Social Capital and Mutual Versus Public Benefit: The Case of Renewable Energy Cooperatives

Bauwens, Thomas; Defourny, Jacques

doi:10.1111/apce.12166

Cited by 41 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 77 publications

(77 reference statements)

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“…The social dimension of renewable energy has a large and growing literature (Table A1), which has traditionally been strongly dominated by UK based researchers and case studies, though this is now beginning to change (see e.g., Pepermans and Loots, 2013;Becker and Kunze, 2014;Magnani and Osti, 2016;Bauwens and Defourny, 2017;Szulecki, 2018 etc.). As a separate research strand, it has its roots in research around the social acceptance of large energy projects like wind farms.…”

Section: Social Innovation In Community Energymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The role of social capital is examined by Bauwens and Defourny (2017), in their study of renewable energy cooperatives in Belgium. They consider three different forms of social capital: social identification with the cooperative, generalized interpersonal trust and network structure, and conclude that while moving toward a mutual benefit model, focusing on meeting member's needs, e.g., by supplying green electricity, may allow community energy organizations to increase their size, impact and financial stability, social capital may become diluted as a result.…”

Section: Social Innovation In Community Energymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some cooperatives may be less egalitarian than CDTs, in the sense that the cooperative structure relies on delivering return to individual investors rather than investing in projects for the whole community, like CDTs and CICs (Harnmeijer et al, 2018). This distinction is comparable to the "public versus mutual benefit" dichotomy identified by Bauwens and Defourny (2017) in their analysis of energy cooperatives in Belgium.…”

Section: Community Development Trustsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These include both the supply REScoops, who tend to focus mostly on providing renewable electricity to their members (a public benefit model, e.g., IT20, BE12, SP2) as well as those that place more emphasis on generating return on investments to their members, like the wind cooperatives in Sweden and solar cooperatives in Germany (a mutual benefit model e.g., BE1, SW46, GE29). Bauwens and Defourny (2017) have suggested that social capital, defined as social identification with the cooperative, generalized interpersonal trust, and network structure, may be weaker in the former cooperative type than in the latter, and we have thus separated step 6 into two parts to account for this important distinction. Clearly, there is a great deal of overlap here, as social capital seems to be dependent on size, thus large Swedish wind cooperatives like Dala Vindkraft (SW7) are placed on Step 6a, and small-scale initiatives like Udny (UK 6) on Step 6b.…”

Section: The Agency Of Civil Societymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…is likely to increase social capital under the definition given by Bauwens and Defourny (2017). In step 7, the place-based nature of the initiatives becomes paramount, and their size is generally small and local.…”

Section: Phase III Community Energy Social Innovationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social Innovation in Community Energy in Europe: A Review of the Evidence

et al. 2019

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Citizen-driven Renewable Energy (RE) projects of various kinds, known collectively as community energy (CE), have an important part to play in the worldwide transition to cleaner energy systems. On the basis of evidence from 8 European countries, we investigate CE, over approximately the last 50 years (c.1970-2018), through the lens of Social Innovation (SI). We carry out a detailed review of literature around the social dimension of renewable energy; we collect, describe and map CE initiatives from Belgium, and the UK; and we unpack the SI concept into 4 operational criteria which we suggest are essential to recognizing SI in CE. These are: (1) Crises and opportunities; (2) the agency of civil society; (3) reconfiguration of social practices, institutions and networks; (4) new ways of working. We identify three main phases of SI in CE. The environmental movements of the 1960s and the "oil shocks" of the 1970s provided the catalyst for a series of innovative societal responses around energy and self-sufficiency. A second wave of SI relates to the mainstreaming of RE and associated government support mechanisms. In this phase, with some important exceptions, successful CE initiatives were mainly confined to those countries where they were already embedded as innovators in the previous phase. The third phase of CE innovation relates to the societal response to the Great Recession that began in 2008 and lasted most of the subsequent decade. CE initiatives formed around this time were also strongly focused around democratization of energy and citizen empowerment in the context of rising energy prices, a weak economy, and a production and supply system dominated by excessively powerful multinational energy firms. CE initiatives today are more diverse than at any time previously, and are likely to continue to act as incubators for pioneering initiatives addressing virtually all aspects of energy. However, large multinational energy firms remain the dominant vehicle for delivery of the energy transition, and the apparent excitement in European policy circles for "community energy" does not extend to democratization of energy or genuine empowerment of citizens.

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Section: Social Innovation In Community Energymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Social Innovation In Community Energymentioning

confidence: 99%