Introduction
The promotion of local energy communities is highlighted as a solution to accelerate the transition towards a more decentralised, decarbonised and just energy system (Bauwens, 2016; Brummer, 2018; Lowitzsch et al., 2023). Long-term policy packages at the level of the European Union (EU) such as the Clean energy for all Europeans package actively try to strengthen the role of local energy communities as vital actors in the energy system (European Commission, 2019). Currently, 3931 energy communities are active in the European Union and the United Kingdom according to an estimate of Koltunov et al. (2023). In addition, the concept of energy justice, and its predecessor environmental justice, have found increasing application to the matter of community energy (Heldeweg & Saintier, 2020). Among others, justice can serve as an analytical point of departure to recognise that energy communities are heterogenous across a range of characteristics (Bauwens, 2016) and that energy communities can play a decisive role in addressing distributive issues such as energy poverty (Hanke et al., 2021).
The momentum of the cooperative movement has attracted the interest of public bodies, research and consultancy agencies in initiating energy communities, sometimes in cooperation with local residents and stakeholders (De Vidovich et al., 2021). In contrast, the body of scientific literature mainly focusses on communities that arise in a bottom-up matter (Dudka et al., 2023). Much less is known about cases in which the efforts from actors outside of the community contribute to forming an energy community1. The initiation of communities through the intervention by external actors poses particular challenges. External actors have relatively less knowledge about the target group, there are little existing relationships to build upon and the goals of people who are targeted to be part of community and of the initiators might be misaligned. The academic literature lacks empirical evidence of the challenges outside actors face when aiming to engage local residents and stakeholders in an energy community.
This paper investigates which injustices are present in engagement trajectories related to energy communities and how these can be resolved. The focus is on communities initiated through external interventions. Relevant findings are based on experiences from the Horizon project Lightness2 and are analysed through a conceptual framework for assessing issues of environmental and energy justice called The Voicer (see Breukers et al., 2016). The Voicer conceptualises justice along six dimensions: recognition, participation, distribution, responsibilities, capabilities and learning. The analysis of the engagement trajectories in Lightness from the perspective of The Voicer allows to formulate recommendations on how to engage citizens and businesses in a just manner in local energy community initiatives. These recommendations account for differing characteristics of local communities in order to increase applicability across various local contexts. Recommendations are primarily directed at practitioners that have a decision-making and/or facilitating function with regards to the community.
The remainder of this paper is built up as follows: Section 2 elaborates on the concepts of energy justice and energy communities as core of the theoretical and analytical framework. Section 3 introduces the methodology of data collection and derivation of recommendations for just citizen engagement. It also provides the framework for characterising different energy communities. Findings are presented and interpreted from the perspective of energy/environmental justice in section 4. Section 5 provides ten recommendations for just citizen engagement in energy communities based on the findings. Conclusions and suggestions for further research are given in section 6.
Theoretical framework: Energy justice and energy communities
Two core concepts treated in this paper are energy justice, further conceptualised through The Voicer model, and energy communities. In this section these concepts are further scrutinised from a theoretical point of view.
Energy justice
Since its emergence in the early 2010s, energy justice has found increasing use for assessing the normative dimension of changes in energy systems on the local, regional, national and global level (Sovacool & Dworkin, 2015). Coming forth from the idea of environmental justice (see Schlosberg, 2013), energy justice consists of three pillars: justice through recognition, procedural justice and distributional justice (Jenkins et al., 2016).
Justice through recognition asks the question, whose voice is heard. Justice through recognition is given, when actors who have a stake in a matter are being acknowledged and respected (Young, 1990). It includes the recognition of beliefs and opinions held by people in a given local context. Jenkins et al. (2016) give the example of a local community on the Isle of Lewis, Scotland who successfully protested against a planned wind park on the island. Commercial developers accounted the resistance to the NIMBY phenomenon3. In truth the resistance stirred from a culture of distrust towards external parties, in turn rooted in historic experiences of unjust land claims. This case illustrates that beliefs and values held by local residents can play a significant role for citizen engagement, and that these values can stem from past experiences and events.
Procedural justice or justice through participation is concerned with the representativeness, transparency and depth of engagement in an engagement process. In practice it often refers to the degree of involvement of citizens into matters that affect them. Procedural justice builds on transparent communication and processes that grant actors the capacity to influence decision making that suits the degree that they are affected by the process and its outcome (Sovacool & Dworkin, 2015). Whereas justice through recognition asks who is recognised, for procedural justice it matters how decisions are being made and under which conditions.
Distributional justice revolves around the allocation of impacts, positive and negative, among different actors. With regard to energy, negative impacts often refer to monetary costs of one’s energy supply, perceived loss of landscape serenity and health risks for residents’ health through renewable energy installations. Benefits on the other most frequently relate to revenues from renewable energy generation (Jenkins et al., 2016). Distributional injustices are characterised by allocations of costs and benefits that are perceived as unfair. In the context of energy communities, the distributive pillar of justice often relates to energy poverty (Walker & Day, 2012).
The Voicer
Breukers et al. (2016) have expanded on these three pillars by adding three dimensions to the energy justice concept: capabilities, responsibilities and learning. All elements combined constitute The Voicer framework that allows for a more nuanced assessment of justice aspects in the context of energy communities (Breukers et al., 2016).
The capabilities approach was developed by Sen (2009) and Nussbaum (2011) as a counterargument towards utilitarian and Rawlsian theories of justice. Contrary to those two, the capabilities approach does not treat the allocation of goods and services as the analytical point of focus. Instead, it revolves around the potential of human beings to convert certain goods into so-called functionings that fulfil the needs, wishes and ambitions of a given person, such as “being employed, expressing oneself, breathing clean air [and] engaging with nature” (Davoudi & Brooks, 2014, p.2689). The capabilities approach has been applied in a variety of energy-related studies, e.g. regarding demand response in the flexibility market (Powells & Fell, 2019), energy poverty (Day et al., 2016; Middlemiss et al., 2019), local neighbourhood sustainability upgrades (Breukers et al., 2016) and energy communities (Slingerland et al., 2021).
Another novelty to the three-tenant energy justice framework is the element of responsibility. Justice through responsibility is concerned with the question whether each person engaged in the process carries responsibilities that comply with its willingness to contribute and to its capabilities (Davoudi & Brooks, 2014). Injustices can occur if a person is burdened with a number of responsibilities that exceed what they are willing and able to carry. Conversely, it can be interpreted as injustice when the desire of a person to contribute to an engagement trajectory remains unaddressed, i.e. when it is not enabled to fulfil its responsibility due to regulative, psychological or material constraints (Davoudi & Brooks, 2014). The dimension of responsibilities is relevant because norm-driven members of energy communities tend to take up several tasks on a volunteering basis (Bauwens, 2016; Stürmer & Kampmeier, 2003). Furthermore, smart grid technology increases the amount of responsibilities of energy communities as they often demand certain technical knowledge from energy community members (Kloppenburg & Boekelo, 2019).
The sixth element added to The Voicer is learning. Energy communities are hubs of innovation and creativity (Bauwens, 2017). Innovative bottom-up solutions require factual information to be gathered, trust between actors to be established as well as norms and perspectives of actors involved to be aligned (McFadgen, 2019). These types of learning are all part of the collective learning process within innovative energy communities (Mlinaric et al., 2019). The failure to adopt these learning procedures can lead to injustices e.g. because norms and values held dear by residents are not considered.
Figure 1 illustrates the Voicer model and the aspects used to assess issues of justice in the Lightness communities’ engagement trajectories. The following section discusses energy communities, and the local energy community is a specific analytical type of community.
Local energy communities
An energy community can be understood as a collective initiative made up of citizens and/or local businesses that engages in a set of activities related to the energy system (Caramizaru & Uihlein, 2020). The main aim of these initiatives is to create public value for the local community (Seyfang et al., 2013; Van Veelen, 2017). Since the early 2000s, the concept has received increasing attention from national policy-makers as a solution to the double challenge posed by climate change and energy security (Seyfang et al., 2013; Walker & Devine-Wright, 2008). As of 2023, Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark and Italy have adopted legislative definitions of energy communities (REScoop.eu, 2023).
LEC characteristics. This paper uses the term local energy community (LEC)4 to refer to local energy initiatives. The choice in terminology has been made because local emphasises that the pilot sites of the Lightness project were chosen mainly due to their geographical and infrastructural configuration. A number of key characteristics of an LEC can be derived from the body of scientific literature on community energy and energy justice as discussed above: Geographical and infrastructural scope, organisational form and governance, activity and use case, regulatory framework, social fabric, past events and experiences and capabilities. These seven characteristics are described in more detail below.
1. Geographical and infrastructural scope
An energy community can surface around a place-based and/or an interested-based logic (Walker & Devine-Wright, 2008). The place-based aspect is particularly relevant in the case of Lightness. All case study sites of Lightness have been selected because of their local scope. The EU’s definition of a REC also emphasizes the place-based aspect. It describes a community that is settled within close proximity of an energy project (EU, 2018). The geographical and infrastructural scope of a community can be summarised most aptly by the type and scale of housing vested in the given area. Examples are apartments accommodating multiple households, blocks of apartments, several dwellings located in one or more neighbourhoods and entire villages or cities.
2. Governance
Energy communities vary in the way they organise themselves (Bauwens, 2016). The governance structure of the LECs in Lightness is predetermined by the project team, at least in the early stages of the project. Variety of governance and organisations then occurs depending on two main factors: Firstly, whether local intermediary organisation are involved or not and secondly, whether there are other dependencies on actors outside of the community which are not actively involved in its day-to-day operations but that have substantial decision-making capacity. The responsibilities actors involved in a LEC can have are the provision of energy services, initiation and facilitation as well as active membership and consumption (De Vidovich et al., 2021).
3. Activities
Energy communities are not determined to perform a specific set of activities (Roberts et al., 2019). According to EU legislation the possible activities LECs can engage in include but are not limited to the “generation, distribution, supply, aggregation, consumption, sharing, storage of energy and provision of energy-related services” (Caramizaru & Uihlein, 2020, p.8). The exact activities that are eligible for deployment are in part determined by the technical and infrastructural configuration as well as the legislative framework.
4. Regulatory framework
Regulations regarding the energy market, and energy communities in particular, differ strongly across EU member states (Caramizaru & Uihlein, 2020). The regulatory framework can be of influence on the opportunities LECs have to financially exploit from renewable energy generation. In the Dutch context, where there is no formal definition of energy community, local initiatives can make use of subsidies aimed at fostering a decentralised and renewable energy system (Caramizaru & Uihlein, 2020). Meanwhile Spanish legislation officially recognises the concept of local energy communities and the regulatory framework allows for sharing energy among peers (Frieden et al., 2019). The possibilities a regulatory framework offers can also be a determinant of what motivates people to be part of a local energy initiative (Bauwens, 2016; Oteman et al., 2014). On the other hand regulator barriers can be obstructive to the formation of energy communities as argued by Brummer (2018). An overview of the regulatory frameworks in the respective pilot countries can be found in Deliverable 2.2 “Regulatory Impact Analysis for CECs and Flexibility Services” (downloadable here) and Deliverable D2.6 “Policy recommendations for CECs and Flexibility uptake” (downloadable here) of the Lightness project.
5. Social fabric
Social fabric is understood as the web of interactions and relationships that collectively form a society or a subset of society, such as a community (Hayden, 1982). The denser the social fabric the more frequent, trusted, intimate and rigid social interactions are. On the other hand, a loose social fabric indicates that a relatively weak sense of social cohesion among a given social group.
Apart from these five characteristics derived from the literature about energy communities, an additional two characteristics for understanding LECs in more depth and nuance are proposed based on the principles of energy justice outlined above.
6. Past events and experiences
Recognition through justice builds in part on a thorough acknowledgement and respect for the history a given local context has. Above the example of community energy on the Isle of Lewis was given (see Jenkins et al., 2016). The recognition of past events that shaped a community in a way that impacts engagement enables to develop engagement approaches that are more tailored to the local context. The sections “Energy justice & The Voicer” and “Insightfulness of field research” provide more details about role of past events and experiences in just engagement.
7. Capabilities
The Voicer model additionally points towards the relevance of certain capabilities being present among a given group of members (see Sen, 2009; Nussbaum, 2011). As mentioned above, capabilities play an explanatory role in relation to phenomena such as energy poverty, consumer behaviour using smart grid technology and local sustainabilisation measures. See sections “Energy justice & The Voicer” and “Energy literacy, digital literacy and immobility” for more details about the role of capabilities in just engagement.
The following section elaborates, among others, how this framework of seven LEC characteristics is used to derive recommendations tailored to specific community contexts.
Methods
This section describes the broader context of the Lightness project, the case studies, the action research approach to data collection, and the method of data analysis.
Case study: Engagement in Lightness
The engagement experiences reported on in this paper are based on the engagement trajectories that took place in seven pilot sites as part of the Lightness project. The Horizon project Lightness (2019–2023) aims to unlock demand flexibility of residential users and increase the share of renewable energy in the energy mix. For that purpose, LECs were aimed to be developed in seven pilot sites in five countries. The pilot communities involved in Lightness differ in one key aspect from the kind of energy community typically treated in the literature: Most often, energy communities emerge in a bottom-up manner through the motivation of a group of local residents. Bauwens (2016) calls these “communities of interest”. In such a case the beneficiary of the energy services provided by the LEC is also the initiator (Gjorgievski et al., 2021). In the case of the pilot communities discussed in this paper however, the initiation was external and the motivation not necessarily bound to the communities’ members’ aims and aspirations. Instead, the deployment of technical use cases and the implementation of a citizen engagement strategy based on justice principles were two major interventions to develop LECs in the respective pilot sites. The authors were involved in the Lightness project as leaders of the citizen engagement work package and actively contributed to the design and execution of the engagement activities.
Another important characteristic of all pilot communities participating in Lightness is that they were not yet energy communities at the start of the project. When we use the term LEC, we refer to a community which has developed so far that its members collectively engage in energy-related activities such as energy generation or storage. By pilot community or pilot site on the other hand we refer to one of the seven communities that participated in Lightness. In order to offer engagement recommendations that are sensitive to different local conditions, a characterisation of the seven pilot sites is proposed in the following.
Characterisation of communities in Lightness. Seven pilot sites participated in the Lightness project, each with a unique social, technical, organisational and legal configurations. Table 1 provides some key information about these communities.
Table 1. Description of pilot communities in the Lightness project.
| Country | Location/title | Type & scope | Group size targeted for engagement |
|---|
| Spain | Alginet | Village | ~13.000 inhabitants |
| Manzanares | Village | ~18.475 inhabitants |
| France | Technolac | Business park | 20 businesses |
| Italy | Cagliari | Condominium | 8 households |
| Netherlands | Woerden | Residential neighbourhood | 130 households |
| Quatrebras | Residential neighbourhood | ~200 households |
| Poland | Wroclaw | Blocks of multi-family
apartments | 260 households |
A more formal characterisation of LECs consists of the seven aspects presented above: geographical and infrastructural scope, governance, activities, regulatory framework, social fabric, capabilities and past experiences and events. A characterisation the pilot communities using this set of characteristics can be found in Table 2.
Table 2. Characterisation of pilot communities in Lightness according to seven key criteria.
Pilot
community | Scope | Governance | Activities | Capabilities | Social
fabric | Past experiences |
|---|
| ES – Alginet | Village | Community
facilitation through
cooperative ESCo | Energy community
building; P2P
energy trading | Mixed | Various | Establishment
of cooperative
energy distributive
operator in 1930s |
| ES- Manzanares | Village | Regular communal
meetings; based
on neighbourhood
association | Energy awareness
raising campaign;
energy community
building; energy
advisory shop | Divided between
affluent members
and vulnerable
households | Various | Experiences with
Manzanares 50-50
programme |
| FR - Technolac | Business park | Decision-making
through board of
directors | P2P energy trading | Understanding
of added value
of energy
community, limited
energy awareness | Medium | Previous
collaboration
between local
businesses |
| IT – Cagliari | Condominium | Regular communal
meetings | Energy community
building; housing
energy efficient
upgrade; energy
monitoring P2P
energy trading | Mixed | High | n.a. |
| NL – Woerden | Residential
neighbourhood | Decision-making
through housing
cooperative | Energy community
building; energy
monitoring; virtual
P2P energy trading | Low digital literacy;
high energy
awareness | Medium | Unfair distribution
of benefits from
energy renovation;
Placement and
decommission of
communal battery |
| NL - Quatrebras | Residential
neighbour-hood | None
– homeowners
decide for
themselves | Energy community
building; energy
monitoring; virtual
P2P energy trading | High technical
knowledge of
renewable energy
systems | Low | Social isolation
due to covid-19 |
| PL - Wroclaw | Blocks of multi-
family apartments | Decision-making
through housing
association
direction | Energy community
building; energy
monitoring (virtual)
P2P energy trading | Unknown | Unknown | n.a. |
The characterisation of the pilot communities according to this method is aimed to increase the validity of engagement recommendations for differing local and national contexts. The following section outlines how experiences on the engagement process were monitored and how meaningful findings were derived from the data.
Data collection
Relevant data was collected among potential participants and stakeholders in the Lightness project. See Table 3 for an overview of all data collection activities. Due to the need to get in-depth knowledge of the local context and establish trusted relationships, qualitative methods were the most suitable mode of data collection (see Boeije, 2009).
Table 3. Data collection activities in respective LECs and overview of validation activities with LEC stakeholders.
| Country | Pilot
community | Activity | Respondent(s) | Performed
by | Data file title | Reference in
text |
|---|
| France | Technolac | Interview | Engagement
leader | Authors | 22 07 28 Interview France_ano.pdf | Engagement
leader in
Technolac |
| Italy | Cagliari | Interview | Engagement
leader | Authors | 22 07 13 Interview Cagliari - Italy_ano.
pdf | Engagement
leader in Cagliari |
| Spain | Alginet | Interview | Engagement
leader | Authors | 22 07 12 Interview Alginet_ano.pdf | Engagement
leader in Alginet |
| Spain | Manzanares | Interview | Engagement
leader | Authors | 22 07 13 Interview Manzanares_ano.
pdf | Engagement
leader in
Manzanares |
| Poland | Wroclaw | Interview | Engagement
leader | Authors | 22 07 14 Interview Poland_ano.pdf | Engagement
leader in Wroclaw |
| Netherlands | Woerden | Interview | Pensioner in
Woerden | Authors | NL_WO_INT1_ 220510_interview
transcript Schilderskwartier.pdf | Interview
resident NL#1 |
| Netherlands | Woerden | Interview | Elderly couple
in Woerden | Authors | NL_WO_INT2_220524_interview
transcript Schilderskwartier_ruw.pdf | Interview
resident NL#2 |
| Netherlands | Quatrebras | Interview | Resident of
Quatrebras | Authors | NL_QB_INT1_Interview guide
Quatrebras aug '22.pdf | Interview
resident NL#3 |
| Netherlands | Woerden | Interview | Resident of
Woerden | Authors | NL_WO_INT#3_220510_interview
transcript Schilderskwartier.pdf | Interview
resident NL#4 |
| Italy | Cagliari | Interview | Condominium
residents | Lightness partners | IT_INT1_WP5 Engagement Exercise
- 1st interview.pdf | Interview
resident IT#1 |
| Italy | Cagliari | Interview | Condominium
residents | Lightness partners | IT_INT2_WP5 Engagement Exercise
- 2nd Interview.pdf | Interview
resident IT#2 |
| Netherlands | Woerden,
Quatrebras | Interview | Innovation
manager at
energy service
provider | Authors | NL_SH#1_230523 notules interview.pdf | Stakeholder
NL#1 |
| Netherlands | Woerden,
Quatrebras | Interview | Academic
researcher | Authors | NL_SH#2_Validation interview 17-05-
2023.pdf | Stakeholder
NL#2 |
| Spain | Manzanares | Interview | Municipal
councilman | Lightness
partners | ES_MA_INT1_Interview-Councilman.pdf | Stakeholder ES#1 |
| Spain | Alginet | Interview | LEC member | Lightness
partners | ES_AL_INT1_Interview Active member
of the community.pdf | Stakeholder ES#2 |
| Spain | Manzanares | Interview | School Teacher | Lightness
partners | ES_MA_INT2_Interview-teacher.pdf | Stakeholder ES#3 |
| Spain | Alginet | Workshop | Workshop
attendees (n=6) | Lightness
partners | ES_AL_WS2_Monitoring Guide
Workshop 03.05.2022 ALGINET.pdf | Workshop Alginet
#1 |
| Spain | Woerden | Workshop | Workshop
attendees (n=7) | Authors | NL_WO_WS1_Verslag Workshop
Woerden 24 februari '22_final.pdf | Workshop
Woerden #1 |
Participants. Residents were sampled through targeting each household within the predetermined scope of the pilot area (see Table 1). Respondents were purposively recruited from the pool of residents and stakeholders in each of the pilot sites. These households were addressed via phone, e-mail, flyers, street interviews and/or door-to-door visits. The establishment of the initial contact led to inviting interested residents in signing a participation form, thereby agreeing that their anonymised responses can be used for analytical and dissemination purposes in the Lightness project and scientific papers. Additional respondents were purposively sampled from the network of stakeholders involved in the local pilot site, and directly invited to participate in an interview. Sampling of respondents involved a snowball element in that interviewees were asked whether they knew of other residents that might be willing to be interviewed. The most common reason for people not participating in the data collection activities were lack of time, unfamiliarity with the topic of smart energy, distrust towards external parties (including researchers) and low expected benefit. All data collection activities took place between September 2021 and May 2023. All parties performing the data collection were representatives of professional organisations in the renewable energy field. They were prepared through a series of workshops involving ethical considerations, practical tools and tips of data collection. Below the setting and location, the methods of data collection and tools used, and the structure and format of each data collection method are presented.
Interviews. In total 16 interviews with residents and relevant stakeholders were performed (see section Data availability for more details). Interviews were semi-structured, and varied in duration from 30 to 60 minutes. Dependent on the availability of respondents, interviews were either performed on location, via phone call or via videochat. Locations for face-to-face interviews include the residents’ homes, public facilities such as a town hall and rooms made available through project partners. Interviews with either performed by the authors themselves or a key partner active in the respective pilot community. Partners were briefed and supplied with a pilot-tested interview guide including instructions and tips prior to performing the interviews. At the start of the interview, the interviewer introduced him- or herself and explained the aim of the Lightness project. The interviews were either recorded and transcribed using transcription software. Transcripts were not shared with participants for insight to prevent overburdening participants with extra tasks beyond contributing to Lightness. In case audio recording was not possible, e.g. because of unwillingness of the respondent, (co-)interviewers took notes and summarised the findings in an interview report.
Workshops. Workshops were a vital part of building local communities, informing residents about ongoing activities and collecting input and opinions of participants within the Lightness project. In total 14 workshops were held by project partners, of which two are cited in this paper. Workshops took place in facilities owned or rented by project partners, including office rooms, conference rooms, community centres and schools. The duration of workshops was 60 to 120 minutes. The programme of the individual workshops varied depending on agenda points relevant to the local context. An observation protocol based on the seven justice aspects mentioned above and including explicit instructions to project partners on how to recognise and assess verbal and non-verbal feedback from residents allowed for consistent and systematic data collection during workshops.
Field research. In addition to the interviews and workshops six rounds of street interviews and door-to-door visits were performed, alongside various informal conversations with residents on the pilot sites or via the phone. Although these activities did not yield concrete data they were an essential building block for recruiting participants and getting a grasp of the local context, thereby paving the way for subsequent data collection activities.
Ethical approval. Responses obtained through this study contain personal information, e.g. about financial problems, political opinions and personal behaviour at home. The analysis of these responses and the dissemination of relevant fragments of data such as quotes necessitated informed consent on the part of respondents. All activities related to this research, including the collection of data from respondents, the processing of this data and the publication of findings based on the data is approved under the Grant Agreement No 953020 and have received consent by the respective respondents either in written or recorded verbal form. Respondents gave written consent to use their response for research purposes and publishing anonymised statements through signing a participation form for the Lightness project or, if monitored as part of a workshop, through signing a consent form allowing the above mentioned activities in addition to having anonymised photos taken and used for communication purposes. Interviewees gave verbal consent through stating their full name and an agreement to record the interview and use the findings coming forth from it for research and dissemination purposes.
Data analysis. The Voicer model provided the analytical framework for interpreting the data. Guided by the seven justice elements mentioned in Section 2, issues of justice were identified in the interview transcripts and workshop reports. Following this selection of potential injustices, the authors performed a cross-comparison between issues of justice among all LECs. Specifically, similarities of occurrences of injustices were sought out, and the way in which they relate to the characteristics of the respective pilot sites. The comparison led to an inventory of justice issues which were known to be relevant because they were shared by multiple LECs. The relevance of these issues was validated through a series of interviews with stakeholders associated with energy communities. The analysis was performed without the use of additional coding software for transcripts with less than five pages. Coding software atlas.ti was used for transcripts exceeding five pages. The outcomes of the data collection and analysis process are described in the following section.
Findings: Experiences and lessons from engagement in Lightness
This section presents the engagement experiences that were made in the pilot communities of Lightness.
The findings are presented in linkage with issues that arose in relation to justice through recognition, procedures, distribution, responsibilities, capabilities and learning.
Recognition
Insightfulness of field research. Partners of the Lightness project deployed various engagement and recruitment activities in the pilot communities by being physically present. In the social housing neighbourhood in Woerden the field visits exposed that residents’ feel scepticism towards governmental institutions and large companies. The low efforts of institutions in addressing environmental issues made residents feel as though they themselves should not feel responsible for engaging in collective, climate change mitigating energy activities. Furthermore, a previous renovation project which provided about half the neighbourhood with an extensive deep-core energy efficiency upgrade while the other half was left with gas heating and lesser insulation measures was perceived as highly unjust by many residents, aggravating the distrust towards outside interventions. As one resident states: “When you look at what the renovation [on the other side of the street] had cost you would think: What did the people get in return? Only misery. Because they are still using gas.” (Resident NL#1).
A field visit in Quatrebras confirmed that the target group almost exclusively consisted of households with kids, two working parents and a tight time budget. Social ties were found to be weak, in part because Covid-19-induced lockdowns were in force at the time many residents had moved to the area. In Cagliari an interview with the condominium inhabitants confirmed that the residents are close to each other and that regular informal events such as dinners take place (Resident IT#1). In the course of the engagement process, the close social ties were a crucial pillar of engagement in the Italian pilot. In Alginet it appeared that there is a generational difference between older cooperative members who hold on to the social core of the cooperative, while younger members are less active in the cooperative and are more interested in the financial aspect (Workshop Alginet #1). In the French business park of Technolac field research revealed the rather absent connection of employees with the energy status of their work environments (Engagement leader in Technolac).
These findings speak of the importance of recognizing past events, experiences and broader circumstances in a given local context and their impact on engagement. Furthermore, the field research activities shed light on the existing social ties in each of the local contexts. Across all seven engagement trajectories, the importance of getting to know the field through field research was acknowledged. In particular such field visits allow for recognising which aspects of the local context are most important to the residents and for the engagement trajectory. An increased understanding of the wishes, aspirations, worries and values residents carry strengthen justice through recognition.
Dependency on intermediaries. Some engagement processes featured a prominent role for an intermediary actor or organisation. In Poland, it is required by law that apartment buildings are managed by a private company. The building manager of the apartment complex in Wroclaw had existing connections and relations with the residents which were important for spreading information to residents about the project to the residents. He also held control over all communication towards residents, whether it be flyers, interviews, community events or door-to-door visits. Upon his replacement however, recruitment activities in Wroclaw came to a halt. The manager who followed him up was not as enthusiastic about renewable energy installations as his predecessor (Engagement leader in Wroclaw). In Manzanares the support of the municipality was an essential asset in the early engagement phase, i.e. the recruitment. The municipal departments granted engagement leaders access to households which were in a situation of energy vulnerability or energy poverty. The municipal support largely depended on a municipal councilman was very favourable towards collective renewable energy action (Engagement leader in Manzanares; Stakeholder ES#1). The French case was characterised by the involvement of political actors who saw an opportunity for economic growth in a business park organised as an energy community (Engagement leader in Technolac).
Overall the recognition of intermediary actors and organisations is a matter of justice because they are entitled to have a seat at the table. Beyond that, they need to be recognized for practical reasons: Assistance in communication matters and sometimes substantial decision-making power make them a much-needed asset for effective citizen engagement. The Polish example might be the most illustrative one of how important it is to assess the importance of local stakeholders. Without anticipating the power and commitment of key stakeholders, the initiation of an energy community can come to an abrupt halt.
A business does not only consist of its management. In an energy community settled in the residential sector, households are equally decision-makers and members. The French case study displayed that in a business park circumstances are different. Instead of households and individuals residents, companies make up the member base of the community. Strategic decision-making power is vested in business directors, e.g. the decision whether to join a community and, if so, under which circumstances. Managers have the capacity to monitor and adapt energy-related issues such as regulating in-door temperatures. As such the decision-making capacity is distributed between different levels and individuals of a company. Employees are often the ones who are affected by managerial decisions and also carry the responsibility to act upon these decisions, for instance through adopting their energy consumption behaviour at work (e.g. switching off stand-by devices, regulating spatial heating, saving hot water etc.). Employees however commonly do not get a say in the question whether to join an energy community or not.
The motivations of directional company boards are instead often related to building a green image and saving costs as reflected by this statement: “In the business park, all motivation was directed at climate action and the image of the company. We consume local, is the image wish" (Engagement leader in Technolac). The disconnectedness between the directional and operational layer led to a situation in which the role of employees for strategic decision-making remained unacknowledged. From an energy justice perspective this indicates injustice through non-recognition.
On top of that an increased understanding of energy consumption may be beneficial to form an LEC in a business park. As the engagement leader of Technolac commented: “I went door-to-door, want to speak to you about creating an EC in this building. They said: Yes, very interesting. I asked: Do you know how your energy consumption is, what you are paying now? They did not know at all.“
Procedures
Language and communication channels. Two aspects of communication were paramount for engagement: The language that was being used and the communication channels through which information was shared. Residents in Woerden were alienated by some of the terminology used by project staff during the engagement process. Among those were the terms “smart grid”, “energy community” and “energy service”, as expressed by one Dutch resident: “’Delivered back to the grid’, ‘own consumption or energy community’ … So, yeah, I don’t know what that means” (Resident NL#4). The abbreviations “kWh” and “CO2” were also frequently misunderstood or misinterpreted (Resident NL#1). In Manzanares there was a discrepancy between the language used by people who were financially relatively affluent and energy vulnerable households. The differences were discussed during a workshop of the Lightness project which ultimately led to both groups understanding each other better (Engagement leader in Manzanares).
The appropriate communication channel differed vastly across the pilot communities. In Alginet and Quatrebras WhatsApp groups proved an efficient and reliable way to disseminate community-related information, based on feedback from engagement leaders. Face-to-face interaction during interviews, workshops and field visits was beneficial in all engagement trajectories because it allowed for disseminating information while almost simultaneously gathering information from potential members. Overall, procedurally just engagement builds on a mixture of face-to-face, personal interaction and efficient low-threshold remote communication. In both cases the language being used can determine whether certain groups of people feel excluded from participating.
Social ties differ across communities. Although all participating pilot sites accommodated a “pilot community” the degree to which these bundles of households (or businesses) can be considered a community with close social ties differs. The residents of the condominium in Cagliari were already a community in the sense of a group with informal and frequent social interactions before the beginning of the Lightness project. People share a staircase, the amount of households is relatively small, decisions about the communal area were taken together and matters are discussed during communal dinners. Close community ties and the small size of the community helped to disperse motivation and information among residents, and thereby boosted engagement (Engagement leader in Cagliari). The residents living in Woerden who participated in Lightness appreciated informal conversations and sharing their opinions. The workshops were staged to be informal and easily accessible through offering drinks and snacks, and through leaving the hired space open for people to chat after the official workshop programme had finished. The technical issues related to the project were generally considered a nice-to-have, but not core of the programme. This became evident through the fact the community gatherings were used by residents to raise issues not related to the project, but which related to their worries about energy and their neighbourhood more broadly (Workshop Woerden #1). Overall, the development of community ties was found to be an important driver for energy community-related activities.
According to one interviewee employed at a large energy service provider it is disputable whether citizen engagement will at all play a role for forming energy communities in the future. She argued that in the future automatised peer-to-peer energy trading and standardised value propositions can develop energy communities without having to personally engage with residents. In such a scenario engagement takes place via digital interfaces and less through personal interactions (Stakeholder NL#1). An opposing view is offered by another stakeholder who advocates that engagement will always be an important pillar for a just energy transition because it allows to adaptively create measures which are sensitive to the local context (Stakeholder NL#2). Both interviewees agreed that at this moment, community ties and actively trying to contribute to building a community is vital for just and effective citizen engagement. Along these lines a stakeholder in the Alginet pilot stated: “Activities outside the energy field bring members of a community closer together. It is necessary to stand together in pursuit of the interests of all.” (Stakeholder ES#2)
Experience with engaging young people. In Manzanares, pupils of the local public school were engaged with the topic of energy through the so-called Manza 50-50 programme. This programme seeks to achieve energy efficiency in the school through the promotion of energy awareness and changes in the energy behaviour of children and the educational community in general. The economic savings resulting from the reduction of energy consumption in the school are dedicated for 50% to the maintenance of the school and for 50% to a purpose the children decide through a democratic process. Energy awareness is promoted among children with different activities such as critical walks through the school buildings to identify and understand how much energy is consumed where, and why. A teacher comments on the success of involving the pupils: “Kids from the fourth grade are very capable of coming up with ideas and getting involved, they also have a lot of spontaneity and grace. Let’s see how the next year goes when we’ll involve kids from the fifth grade, who may be more serious and reflexive” (Stakeholder ES#3). The programme has led to raising awareness not only among children and other members of the schools’ network but also among the children’s parents, as the newly gained energy knowledge spread to the homes. A municipal councilman involved in the pilot community of Manzanares stated: “There is only one public school in Manzanares, so it is a node through which many families can be reached. Also, the children [students] are very enthusiastic about this programme and are a very powerful propagation vector of their enthusiasm” (Stakeholder ES#1). This is considered a success since parents can be a challenging target group to reach, due to their limited time budget (also seen in Quatrebras). The experience in Manzanares showed that engaging younger people can be a promising avenue for creating a collective awareness about energy which can ultimately result in an increased number and diversity of members, and increased capacities for engaging with the topic of energy.
Distribution
Worries about maldistributed costs and benefits. In Woerden and Quatrebras participants expressed worries about the distribution of the benefits from using locally produced energy. An elderly couple in Woerden said: “Heating costs energy, there is nothing to do about that. So we’re very considerate of that. We use as little energy as possible. But then again, we sacrifice it, maybe for the person next door who’s like: One-two, let’s go!” (Resident NL#2). Similarly, a resident in Quatrebras stated that he has a strong preference for consuming the energy that is produced on his rooftop instead of supplying it to the neighbourhood: “I want to use one on one what I have produced. If it works that way, fine.” (Resident NL#3). Similar concerns were expressed in the Italian pilot. Residents were worried that the usage of a communal battery might lead to energy supply shortages during peak consumption hours, that energy sharing might require residents to cover the bill of neighbours who consume higher quantities of energy (Resident IT#1) and that the revenue of the PV panels are distributed unfairly (Resident IT#2).
On several occasions it was explained to residents that they enjoy absolute priority for consuming their own self-generated energy before supplying it to others. As became apparent during engagement process, people nonetheless feared that they would supply wasteful neighbours who would then reap the benefits of green local energy without having to do anything. Questions about distributions have a functional role for residents to ensure themselves what they are getting involved with. This makes such inquiries part of a healthy engagement process. However, the experiences in Lightness show that ever so critical questions and remarks may indicate an underlying fear or concern of being treated unfairly.
Responsibilities
Confusion of multi-stakeholder involvement. Externally initiated engagement processes can involve a large number of actors including project partners, energy service providers and local stakeholders. The involvement of too many parties makes the process prone to confusion and resistance. In the case of Cagliari, the involvement of two departments of the same energy service providing company in the pilot formed a challenge to engagement. One department handled the energy efficiency renovation of the condominium. The other department engaged citizens in the Lightness project. Communication took place via one representative who belonged to the second department. The unintended consequence was that residents expected the representative to be able to answer questions about the renovation project (which he could not). When residents discovered that he was not the dedicated person to address their questions, confusion and disappointment about the process had already set in and ultimately stalled the engagement process (Engagement leaders in Cagliari).
In Alginet, a cooperative energy distributor was present before the start of the Lightness project. Because it mainly fulfils the role of a DSO, it cannot be considered an energy community. Part of the challenge of the process in Alginet was that residents wanted to know from the beginning what the role of the cooperative and what their own role in the energy community was (Engagement leader in Alginet). A community member in Alginet elaborates that “at the beginning the role of the cooperative in the creation of the Local Energy Community was not clear, which made the members upset, […] uncertainty makes people not to commit with the community” (Stakeholder ES#2).
All examples show that an engagement process becomes more just and more accessible if the roles of the actors involved are made clear. This includes the role that citizens want to play or what is expected from them because the clearer the responsibilities of participating actors are, the clearer becomes what is expected from members of the community.
Capabilities
Energy literacy, digital literacy and immobility. Certain capabilities were found to be crucial for residents when wanting to be engaged in an energy community. Among the residents in Wroclaw were people with impaired mobility and a lack of digital proficiency. Engaging people in such situations proved difficult because they cannot stay updated on engagement activities via the e-mail or cannot attend physical meetings for residents or both (Engagement leader in Wroclaw). In Woerden, the deployment of analogue engagement tools, e.g. a paper manual instead of a digital one, proved beneficial for engaging pensioners with relatively lower digital proficiency.
In two pilots the inequality in initial competences was particularly decisive for engagement decisions. In Alginet, attendees of a workshop had mixed levels of energy literacy. This caused the challenge of keeping the engagement workshops broad and general enough to attract more residents to join the project and build up their energy literacy, while making sure that more experienced participants do not lose interest. One way to address this challenge was to facilitate workshops where more proficient residents help less experienced residents in a process of shared learning. The shared learning was a successful measure as evident from observation during workshops in the Dutch pilots. The particular challenge of involving households in a situation of energy poverty became clear in Manzanares. A municipal official stated: “Many of them find it difficult to participate in collective meetings as they feel exposed, have difficulties to dedicate time to it, also may feel shame and guilt for their situation, etc.” (Stakeholder ES#1). In this case engagement benefitted from residents engaging in open and respectful conversations with each other under the supervision of an experienced and competent facilitator. Altogether these results indicate that the investment of resources in capacity-building among residents can increase the inclusiveness of the engagement process.
Learning
Engagement leadership requires competences. The importance of learning and acquiring competences for leading engagement become apparent through the negative experience in Wroclaw and the positive experiences in the Dutch and Spanish pilots. In Wroclaw, the partner tasked with the engagement of residents had a technical background and did not have a partner with experience in engagement matters. She felt unprepared, unexperienced and therefore uncomfortable to carry out engagement activities. In addition no resources were explicitly earmarked for citizen engagement activities by the project administration, depriving the engagement leaders of financial budget vital for planning and executing engagement activities (Engagement leader in Wroclaw). As a result, it was difficult to get the recruitment process tailored to the needs and motivations of the residents.
In the Dutch and the Spanish cases partners with a complementary set of competences collaborated. Technical partners were able to confidently provide information and pinpoint uncertainties which created trust. Partners with a social-science based background and experience in citizen engagement on the other hand were able to tailor communication and engagement activities to the needs of different target groups. It was found that a combined set of competences is required to successfully recruit a diverse group of participants. The single most effective measure deployed by the authors to increase capacities among engagement leaders in Lightness was to organise collaborative sessions for discussing engagement issues, reflecting on them from a justice perspective and formulating solutions in a workshop-like setting. This paper itself may be seen as such a capacity-building measure since its aim is to provide recommendations for just citizen engagement. These are presented in the following section.
Ten recommendations for just engagement
From each of the key findings presented above a recommendation for just engagement of citizens in energy communities is derived. These are presented in this section. The process of validation and LEC characterisation highlighted the relevance of certain recommendation with respect to certain LEC characteristics. The most relevant LEC characteristic is indicated for each recommendation. The distinction of different LEC characteristics allows practitioners to determine the recommendations that are most applicable to their respective engagement process.
1) Do field research to know what is important
Field research in the form of street interviews, interviews, door-to-door visits and information events is essential to get to know the local area. Such physical activities can create trust among residents, increase the project’s visibility and, most importantly, allows one to get a rich understanding of the context. If there is access to any intermediary organisations or residents, they should be made part of the field research activities because they tend to be more trusted by residents and can therefore raise interest and awareness. If no such parties are present the dependency on field research measures increases because engagement cannot be based on an existing body of knowledge about the local context. Because of the positive experiences for increasing recognition in Lightness, field research measures are considered a prerequisite of just engagement in all engagement trajectories.
2) Recognise benefits and risks of intermediaries
Intermediary actors and organisations can be very supportive when wanting to engage with residents. But their responsibilities, decision-making authority and personal interests also have the power to obstruct the engagement process. This is especially the case when the governance structure is rigid and recognised and respected by community members. It is therefore important to recognise which decision-making power, interests and benefits for engagement intermediaries have. Experiences from Lightness show that the involvement of stakeholders in a community engagement process can be volatile in that it is of temporary nature. Municipal elections or personnel changes in enterprises are common reasons for intermediaries to be removed from the project and be replaced by others. Recognising the role of intermediaries is essential if intermediary organisations or persons have significant power, e.g. in social housing or associations of home owners. These recommendations are related to the Governance of a local community.
3) Engage work floor staff, managers and directors of a business
Launching an energy community in a business park requires to first identify the functions which carry the decision-making capacity. It is essential to safeguard their commitment and goodwill before proceeding to recruitment and engagement activities. Once engagement has commenced employees need to be recognised as stakeholders in energy-related matters of a business. It is advisable to make sure that the engagement does not only address the managers but also people working in the building. The process might benefit from the input of work floor staff because they are the ones who are conscious of how energy is being used and can contribute ideas of how to make it more efficient. This recommendation specifically refers to engagement trajectories in business parks. This recommendations is related to the Geographical and infrastructural scope of a local community.
4) Learn the local language
Project language is a different language than the one used by households. Next to engagement activities, the communication within and about an engagement process is essential to run a just engagement procedure. Communication can be tailored by choosing the appropriate language. Language must be chosen that is understandable and relatable for the target group. This relates to the complexity of terms (smart grid, kWh, EU Directive), the ambiguity of terms (energy community, co-creative) and the complexity of concepts (layered energy system, energy monitoring dashboard). In a fruitful engagement process it is essential that all actors, including residents as key stakeholders, have a shared understanding of the terms and concepts. Attention for language can close the discrepancy in the language different groups of residents are using (Capabilities) or when a digital use case is involved (Activities). This recommendations is related to the Capabilities and Activities of a local community. We therefore recommend to address the target group(s) with terms and concepts they can relate to and to build on existing communication channels before trying to deploy new ones.
5) Focus first on “community”, then on “energy”
Communities are most likely to develop around shared values which may or may not relate to energy, such as the safety, access to recreational green or in-house comfort. Energy may or may not be part of interest to the community. A focus on community is crucial when there are little or no social ties, especially in larger target areas such as whole neighbourhoods and villages (Social ties). A scenario is imaginable where a highly advanced technologically-oriented business case decreases the importance of face-to-face engagement (Activities). Even then community-building can be useful because the input of households helps to pinpoint implementation problems and develop sharper value propositions. This recommendations is related to the Social ties and Activities of a local community.
6) Engage the younger generation
Engaging people of younger age such as school students can increase the outreach of engagement activities. In cases where a local institution related to young people is present, e.g. a school or a local sports club, such activities can be particularly advantageous (Governance). Even in local contexts without such institutions the engagement of young people offers a way to increase the representativeness of community members. Doing so means to give a voice of say to the generations that are most impacted by the decisions being made today. This recommendations is related to the Governance of a local community.
7) Clarify potential costs and benefits
Transparency about the costs and benefits that energy-related activities have to offer is a prerequisite for recruiting members for LEC. From the perspective of justice it is crucial to identify issues that could lead to some residents feeling as though they are being treated unequally, e.g. because they incur higher costs relative to other residents or stakeholders or through foregoing benefits that others have access to. Special attention should be given to clarifying costs and benefits when there are concerns about maldistributions which stem from past experiences in the community (Past experiences and events). The experiences in the Dutch pilot communities furthermore show that the absence of a legal framework that facilitates financial revenue from collective energy generation and trade calls for an extra effort to clarify the benefits of a community membership (Regulatory framework). In case worries about the risks, costs benefits and opportunities are insufficiently addressed engagement is likely to be obstructed by resistance and decreasing enthusiasm. This recommendations is related to the Past experiences and events and Regulatory framework of a local community.
8) Create clarity about who does what in the process
It can be challenging for residents to keep track of the work package, aim and responsibilities of all the parties involved in an engagement trajectory that is initiated from outside of the community. Community facilitators and engagement professionals are advised to be clear about who is involved in the process and what their role and responsibilities are. International research projects such as Lightness involve anything in the range of five to 50 different organisations, each represented by a varying number of staff members (Governance). In such settings explanations as to which actor is in charge of what are simply overwhelming. Instead residents should be provided with an increasingly clear picture about who does what in the engagement process and, more importantly, whom they can rely on for placing questions, feedback and concerns. Clarity about all parties’ roles in the process benefits from creating consistency. If possible, residents should be able to recognise certain faces and names through designating one person per organisation for resident engagement. This recommendations is related to the Governance of a local community.
9) Empower the willing and unable
People who are willing but unable to contribute to and benefit from the engagement process need to be empowered to do so. The first step towards providing measures that empower participants who lack certain capabilities is to get to know their situation and their interest in the engagement. Performing field research in the respective context can help with doing so (see recommendation one). A promising way for building capacities and developing a community is to engage residents with different competences in cross-learning activities. This can for example be helpful to endorse energy literacy or digital literacy among community members. Other capabilities such as financial resources, physical mobility or motivation for communal activities are much more challenging to build throughout an engagement trajectory. In such cases empowerment can be realised through letting people who are somehow impaired by a lack of a capability express what they would require to meaningfully engage. From the experience in Lightness, empowerment through capacity-building is necessary when (energy) poverty is a problem, when there are many elderly people involved (Capabilities) and when digital use case such as an energy trading platform is involved (Activities). This recommendations is related to the Capabilities and Activities of a local community.
10) Cultivate skills, confidence and reflexivity in engagement leadership
The degree of justice of an engagement trajectory strongly depends on the party that leads the engagement process. The expertise, motivation and competences of those in charge of engagement will always affect the way that a process contributes to justice. A just engagement procedure needs to build on key competences for facilitating a LEC. Engagement of various kinds of residents in complex subjects such as demand response management, smart grid technology and peer-to-peer energy exchange requires engagement leaders to have considerable knowledge and experience in process facilitation. This includes communicating effectively, empathising, managing expectations, identifying stakeholders, planning and executing meetings, workshops and interviews. In addition technical, legal and organisational expertise is required to address residents’ questions. A just engagement approach additionally requires engagement leaders to be open to adapt the process to the wants and needs of users and, to a certain extent, to of service to the community. This clashes with the traditional profit-maximising, market-based paradigm often underlying engagement processes that revolve around technological use cases or energy service-based business models.
In order to cultivate these competences, it is vital to regularly exchange experiences with other engagement leaders who have a similar goal setting, i.e. facilitating a local energy community in a just manner. Collaborative sessions are recommended that provide a safe space to engagement leaders to share difficulties, insecurities and mistakes. Exchange can help engagement leaders to prevent and anticipate difficulties in their own process. Searching for solutions by reflecting on these issues with The Voicer model as a guiding framework should be a core part of these sessions. The desired outcome is an engagement leadership that is more aptly equipped to deal with the uncertainties, complications and requirements faced when facilitating the development of a LEC.
Discussion and conclusion
The aim of analysing the engagement trajectories in five countries from the perspective of justice was to extract recommendations for engaging citizens in Local Energy Communities (LECs) in a just manner. Ten recommendations were derived based on two years of field research and validated through a series of stakeholder engagements. In the first instance the lessons and recommendations presented in this paper are found to be valid for LECs that are initiated through an intervention from outside of the community, e.g. through a research project or a governmental body. This is seen as a much-needed addition to the vast body of literature on bottom-up energy initiatives.
Three limitations of this study stand out and point towards avenues for further research. While the focus of this paper on communities facilitated through external interventions is a novelty, it might pose restrictions to the applicability of the recommendations. It is unclear in how far this knowledge is valuable to shaping local energy initiatives that evolve in a bottom-up fashion thanks to the intrinsic motivation and effort of their members. Further research on the topic of community engagement is required to explore in how far these recommendations are applicable to communities already existent before external intervention measures.
The differentiation between seven characteristics of LECs can assist engagement practitioners to assess in how far the recommendations are applicable to the project they are involved with. This research has set the scope in a way that certain characteristics are excluded from the analysis because they are less relevant to the pilot communities of Lightness. Examples are the values community members hold, the business model a community makes use of and the initiative’s legal status. Future research efforts should shed light on the role of aspects which have not been discussed in this paper and understand what those mean for engagement.
Thirdly, this paper argues that the outside facilitation of a LEC demands specific competences from the party in charge of engagement. While this notion in itself is a novel perspective on citizen engagement it needs further scrutinisation. Facilitatory and moderating skills for instance, which were mentioned above as a key set of competences, may be especially important when a community has suffered from disputes and conflicts in the past that flame up as a result of the engagement process. Technical competences may be particularly beneficial when deploying complex use cases or when the digital proficiency of the target group is high. By linking respective LEC characteristics to the importance of specific competences of the engagement leader such claims could be verified. This knowledge would allow for cultivating the appropriate competences in engagement leadership in order to boost just engagement in the most effective way.
On a concluding note, the consideration of justice in citizen and business engagement does not take place for its own sake. It forms a starting point for further activities deployed in the community, ranging from the distribution of responsibilities and the capabilities present among members to the way in which costs and benefits are allocated. In that way just engagement is the cornerstone for LECs that operate in a manner coherent with justice principles. Our experience shows that the placement of this cornerstone requires attention to detail and, above all, an open ear towards the wants and needs of community members.
