In 2021 Democratic Society (Demsoc) were design partners in the Amsterdam EIT Climate-KIC Healthy, Clean Cities Deep Demonstration (EIT Climate-KIC & Democratic Society, 2021). The project focused on what is needed to achieve a decarbonised future in Amsterdam based on key principles of deeper and wider civic engagement for climate action, including collaboration among diverse actors, peer learning, and experimentation for new forms of governance. This is a case study of how the Climate Democracy Model method was applied to expand analysis of learnings from the four experiments conducted with urban stakeholders and citizens.
Title
Brief description
In 2021 Democratic Society (Demsoc) were design partners in the Amsterdam EIT Climate-KIC Healthy, Clean Cities Deep Demonstration (EIT Climate-KIC & Democratic Society, 2021). The project focused on what is needed to achieve a decarbonised future in Amsterdam based on key principles of deeper and wider civic engagement for climate action, including collaboration among diverse actors, peer learning, and experimentation for new forms of governance. This is a case study of how the Climate Democracy Model method was applied to expand analysis of learnings from the four experiments conducted with urban stakeholders and citizens.
Keywords
democracy collaboration governance strategic-learning climate-resilience
City/Country
Time period
January 2021- December 2021
Lever(s)
Culture, civic participation & social innovation
Capacity & capability
Methodologies
Climate Democracy Model
- The Model responds to the gap in pan-European efforts to democratise climate action, seeking to shift solution thinking on climate action from technocratic and transactional to democratic and relational, by linking social justice and equity with climate transition. The Model consists of practical, interconnected tools for a city or region to assess and analyse its progress towards climate resilience through democratic means. Combined, tool outcomes provide a robust picture of where things are now, to provoke conversation and action on necessary changes, and enable assessment at multiple levels. Two Model tools were used in this project – Canopy for Climate Democracy and Actor Types & Interactions – to assess democratic factors for climate resilience based on four segments for climate democracy: diversity of actors and knowledge, participatory culture, resourcing, and competencies for climate democracy.
- The Model is specifically about CE, calling for deeper and wider civic engagement to reimagine life in cities, putting citizens’ interests at the heart of policy and connecting citizens to their democratic institutions, giving cities more voice, representativity and reach across Europe. It provides frameworks and tools to help cities and regions assess and celebrate progress towards climate democracy. The Model is a compass, not a map. It doesn’t hold the answers, it shows a direction, and wants to provoke conversations for change. It is ambitious yet pragmatic, showing how we can move towards a climate resilient world, democratically.
World Region
Scale(s) of the case analysed
Target audience and dimension
Domain(s) of application
Context addressed
Solution applied
Challenge addressed/ Problem-led approach
Barriers addressed
Main Practices
Impact
Co benefits
Engagement Journey
Impact to climate neutrality
The Climate Democracy Model (Democratic Society, 2021) was applied to expand analysis of learnings from the four experiments conducted with urban stakeholders (City of Amsterdam and civil society) and citizens (energy communities). Two components of the Model were used: the Actor Types & Interactions and Canopy for Climate Democracy.
The Actor Types & Interactions tool helped:
- Identify different types of actors present in action for climate resilience, reveal who is missing, and build inclusive and diverse engagement strategies;
- Explain the types of actors involved in democratic climate action, what roles they play, and how their roles must evolve to bring about climate resilient futures;
- Show patterns of engagement of the same kinds of actors, to get the city thinking about who else could be at the table, hoping to inspire new collaborations for change;
- Calculate the degree of ‘Diversity of actors and knowledge’ in the Canopy for Climate Democracy.
The Canopy for Climate Democracy tool helped:
- Assess the big picture of the city’s climate resilience based on four segments for climate democracy derived from Demsoc’s work:
Diversity of actors and knowledge
Participatory culture
Resourcing
Competencies for climate democracy
- Identify shifts towards climate resilience through democratic means by plotting foundational conditions present at the start of the project, emerging shifts through various forms of engagement and action, and future possibilities for the city to more fully realise its climate resilience.
Context & Public policy of reference
The project focused on expanded participation between citizens (energy communities) and urban stakeholders (civil servants, civil society) to design and implement policies for energy transition that will be more widely supported, impactful and resilient. Citizen engagement highlighted the need for policy frameworks recognising the different needs of community-led initiatives, and the need for co-governance on energy production for decarbonised, democratic climate futures (Goodwin & de Groot, 2022).
Innovative approach(es) addressed
Scope:
The City of Amsterdam is committed to decarbonisation and sustainable energy generation, with a goal of reducing CO2 emissions by 55% in 2030 and 95% in 2050. The ‘Government as an enabler for communities development’ project involved four strategic experiments to determine the City’s role and where it needs to build its capabilities in integrated service approaches with diverse actors – including energy communities – for democratic energy transition towards achieving carbon reduction goals.
This case study focuses on use of the Climate Democracy Model to expand analysis of learnings from the four experiments conducted.
Needs:
Starting the project in January 2021, Demsoc observed City and partner discussions about an integrated approach for energy transition tending towards a technocratic, expert-led focus that didn’t directly involve citizens. It was apparent a mentality change and consideration of social, relational factors was needed, and the immediate priority was to find ways of centering citizens more in the City conversation on the integrated approach, and give them agency for change and a say in their energy futures.
The project aimed to get the City taking a more socially innovative approach, creating opportunities for community-led energy transition as part of meeting the City’s commitment to decarbonisation and sustainable energy generation. Three key goals were identified in relation this challenge:
Goal 1: shift to decarbonisation and renewable, sustainable energy generation
Goal 2: 50% local ownership, and legal, regulatory, and financial infrastructure suited to energy communities
Goal 3: new forms of governance to support energy community development and transition
Vision:
- Deeper and wider civic engagement and expanded participation of diverse actors has reimagined Amsterdam’s energy system, with citizens’ interests now at the heart of strategic policy and planning. Climate programs are increasingly more widely supported, impactful and resilient;
- Collaboration across diverse actors and peer learning show promising signs of longer term system change for more just, climate resilient energy futures.
- City leaders and civil servants are continuing to make space for experimentation and discussion at different levels of governance, unleashing new energy and ideas amongst diverse actors for what tools and institutions are needed to achieve a decarbonised future.
- Cities have adopted a more humble governance approach that sees them working alongside other actors, actively listening to and trusting citizens with the mandate to find solutions to issues close to them, rather than directing citizens from the top-down.
Initiator
This project was initiated by EIT Climate-KIC and the City of Amsterdam as part of the 15-city Healthy, Clean Cities Deep Demonstration programme conducted across Europe since 2019. Demsoc was a design partner in the programme, leading civic participation and democratic climate work with cities including Amsterdam.
Stakeholder networks and organisational model
Participant recruitment:
Invitation or appointment: Energy community participants were invited to project experiments by the City of Amsterdam. Civil society participants were invited by Democratic Society.
Other: Demsoc used the Climate Democracy Model method to analyse the experiments. No participants were directly involved in analysis activities.
Stakeholders:
Stakeholder | Role |
EIT Climate-KIC | Project Funder. Management and disbursement of project funding to City. Reporting to EIT. |
City of Amsterdam | Project owner. Participation in experiments (expert interviews, collaborative sensemaking, community workshop); enabler of communities development; liaison between internal and external government actors to ensure delivered services uphold policy and city needs for energy transition. |
Democratic Society (Demsoc) | Design partner. Led experimentation via the ‘Democratic Climate Lab’. Focus on practices and processes for deeper and wider civic engagement with the City on how democracy can address the climate question. |
Dark Matter Labs (DML) | Design partner. Participation in experiments. Designs and develops institutional infrastructure to respond to the technological revolution and climate breakdown. |
Energy communities | Participation in experiments (expert interviews, community workshop). Groups of citizens, social entrepreneurs and public authorities who collectively invest in producing, selling and managing renewable energy. |
Member networks (energy communities) | Participation in experiments (expert interviews, community workshop). Advocate for member communities to ensure critical needs are met |
Civil society organisations | Participation in experiments (community workshop). Builds movements that holds us accountable to the greater good |
Network, communication and governance:
a. Project partners: the ‘Democratic Climate Lab’ was set up as a ‘living’ Miro board for experiment coordination and collaboration between project partners. An online format was necessary due to 2021 pandemic conditions and inability to conduct the lab in person. The goal was for the Lab to support interaction in ‘Third Space“, a physical, virtual, cognitive, and conceptual space where participants may negotiate, reflect, and form new knowledge and worldviews working toward creative, practical and applicable solutions, finding innovative, appropriate research methods, interpreting findings, proposing new theories, recommending next steps, and even designing solutions such as new information objects or services.
b. Energy communities, member networks and civil society organisations who participated in the ‘Toolbox for Change’ workshop were given the outputs of their work in the format of an A3 map, supporting reference document and presentation ‘pitch’. The intention is the communities would continue to own and use the Toolbox and reference documents to lobby City Alderman and influence strategic policy and planning supporting energy transition.
c. Energy communities, member networks, and civil society organisations were invited to participate in experiments.
d. The City of Amsterdam worked with EIT Climate-KIC and design partners Democratic Society (Demsoc) and Dark Matter Labs (DML) to develop and carry out experiments.
e. The experiments were focused on recognising the City’s critical role of playing host and facilitator, making space for diverse actors to interact, to spark ideas and momentum, and making space for expanded community participation in experimenting with governance at different levels.
1. Project partners (City of Amsterdam, DML, Demsoc) met and established roles and responsibilities within the project.
2. Demsoc as a design partner conducted four experiments, and analysed the results using the Climate Democracy Model
i. Experiment 1: A ‘Democratic Climate Lab’ was started as a platform for discussion, prototyping, experimentation for new forms of governance, tools and institutions needed for energy transition, amongst diverse energy system actors.
ii. Experiments 2-4 (Expert interviews with diverse energy system actors, Collaborative sensemaking with civil servants, and “Toolbox for Change” community-led workshop) were run via the Lab to:
a. Identify conditions for “Government as enabler for communities development” from the perspective of energy communities and their needs;
b. Identify goals, capabilities and adaptations needed for the City to support energy communities as critical actors in the transition to a decarbonised energy future;
c. Identify how these conditions relate to four themes of interest to the City, and tie into the integrated service offering and Government enabling role towards carbon neutrality;
3. Other project design partners DML contributed throughout on smart contracting, civic technology and financial models, sharing knowledge via the ‘Collaborative sensemaking’ experiment led by Demsoc.
Video conferencing and collaborative whiteboards were used for collaborative sensemaking between project partners, and some expert interviews. Otherwise, experiments were conducted in person where possible, reinforcing the relational, social focus of the work to build relationships and momentum for change.
Project partners (EIT Climate-KIC, City of Amsterdam, Demsoc, DML): Slack, Google Docs, email, Microsoft Teams, Miro
Project partners & energy communities, member networks, and civil society organisations: email, telephone, for coordination of experiment participation.
Demsoc & expert interviewees (City of Amsterdam, energy communities, civil society organisations): email and Microsoft Teams for interviews.
Democratic Purpose
Participant Recruitment
nteraction between participants
Resources
Key enablers
Institutionalisation of participation, building capability in civil servants for collaborating with communities, helping City take steps towards more inclusive practice;
Lived experience of community more respected as form of expertise by civil servants; government trusts more in citizen and communities to find solutions to issues close to them;
Real potential for structural and institutional transformation from the ground up via community-led co-production of tangible, actionable output to steer City’s strategic policy and planning (Toolbox for Change)
Key inhibiting factors
1. Ambitious agenda set for experiments and ‘Democratic Climate Lab’ that were difficult to achieve in a relatively short space of time.
2. Limited ability to experiment with deepened and widened civic participation in person due to pandemic conditions limiting in person contact.
3. Not able to conduct as many citizen-centered expanded participation experiments in different levels of governance as hoped within time and constraints of the project.
Drawbacks/pros/cons of the solutions (after implementation)
Pros:
Long-term engagement
- The City committed to supporting energy communities to pitch their Toolbox for Change vision for Amsterdam’s energy transition to Aldermen, seeking to influence budget, resourcing, policy, and new forms of governance for the City in 2022 and beyond to achieve decarbonisation and other goals of social and economic wellbeing. This was intended to happen at a ‘Day of the Cooperatives’ in November 2021 but was delayed due the pandemic, and changed to a more presentation-based format in January 2022.
- Recommendations from the project are enthusiastically supported by the Deputy Mayor and Alderman for Spatial Development, and Sustainability, and have been included in an action program being negotiated with the new City administration following March 2022 elections. It is hoped this will translate into City commitment to training, funding, and deeper and wider citizen engagement and participation in decision-making processes, now that the City has seen the value of it.
Results:
Strategic plan: Community-led ‘Toolbox for Change’ setting out energy community perspectives on what’s needed to achieve Amsterdam’s energy transition goals over the next 10-30 years, focusing on 1) shift to decarbonisation and renewable, sustainable energy generation, 2) 50% local ownership, and legal, regulatory and financial infrastructure suited to energy communities, and 3) new forms of governance to support energy community development and transition. The Toolbox has broader aims of achieving not only decarbonisation, but other goals of social and economic wellbeing.
The City committed to supporting energy communities to pitch their Toolbox for Change vision for Amsterdam’s energy transition to Aldermen, seeking to influence budget, resourcing, policy, and new forms of governance for the City in 2022 and beyond to achieve decarbonisation and other goals of social and economic wellbeing.
The Actor Types & Interactions and Canopy for Climate Democracy analysis of experiment outcomes have revealed the City’s future possibilities towards climate resilience, including:
More inclusive and collaborative practices; find ways to centre voices of communities commonly marginalised. Greater possibilities and innovative directions emerge from having more diverse voices at the table, which also involves addressing conflict and crossing boundaries;
Strengthen ties and understanding between District Brokers and democratisation, participation, innovation team members to ensure knowledge sharing, information flows, and ‘speaking in the same direction’ for community-led change.
Continue to work with energy communities to build and share a common narrative of ‘energy transition’ and ‘the energy commons’ across the City;
Continue to find ways to connect people to power: support opportunities for energy
communities to connect with senior stakeholders such as Aldermen, and assist with lobbying/advocacy at National level.
Recognise that energy communities have different needs at different stages: no one size
fits all. Work with energy communities to co-design adaptable models, tools e.g. funding and financing options and regulatory and governance models, and also considering how these new tools and models can work for different sectors, programmes, workstreams (Deep Retrofit, Mobility, Circular Economy);
Placing more value on frontline, on-the-ground experience of communities as a form of expertise, and trusting communities with the mandate to find solutions to issues close to them.
Scalability
Key lessons
Indicators
External link
Democratic Society. (2021, March 11). Climate resilience needs community roots. https://www.demsoc.org/blog/climate-resilience-needs-community-roots
EIT Climate-KIC, & Democratic Society. (2021). Healthy, Clean Cities Deep Demonstrations Amsterdam. Work Package 4: Cross-Cutting Work Area A, Government as an enabler for communities development (unpublished). Democratic Society and EIT Climate-KIC.
Goodwin, K., & de Groot, T. (2022, March 31). Amsterdam’s energy communities are driving a democratised energy future. Apolitical.Co. https://apolitical.co/solution-articles/en/amsterdams-energy-communities-are-driving-a-democratised-energy-future
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