The Statementioning

confidence: 99%

Community energy: Entanglements of community, state, and private sector

et al. 2018

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The decarbonisation of energy systems is leading to a reconfiguration of the geographies of energy. One example is the emergence of community energy, which has become a popular object of study for geographers. Although widely acknowledged to be a contested, capacious, and flexible term, "community energy" is commonly presented as singular, bounded, and localised. In this paper, we challenge this conception of community energy by considering evidence about the role and influence of three categories of actors: community, state, and private sector. We demonstrate how community energy projects are unavoidably entangled with a diversity of actors and institutions operating at and across multiple scales. We therefore argue that community energy is enabled and constituted by trans-scalar assemblages of overlapping actors, which demands multi-sectoral participation and coordination. We point to the need for further academic attention on the boundaries between these actors to better understand the role of different intermediary practices and relationships in facilitating the development of decentralised energy systems with just outcomes.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Section: The Statementioning

confidence: 99%

Community energy: Entanglements of community, state, and private sector

et al. 2018

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“…Taking a larger sample of cities and investigating in the reasons for not participating in the governance scheme might deliver valuable further insights. It should also be noted, that our review focused formal and public governance, while it only skim-reads other forms of governance like societal self-governance such as energy cooperatives or self-sustained energy regions [99][100][101][102][103][104]. Whereas both are less developed in the field of energy efficiency, a follow-up analysis would be beneficial.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tele-Coupling Energy Efficiency Polices in Europe: Showcasing the German Governance Arrangements

Ringel

2018

Sustainability

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Climate change entails many situations of tele-coupling. We analyze an example in the field of European climate and energy policy. The EU aims at an almost full decarbonisation of its economy by 2050. Achieving this objective asks for transforming the energy sectors of EU Member States. These are responsible for 80% of carbon emissions. Further to this policy coupling, the EU transformation objectives have to be implemented by the Member States, regions and local actors. This proves especially complex in the field of energy efficiency. Here, a variety of policy instruments and actors are in place. In our contribution, we investigate in the question how multi-level governance arrangements in the energy efficiency field are designed. We focus on Germany as example for a federal state setting. Our review method comprises literature content analysis, primary sources, expert interviews and an in-depth screening of the German Sustainable Energy Action Plans. We find that formal vertical coordination has been successfully backed up by horizontal and especially informal governance mechanisms, leading to a model of polycentric governance. This model might serve as blueprint for other multi-level governance arrangements. Yet, we find that the "last mile" of this coordination still needs strengthening: Local actors need more active engaging and empowering to reap the full potential of the governance arrangements.

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“…Scholars are increasingly applying and assessing the HSDA within research projects to gain conceptual knowledge about sustainability transformations and to publish their results in books or peer-reviewed journals (Gonzales 2010;Guillen-Royo 2016;Lamb and Steinberger 2017;Brand-Correa et al 2018;Vita et al 2019). In the RECs case, for instance, the results were fed into a scientific debate on energy cooperatives as niche players and change agents for sustainability transformations (Huybrechts and Mertens 2014;Brummer 2018;Centgraf 2018). With her HSDA research, Guillen-Royo contributes conceptual knowledge to the scientific discourse on sustainable consumption (Guillen-Royo 2020).…”

Section: Research Orientationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing the quality of transformative science methods: the example of the Human Scale Development approach

Spiering

Barrera

2021

Sustain Sci

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Scholars and funding bodies alike are increasingly calling for transformative research that delivers socially robust and impact-oriented outcomes. This paper argues that the Human Scale Development approach (HSDA) introduced by Max-Neef and colleagues in Latin America during the 1980s can serve as a method for transformative science (TSc). HSDA is both a theory and a participatory methodology and thus contributes toward fulfilling the objectives of TSc, which are scientific, practical and educational. In this paper, we begin by explicating how the fundamental human needs (FHN) approach of the HSDA can support scholars and practitioners alike in addressing complex sustainability challenges. We then refer to the methodological adaptations to the original proposal that we have previously developed to illustrate how Max-Neef's methodological approach might be further extended and to demonstrate how these changes can strengthen HSDA and make it even more useful for generating knowledge needed in sustainability transformations. To inform and support research that builds on the co-production of knowledge, we test HSDA with regard to TSc quality criteria and show how it adds value to the existing canon of TSc methods. To this end, we develop an analytical framework that can be deployed to assess the quality of TSc methods.

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Of expertise, social capital, and democracy: Assessing the organizational governance and decision-making in German Renewable Energy Cooperatives

Cited by 61 publications

References 27 publications

Community energy: Entanglements of community, state, and private sector

Community energy: Entanglements of community, state, and private sector

Tele-Coupling Energy Efficiency Polices in Europe: Showcasing the German Governance Arrangements

Testing the quality of transformative science methods: the example of the Human Scale Development approach

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