An important feature of the Community Energy sector is our emphasis on ‘local’. We design and manage renewable energy projects to meet the needs of residents living in the immediate area – something that big commercial developers can’t do. But the impact of our work extends far beyond this – by contributing to wider efforts to decarbonise our economy in a way that is fair for everyone. In other words: the just energy transition.
At BEC, we’ve been joining a broader movement to achieve this transition in our city. Recently, we helped raise a flag outside City Hall to celebrate becoming one of the early adopters of Bristol’s Just Transition Declaration. A group of activists launched the declaration to complement Bristol’s climate and ecological declarations, which include goals of becoming carbon neutral by 2030 and for 30% of land to be managed for the benefit of wildlife. The Just Transition Declaration recognises and aims to tackle the risk that these laudable goals could make life more unfair for disadvantaged people if they are not given consideration in the planning–for example, if use of cars is restricted to clean up air quality, but there is no affordable public transport available for people in the area. The Bristol Declaration is not an action plan, but a set of ten principles that organisations and businesses can use to contribute to a just transition.
BEC was among 12 organisations to formally adopt the principles in 2023 and conversations have already started on bringing more groups on board.
“It won’t be an easy journey,” authors of the declaration said, “Yet we are excited about it because it is about the city and future that we all want to live in.”
Community energy in many ways embodies the values of a just energy transition. We exist to benefit the community, not to generate profit. Our business model is centred on collective ownership and connection to the ‘community’ (those who live near a project as well as those who use the energy from it), we encourage greater public participation and support for the development of renewables. It’s important to hold ourselves accountable, and do everything we can to make sure our good intentions really do translate into the just transition we want to see.
We have prepared a living document describing how we can adhere to the principles of the just transition declaration. These include considering the ideas and knowledge of disadvantaged people in all of our work, providing future proof jobs as a Living Wage employer and continuing to make sure the recipients of our Megawatt Community Energy Fund are those who need the funding most.
You can read about how we embed the principles of the declaration into our work here.
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The other adopters of the declaration include the Watershed, Bristol & Bath Regional Capital, Triodos Bank UK, Bristol Energy Network, ACH, Praxis Research, Wellspring Settlement, Bricks, Bristol Labour group, Bristol Green Councillor Group and Bristol City Council.
