My name's Tom. I'm currently based in Birmingham (UK) and co-ordinating the development of **ojuso**, a collaboration which started this year between Yansa and Gaia Foundation (with support from Swift Foundation) to create an online platform which aims to foster accountability in the renewable energy economy. Community-focused case studies from all along (or around) the supply chains of whatever constitutes the renewable energy economy are being sought. This means both 'positive' *and* 'negative' cases. The aim being to provide direct through a Discourse forum (which Nicole and Cecile are part of) at https://forum.ojuso.org but we will also link communities with partners if communities are interested.
Cases will be presented through a map interface (almost pre-beta right now! ;) ) at https://map.ojuso.org. We are working with EJAtlas to share data in both directions at the moment. We're aiming to partner with ECA through the nascent Energy Working Group. Nicole and Cecile have been really helpful for us in pushing forward a narrative around energy as a commons and generally with shaping this project which we've only been working on since the start of the year).
We are now asking whether you would be interested in developing our definition of 'energy as a commons' for the form that we are creating for the online map/discussion platform about the renewable energy economy we're developing - what is a case study of 'energy as a commons' and how would it be specifically different to 'community renewable energy'. For the moment, we're using the World Wind Energy Association's Community Power definition of 'community renewable energy' ( http://www.wwindea.org/communitypowerdefinition/ ):
"The WWEA Community Power working group agreed on the following definition:
A project can be defined as Community Power if at least two of the following three criteria are fulfilled:
- . Local stakeholders own the majority or all of a project
- A local individual or a group of local stakeholders, whether they are farmers, cooperatives, independent power producers, financial institutions, municipalities, schools, etc., own, immediately or eventually, the majority or all of a project.
- . Voting control rests with the community-based organization:
- The community-based organization made up of local stakeholders has the majority of the voting rights concerning the decisions taken on the project.
- . The majority of social and economic benefits are distributed locally:
- The major part or all of the social and economic benefits are returned to the local community."
- We'd like the 'energy as a commons' definition to have a Global South perspective and not just a 'European/Eurocentric' perspective (which we trust people on this list would be capable of helping with). Soon, we'll be asking if you'd like to participate in the Alliance we're building (formal ask to follow). The Alliance will meet for half a day per year (around the COP) and will help to give strategic direction to **ojuso**. We will also have an Advisory Board which we're creating with specific skills which will be more 'hands-on'.
