At the Community Energy England Award Ceremony at the Lowry Theatre in Salford yesterday we are proud to announce that Derbyshire Dales Community Energy (DDCE Ltd) was given the Small/Medium organisation of the year accolade. Steve Martin and Dave Locke received the award on our behalf, along with a decorative plaque in recognition of DDCE’s wide-ranging and excellent achievements. The Community Energy England Awards scheme is an annual event that recognises and celebrates outstanding achievements in community energy. This ceremony brings together individuals, organisations, and initiatives that are making significant contributions to the advancement of sustainable and locally driven energy solutions. This year’s ceremony, supported by Electricity Northwest, and took place at the Lowry Theatre in Manchester on Friday 17 November 2023.
This award recognizes one community energy organisation that has demonstrated excellence across their operations, delivery, impact, engagement, innovation, and contribution to the broader sector.
The citation read out by one of the judges stated:
“Derbyshire Dales Community Energy Ltd (DDCE) stands at the forefront of the renewable energy movement in Derbyshire. Established in 2022 as a Community Benefit Society, DDCE has been working relentlessly to combat climate change by fostering rural community-based renewable energy initiatives across Derbyshire.
DDCE collaborates with 17 community energy groups, pioneering the installation of solar panels, hydro schemes, and electric vehicle charging points. Their partnership with the Big Solar Co-op, a nationwide carbon-first non-profit, has opened avenues for large-scale solar projects in Derbyshire Dales, with potential sites boasting up to 1.5MWp of solar electricity capacity.
DDCE’s impact goes beyond clean energy generation. Their work has become a catalyst for community engagement and empowerment. By supporting volunteers and community energy groups, DDCE has provided avenues for individuals to actively contribute to the fight against climate change.”https://communityenergyengland.org
In Search of the Unity of Knowledge by E. O. Wilson
I have recently returned to reading the biologist and polymath’s 1998 book in search of some answers to why there is an absence of political leadership capable of addressing our current ecological and environmental crises. I have adapted and summarised some of the early chapters of his book, by way of explanation.
Wilson’s book is an attempt to demonstrate the potential of unified learning via the unifying influence of natural science, particularly of modern biology. He argues that as a general paradigm this applies to all of science, on the grounds that all living activities are governed by information derived from DNA. When he wrote this book by proposing a unifying conception of science, to counteract the prevailing mainstream fragmentation and specialization of disciplines, he gained widespread appreciation. And, for me even more so now- in a highly complex and dystopian world. Moreover, it is a beautifully written book. Besides offering an overview of the validity of Wilson’s vision for the unification of sciences, emphasizing methodological issues it also offers economists a way of linking this discipline with biology and other sciences.
He argues that the Enlightenment thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries got it mostly right the first time. The assumptions they made of a lawful material world, the intrinsic unity of knowledge, and the potential of indefinite human progress are the ones we still take most readily into our hearts. The greatest enterprise of the mind has always been and always will be the attempted linkage of the sciences and humanities. The ongoing fragmentation of knowledge and resulting chaos in philosophy are not reflections of the real world but artifacts of scholarship. The propositions of the original Enlightenment are increasingly favoured by objective evidence, especially from the natural sciences.
Consilience is the key to unification. Wilson preferred this word over “coherence “because its rarity has preserved its precision, whereas coherence has several possible meanings, only one of which is consilience. William Whewell, in his 1840 synthesis The Philosophy of the InductiveSciences was the first to speak of consilience, literally a “jumping together” of knowledge by the linking of facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork for our understanding of knowledge and its application.
In his 1941 classic Man on His Nature, the British neurobiologist Charles Sherrington spoke of the brain as an enchanted loom, perpetually weaving a picture of the external world, tearing down and reweaving, inventing other worlds, creating a miniature universe. The communal mind of literate societies—world culture—is an immensely larger loom.
Through science it has gained the power to map external reality far beyond the reach of a single mind, and through the arts the means to construct narratives, images, and rhythms immeasurably more diverse than the products of any solitary genius. The loom( or paradigm?) is the same for both enterprises, for science and for the arts, and there is a general explanation of its origin and nature and thence of the human condition, proceeding from the deep history of genetic evolution to modem culture.
Consilience of causal explanation(or systems thinking and practice?) is how the single mind can travel most swiftly and surely from one part of the communal mind to the other. In education the search for consilience is the way to renew the crumbling structure of the liberal arts. During the past thirty years the ideal of the unity of learning, which the Renaissance and Enlightenment bequeathed us, has been largely abandoned. With rare exceptions , particularly American and European universities and colleges have dissolved their curriculum into a slurry of minor disciplines and specialized courses. While the average number of undergraduate courses per institution doubled, the percentage of mandatory courses in general education dropped by more than half. The trend cannot be reversed by force-feeding students with some-of this and some-of-that across the branches of learning. Win or lose, true reform should aim at the consilience of science with the social sciences and humanities in scholarship and teaching. Every university or college student should be able to answer the following question: What is the relation between science and the humanities, and how is it important for human welfare?
Every public intellectual and political leader should be able to answer that question as well. Already half the legislation coming before the United States Congress contains important scientific and technological components. Most of the issues that vex humanity daily—ethnic conflict, arms escalation, overpopulation, abortion, environment, endemic poverty, to cite several most persistently before us—cannot be solved without integrating knowledge from the natural sciences with that of the social sciences and humanities. Only fluency across the boundaries will provide a clear view of the world as it really is, not as seen through the lens of ideologies and religious dogmas or commanded by myopic response to immediate need. Yet most of our political leaders are trained exclusively in the social sciences and humanities and have little or no knowledge of the natural sciences. The same is true of the public intellectuals, the columnists, the media interrogators, and think-tank gurus. The best of their analyses are careful and responsible, and sometimes correct, but the substantive base of their wisdom is fragmented and lopsided. A balanced perspective cannot be acquired by studying disciplines in pieces but through pursuit of the consilience among them.
Negotiations with MP supporters of the Local Electricity Bill amendments, deleted by government from the Energy Bill, have resulted in the government creating the Community Energy Fund of £10m over 2 years to help identify and develop projects in England. Once admin and running costs are deducted the fund will be £9m. At the conference last week, Olivia Blunn, Head of Local Energy Policy and Finance, gave some key updates, supported by staff from 3 of the Net Zero Hubs. The fund will open soon, probably mid-October, so watch out for emails and social media announcements and start getting your fundable projects together. It will provide grant funding of £40,000 per project for feasibility work to test ideas and grants of up to £130,000 for developing the project up to investment readiness. Crucially, unlike the late RCEF, community organisation will be able to undertake the feasibility studies themselves, at market rate, rather than having to bring in consultants. This enables the organisation to build and retain capacity and skills – though there is still the challenge of the first stage of acquiring the necessary skills, which Community Energy England(CEE) is looking at how we can support. CEE is planning to organise a webinar with the Hubs in October – details to be announced soon.
The Tory government has promised an annual report to parliament on progress on community energy and to consult on the barriers to community energy delivering projects. Meanwhile the Labour party are ramping up their support for community energy. Their Local Energy plan is ambitiously predicting that they can scale up our abysmally low level of generation capacity from community energy to 8 Giga Watts of capacity! Watch Ed Miliband speak about it at the Cooperative Party Conference a few week ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ULte0yxFTI&t=5294s He argues that there is a massive appetite for community energy -people asking -what can I do? Community energy is a compelling way to address this repetitive and anxious question. It offers everyone a part to play in this energy revolution.
Being open to the limitations of their knowledge can help researchers to foster interdisciplinary and cross-cultural collaborations.
When Ike de la Peña encountered a lack of energy, even an air of disinterest, on a Zoom meeting, he did the opposite of taking control. He exercised humility.
De la Peña, a research pharmacologist at Loma Linda University in California, was visiting his home country, the Philippines, as part of its Balik (‘returning’) Scientist Program, and meeting with local researchers to explore potential areas for collaboration. On the video call that day in October 2022 were specialists in addiction and neurological disorders as well as educators from the University of the Philippines Manila. Maybe they were simply busy or their focus was elsewhere, de la Peña says. Undeterred, he explained he was there not to impose his ideas or create change, but to learn from the experts in his native country.
“Immediately the atmosphere in the meeting changed,” says de la Peña. “Everybody began just smiling and freely sharing their ideas.”
On the basis of that call, the dean of the university invited de la Peña to become a visiting professor this year, and he’s been able to connect with other researchers in the health sciences and participate in virtual research symposiums as a panellist. The experience has cemented how de la Peña plans to explore future research partnerships: by explaining that he is there to learn. “I start by saying that you know more about this disease than I do because you have been working with it,” de la Peña says. “Tell me more about it. Let’s work together.”
De la Peña’s approach embodies the concept of intellectual humility. According to the University of Connecticut’s Humility & Conviction in Public Life research project, which ran from 2015 to 2020, it involves “the owning of one’s cognitive limitations, a healthy recognition of one’s intellectual debts to others, and low concern for intellectual domination and certain kinds of social status”.
That translates to recognizing the limitations of one’s beliefs and being open to the perspectives of others, says Michael Lynch, a philosopher at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. “Somebody who has intellectual humility understands that they aren’t going to simply climb on top of a mountain of knowledge themselves,” Lynch says. “They recognize it is going to take some help.”
In the past decade, studies have shown that intellectual humility is linked to learning1, educational achievement2 and critical thinking3. It can also boost open-mindedness and receptivity to differing perspectives4 — both of which are essential in successful collaborations.
In research, it is all too easy to get stuck in an echo chamber in which uniform thinking hampers progress, says Tenelle Porter, a psychologist at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. “Intellectual humility can really help us listen to those who don’t have the same ways of knowing as we do,” or those with a different expertise, she says.
An antidote to academic arrogance
Although intellectual humility’s role in successful collaborations is easy to recognize, the academic environment can make it hard to put it into practice, researchers say. “It is a very Darwinist world,” says Tero Mustonen, a geographer at Snowchange, a cooperative based in Selkie, Finland, that works with local and Indigenous communities in the Arctic.
In academia, survival of the fittest is all about publishing papers, doing so faster than your peers and showing unshakeable confidence in your own beliefs. It’s a culture that favours humility’s opposite: arrogance, a sense of rightness by virtue of position and a stubbornness about not entertaining competing viewpoints, Lynch says. “I’m a professor, so my job is Arrogance, capitalized,” he says.
On less-senior rungs of the academic ladder, in which many researchers are competing for scarce resources, it can be doubly difficult to display any uncertainty or openness, Porter says. Doing so can translate into failure to publish, missed funding and loss of advancement opportunities for early-career researchers.
Learning to collaborate with humility is, however, crucial to solving global challenges, such as building resilience to climate change, says Elena Naumova, an epidemiologist at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. “Marginalized and hard-to-reach communities face the greatest threats from climate change,” she says. “And we don’t want to push the old missionary idea that we [outsiders] know what is best, and what works.”
Yet many scientists still take that approach, says Maria Corazon De Ungria, a population and molecular geneticist at the University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City. To study population genetics and provide relevant medical treatments, she works with and explains her research to local and Indigenous communities with varied educational backgrounds. She’s seen researchers acting as paternalistic saviours and telling people scientific facts as though they represent the one and only truth. “Whereas, in my experience, it is particularly important to stop talking and listen,” to place research and recommendations in the proper community context, De Ungria says.
In the past, De Ungria might have started off by explaining the benefits of medicines that took into account a group’s genomic make-up. But when she stopped to listen, she heard that such treatments were impractical because there wasn’t a health centre nearby. Consequently, in one instance, she was able to contract a local pharmaceutical company to donate medicines through family physicians. “It is only when we listen that we get to understand how the science could be relevant to the people who are affected the most,” De Ungria says.
Embracing fallibility
Listening is a skill, De Ungria says, one fuelled by the recognition that one’s knowledge might be flawed or, at least, limited. But it’s hard to admit our own fallibility, Leary says. So, researchers should cultivate a mindset and create an environment in which it is OK — even applauded — to make mistakes.
To this end, Leary gives a talk entitled ‘Tales from the trash can — 40 years of failed research’. In it, he outlines his own history of bad ideas, suboptimal decisions and mistakes, such as the time when he sloppily offered research participants a response scale that ran from “strongly disagree” to “strongly disagree”. His objectives are to reassure junior researchers that not every study succeeds and to emphasize that principal investigators should be open to feedback from everyone in their group — a process that could lead to fewer mistakes.
It helps to remember that it is impossible to know everything, Porter says. This understanding can then spur individuals to hunt out the gaps in their knowledge and be open to fresh ideas. Ultimately, exercising intellectual humility requires approaching assumptions, beliefs and opinions with curiosity and no small degree of courage. But the pay-offs are there, Porter says. “You have to be willing to wade into the unknown to make new discoveries.”
Intellectual humility isn’t merely an inward-looking endeavour of rooting out limitations, however, Lynch says. “It also has an outward-looking aspect — the idea that what others bring to the table can teach you something.”
For instance, when it comes to discerning why populations evolve the way they do, genomics is simply one part of the puzzle, De Ungria says. History, culture and language all play a part. So arriving at understanding relies on collaborating across disciplines and cultures, she says.
In recent years, scientists and policymakers have also recognized the crucial role that traditional and Indigenous ecological knowledge have in conservation and climate-adaptation strategies. Such knowledge represents the accumulated experience and understandings of societies with long histories of interacting with their natural surroundings. Bradley Moggridge, a hydrogeologist at the University of Canberra and a Murri from the Kamilaroi nation on the eastern coast of Australia, says his nation’s songs and dances contain observations and understandings from more than 60,000 years of connection with the land.
Such knowledge can provide accurate and useful climate information and can point to solutions, says Mustonen, who is also head of the traditional village of Selkie and a lead author of the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The mission of Snowchange, which Mustonen co-founded, is to give local and Indigenous communities a voice and agency in the stewardship of their environments. Snowchange workers employ intellectual humility in their collaborations simply by not assuming anything. It’s an approach that builds trust in collaborations and results in information being shared more freely, Mustonen says.
Such humility also has a role in the work of the IPCC, Mustonen says. “We should be trying to work in an honourable and consented way with Indigenous peoples and their knowledge, because we need all the evidence now to make the best possible decisions to maintain humanity’s existence on the planet,” he says.
When exercising intellectual humility, it helps to confront knowledge gaps and “wade into the unknown”, says psychologist Tenelle Porter .
To help such efforts, Moggridge says that scientists need to see traditional ecological knowledge as equal in value to other scientific knowledge. In Australia, doing so could help to resolve natural-resource issues such as how water is managed or preparing lands for a hot, dry summer with ‘cultural burning’, the use of controlled fires to reduce wildfire risks. However, non-Indigenous scientists there don’t typically see Aboriginal Dreamings — oral-tradition stories that capture thousands of years of observations — as providing useful evidence. The stories “are put in the realm of fiction and make-believe”, he says.
Humility training could help scientists to recognize that different forms of knowledge exist, have value and require different methods of data collection, Moggridge says. The Indigenous perspective on natural-resource management is one of knowing, being and doing, all in the context of the local environment, so if you want to understand Aboriginal knowledge, it is essential to go to where that knowledge is held, he says.
Collaboration built on trust
Consequently, establishing research partnerships with Indigenous knowledge holders can prove invaluable. But, too often, scientists define their research questions with little to no consultation with communities. “It is too late to start a project and then go to the people and ask their opinions because the train is already on its path,” Moggridge says. “We are so tired of being an afterthought or add-on.”
Moggridge says the solution is to collaborate with intellectual humility from start to finish. Scientists should start the conversation early with a community, build trust over time and then start talking about the research priorities of that community. The result is a co-designed project that can also be co-delivered — feeding the results not just into scientific publications but back into the community in a way that is useful, he says.
Hydrogeologist Bradley Moggridge says that traditional knowledge, such as songs and oral histories based on deep connections to land, can point to climate solutions.Credit: Bradley Moggridge
In Western Australia, projects run by an organization called Kanyirninpa Jukurrpa embody such an approach. Its rangers draw on ancient knowledge of species habitat and behaviour, and use bush skills of the Martu people to monitor and protect species including the warru, or black-flanked rock wallaby (Petrogale lateralis), and the mankarr, or greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis).
Universities and funding agencies can provide cultural-sensitivity training to help raise scientists’ awareness of different perspectives and world views. IPCC panel members receive such training. Online resources for collaborating with Indigenous communities also exist: the Native Movement, a Native Alaskan organization rooted in an Indigenized world view, provides an online course called Untangling Colonialism, and Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has compiled ‘Our Knowledge, Our Way’ guidelines for scientists who work with Indigenous peoples. In New Zealand, guidelines for researchers working with Maori communities are outlined in the Kaupapa Māori ethical framework. One principle it emphasizes, mahaki, is that of showing humility when sharing knowledge.
Perhaps the biggest act of humility for non-Indigenous researchers is developing the awareness that their beliefs and values are often simply a product of the Western scientific paradigm, rather than being neutral and objective descriptions of reality. Recognizing that can allow them to question their world views and biases, and clear the way for entering collaborations with fresh and open minds. Then respect, deep listening and a willingness to learn can help to foster trust. “Really, as scientists, our currency is not just knowledge, but also trust,” De Ungria says.
Intellectual humility is a skill or habit that can be learnt (see ‘How to apply intellectual humility in your science’), and scientists are well positioned to embrace the concept, Leary says. “A big part of science is being wrong and acknowledging and understanding when you’re wrong,” he says.
How to apply intellectual humility in your science
Interrogate your own ideas, assumptions, and beliefs:
• Take the perspective of an outsider and try to poke holes in your own ideas.
• List any doubts about your work.
• Identify gaps in your knowledge and seek out ways to fill them.
Look for the warning signs of insecurity or arrogance:
• Snap judgements.
• Reacting on autopilot.
• A strong feeling that your view of an issue is correct.
• Being closed off to different interpretations of your data.
Listen actively and deeply:
• Be fully present in conversations and limit distractions.
• Focus on what the other person is saying rather than on your response, and strive to understand their meaning.
Respond mindfully:
• Repeat back some of what you’ve heard to check you have understood correctly.
• Ask follow-up questions to understand more deeply.
Respond to critics with humility:
• Take a long pause to avoid reacting defensively.
• Cool off and reflect.
• Ask your critics: “What do I need to consider or read to understand the point you are making?” or “I want to hear your explanation of your criticism — I really want to dive deeper into this.”
Expand your humility skill set:
• Consider an online course, such as one on intellectual humility from the University of Edinburgh, UK (see go.nature.com/3pyhwr2), or those on giving and receive feedback offered by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (see go.nature.com/3zx8vge).
• Practise effective listening with courses such as those on the professional networking site LinkedIn (see go.nature.com/3es5fsb).
Recognizing that there’s more to learn, together with the humility to listen, lie at the heart of effective collaboration. And intellectual humility can serve as a tool to unite disciplines and cultures in the quest for solutions to complex challenges. Moreover, it doesn’t necessarily require extensive training or hard-to-implement strategies, Leary says. It can be as simple as getting into the habit of asking yourself one question whenever you are tempted to assert your position: “Could I be wrong about this?”
In the midst of today’s tumultuous times, as we grapple with a rapidly changing climate and deepening social divides, the need for action has never been more pressing. The concepts of regeneration and sustainability have long been discussed in academic circles, but we must move beyond the realm of theory and into the arena of real-world practice.
The urgency of our era requires us to embrace a profound shift in our approach — one that goes beyond superficial solutions and tackles the fundamental interconnected challenges we face. This is the essence of “Deep Regeneration.”
Theoretical Stagnation in Regeneration Discourse
In recent years, discussions on regeneration have proliferated in academic settings. Theoretical frameworks, ideas, and concepts have flourished, each offering a glimpse into what a more sustainable and resilient world might look like. These discussions are vital, as they shape our understanding of the challenges we face and the potential solutions that lie before us.
However, there’s a concerning trend that has emerged — the “ivory tower syndrome.” Many brilliant minds have become ensnared within the confines of academic publications, conferences, and debates, without translating their ideas into tangible actions. Theories abound, but their real-world impact remains limited.
The Urgency of Our Era
Our world is in crisis. The environmental challenges we face — biodiversity loss, climate change, deforestation, and resource depletion — are unprecedented in their severity. The consequences of inaction are dire and extend beyond the natural world, affecting human societies on a profound scale.
Moreover, our era is marked by social and economic inequities that threaten the fabric of our societies. The urgency to address these issues is undeniable, and the time to act is now. We cannot afford to delay action on regeneration any longer.
The Imperative of “Deep Regeneration”
Enter “Deep Regeneration.” This concept transcends the superficial and the partial. It signifies a commitment to comprehensive healing and revitalization, not only of ecosystems but also of communities and societies. At its core, “Deep Regeneration” embraces the complexity and interdependence of ecological and social systems.
“Deep Regeneration” is more than just a buzzword — it’s an ethical imperative. It recognizes the intrinsic value of all life forms and ecosystems, compelling us to act with a profound sense of responsibility toward the planet.
Immediate Action
The urgency of our era demands immediate action. We can no longer afford to let regeneration remain confined to theoretical discussions. It must be translated into concrete, on-the-ground practices that restore, renew, and rejuvenate our world.
This isn’t a call for piecemeal solutions; it’s a call for a profound transformation. “Deep Regeneration” beckons us to break free from the shackles of theory and embark on a journey of action — a journey that heals both the Earth and its inhabitants.
In an age defined by change and uncertainty, we stand at a pivotal juncture. The time for action is now, and the stakes could not be higher. We must move beyond the theoretical and embrace “Deep Regeneration” as a holistic, ethical, and urgent path forward.
This is not a challenge for future generations; it is a call to action for us, today. It is a call to recognize the interconnectedness of all life and to inspire a new era of practical, regenerative action. It is a call to heal our planet and, in doing so, to heal ourselves. The path from theory to practice has never been clearer, and the time to tread it is now.
All SDGs need attention, as the 17 Goals are indivisible and integrated, but in each context, some Goals matter more than others to boost progress.
In setting priorities for accelerating the SDGs, Member States should consider the systemic role each Goal plays.
The scientific community now has an important role to play to support “systems literacy” and bring practical ways to incorporate systems thinking in policymaking, in support of SDG acceleration.
Before the UN SDG Summit to be held in New York, US, this September, UN Member States must decide on their priorities for accelerating progress towards the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. We argue that Member States can prioritize some Goals above others, to boost progress on the 2030 Agenda. To be able to do this, while keeping to the commitment to achieve all SDGs, they need to incorporate “systems thinking” into SDGs and national decision- and policymaking processes.
The SDGs are indivisible, meaning progress on all 17 Goals is necessary for building a sustainable future. Because many of the Goals are also interlinked, one or a handful of Goals may have the capacity to “push progress” and make development more sustainable across many or even all the Goals. At the same time, some Goals merit additional attention as they are more isolated and will not receive that push from other Goals, while some may even be constrained by progress in another Goal. The interplay between the Goals matters as Member States aim to achieve them all, while acknowledging that in each context, progress on some Goals will be more important for accelerating the SDGs than others.
Despite the Goals’ indivisible and integrated nature, we haven’t seen systems thinking being broadly applied to the SDGs to date. We argue that even though prioritization might sound like cherry-picking, it can be done in such a way as to create far-reaching actions across the whole 2030 Agenda. Member States have the responsibility to progress on the SDGs, and they have much to gain from considering the systemic role each Goal plays within the 2030 Agenda. With an increasingly challenging geopolitical context, and a rapidly changing world, decision makers need to rethink their approach to priority setting in the next half year.
Prioritizing for greater impact
The 2030 Agenda remains an ambitious and uniting framework for global sustainable development, one that would likely not be adopted today. Member States must take this opportunity and deliver on their responsibility to make as much progress as possible on all SDGs up to 2030. The temptation will be to do the easiest things to showcase progress – which may be counter-productive.
Prioritizing progress on SDGs that are more easily achieved or because they serve short-term political or economic interests will not take us far in achieving the vision of the 2030 Agenda and could conceivably threaten progress on other Goals. Systems thinking can help set priorities for actions on the SDGs by showing interactions, both synergies and trade-offs between the Goals. Seeing the whole and understanding relationships, rather than braking systems down into separate parts, is basic systems thinking.
The relationship between the Goals varies in each context. Results from our work with the tool SDG Synergies in Sweden represent one context-specific example of how taking a systemic view can capitalize on how the indivisible Goals interact. Our tool offered decision makers a number of perspectives on the Goals’ systemic impact. We found that SDG 11 (sustainable cities and communities) came out as having the most positive impact on progress across all 17 SDGs for Sweden. The next most impactful Goals were, in descending order, partnerships for the goals (SDG 17), quality education (SDG 4), peace, justice and strong institutions (SDG 16), and climate action (SDG 13).
While these five Goals were considered important accelerators to progress on all the SDGs in Sweden, our results also showed the trade-offs that progress in these highly synergistic Goals posed for some other SDGs. We saw that clean water and sanitation (SDG 6), life on land (SDG 15), affordable and clean energy (SDG 7), responsible consumption and production (SDG 12), climate action (SDG 13), and life below water (SDG 14) all suffered. Seeing how SDG 13 can both work to accelerate progress across the system as a whole, pose trade-offs with some Goals, and be negatively influenced by progress in some of the other accelerator Goals, illustrates the complexity of the SDGs as a system. With our tool, we were able to show which SDGs received a strong push by progress in other Goals, and therefore may not need much targeted efforts. We were also able to pinpoint the Goals that would not receive such boosts through progress in other SDGs and therefore risk falling behind.
This type of analysis, based on how all the Goals interact, can help decision makers see the impacts on all SDGs by moving towards certain Goals. Such information is necessary to guide priority setting to focus actions for the most widespread positive impacts – and avoid unnecessary costs from missteps, as well as balance the needs of all kinds of stakeholders, from civil society to businesses and more. SDG Synergies is not the only tool that helps leverage SDG interlinkages. The iSDG model, SDG Interlinkages Analysis & Visualisation Tool, and others provide science-based assessments that can help policymakers and other stakeholders see the whole picture while they prioritize next steps.
Seeing the whole 2030 Agenda
A recent UN elements paper that hints at the final content of the political declaration of the SDG Summit indicates that Member States want to protect the principles of integration and indivisibility going forward. We think these are signs of growing systems thinking and awareness of the Goals’ systemic roles, and an important outcome of conversations generated by the SDGs. Systems thinking can complement, not replace, concerns over individual Goals’ status and risk of not progressing, over financial viability that takes into account the cost of inaction, cost efficiency, and returns on investments, and over technological and governance options, as well as the wider policy and political landscape.
The UN and Member States should now build on the growing awareness of systems thinking, with efforts to support improved “systems literacy” and practical ways to operationalize systems thinking during the second half of implementation of the SDGs. That effort could pay off in the long run, turning the SDGs into a launchpad for systems thinking that promotes sustainable development beyond 2030.
The Stockholm Environmental Institute(SEI) recommend the following:
Put systems thinking to practice as an integral part of priority-setting and policymaking for SDG acceleration.
Find science-based tools and methods for systems thinking that can assist in policymaking. The scientific community can provide additional support and better align their tools with decision makers’ realities and processes.
Share knowledge and experience across national and regional levels.
We think that countries could report on their approach to priority setting in their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) to facilitate peer-learning at the High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF). Member States should share their experiences of how their strategies are informed by systems thinking, and how approaches for managing trade-offs and synergies are institutionalized. They can and should share their policy assessments, analytical tools, and coordination mechanisms, among other tools and actions, to foster SDG implementation in other nations.
If Member States, with the support of the scientific community, seize this opportunity and take responsibility, perhaps one of the legacies of the SDGs in 2030 will be how they made us think more about systems and interconnections. That shift in outlook would put us in a better position to deliver on all of the SDGs, in all parts of the world, while leaving no one behind, and to achieve conditions and policy to drive transformative changes for sustainability in the longer term, beyond 2030.
Putting people at the centre of all clean energy transitions not only improves people’s lives but is also key to successfully implementing energy and climate policies. Local energy communities, or community-based energy projects, are showing clear benefits across the globe in deploying renewable technologies, improving efficiency, supporting reliable power supply, reducing bills, and generating local jobs. At the same time, these initiatives are garnering increased attention as effective vehicles towards more inclusive, equitable and resilient energy systems.
Digital platforms and tools are making it easier to set-up cooperatives, engage stakeholders, make investments, and exchange electricity. An increasing number of countries are allocating significant funds to support community-based clean projects. The Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan has allocated EUR 2.2 billion1 to support energy communities and self-consumption, while the USD 370 billion United States Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 offers additional financial incentives for community-based clean energy projects. The IEA recently organised discussions to explore and share experiences about the role that energy communities can play in supporting clean energy transitions.
With ever growing pressure to accelerate decarbonisation and to mitigate impacts of the energy crisis on households and businesses, community-based energy communities can help address numerous challenges faced by power systems, including losses, grid congestion and the need to accommodate growing peak demand. Recently, the IEA estimated that one gigatonne of carbon dioxide emissions come from grid losses, equal to almost 3% of current global energy-related CO2emissions. Local community-based generating, sharing, and consuming of electricity can significantly avoid these losses and enhance energy efficiency. For example, in northern Perth in Australia, a battery resource shared by 119 households resulted in collective savings of over AUD 81 0002 during a five-year period. The battery also helped ease the strain on the grid by enabling an 85% reduction in consumption of electricity from the grid at peak times for participating households. The energy community of Magliano Alpi in the Italian Alps developed tools to forecast energy generation and demand and share electricity, enabling the community to use their solar photovoltaic systems and cover 35% of their electricity needs more effectively. Increased reliance on their own generation resources during peak demand periods alleviated grid stress and helped defer expensive infrastructure upgrades.
Enhancing energy efficiency and community benefits through local generation and sharing
Providing customers with access to their energy production and consumption data is crucial to the success of energy communities, raising awareness about the impacts of individual behaviour and underscoring the economic benefits of being part of the community. Software based on machine-learning is also widely used to optimise energy efficiency and deliver financial savings. Recently, peer-to-peer digital trading on blockchain platforms have been tested to enable citizens to exchange energy within the community. Such initiatives foster collaboration and trust among prosumers and consumers. For example, in the Indian city of Lucknow, residents were able to sell their rooftop electricity production at 43% below the central market price through the use of digital tools, allowing other residents to benefit from local clean energy while also cutting their electricity bills.
Digital tools boost the potential of local energy communities.
Developed by people for people, local energy communities are an effective means of maximising socioeconomic empowerment. As they depend on trust, both within and outside the community, these systems involve and educate people who would otherwise be excluded or passive in clean energy transitions. More than this, they have become tools to help overcome historical societal inequalities in energy systems. For example, the RevoluSolar energy initiative was the first photovoltaic community founded in a Brazilian favela, enabling renewable energy access for 30 families. The community opted to re-invest the profits from the projects into charities and jobs training to tackle rising rates of local unemployment. This ability to determine where, how and to whom the revenues from the project are distributed, improved overall citizen welfare in the favela. Not only this, but it enabled the community to protect the citizens from rising energy prices.
Community initiatives are empowering citizens.
Energy communities also help develop local value-chains, jobs, and skills. The Lyndoch residential community microgrid project, which interconnected over 30 homes via a tiered grid system (from household to household, to the village, to the national grid) was the first smart embedded residential rooftop microgrid in South Africa. The pilot project is co-owned and maintained by the utility (Eskom), but members of the community were taught and certified by industry to assume roles in the development, installation, maintenance, operation, and ownership of the energy system. Such initiatives help ensure the sustainability and longevity of projects while also demonstrating the value of enhancing citizen engagement in localised clean energy transitions.
Local value-chains gain
Energy community models can be effective mechanisms to deliver clean energy transitions. They not only illustrate the benefits of place-specific interventions, but also highlight the added value of inclusive people-centred approaches. Better access to financing and support, regulatory reforms, and sharing of experiences could give communities around the world greater access to local, clean and affordable energy. For instance, the European Parliament has recently provided funding for the creation of an advisory hub and support service to help collect and disseminate best practices and provide technical assistance for community initiatives across the European Union. Further mapping of initiatives and benefits is underway as part of the IEA People-Centred Clean Energy Transitions Programme and the Digital Demand-Driven Electricity Networks Initiative (3DEN).
Citizen engagement is key to accelerating clean energy transitions.
Guest Blog by Dr Nicholas Maxwell, Science and Technology Studies, UCL
The world is in a state of crisis. Global problems that threaten our future include: the climate crisis; the destruction of natural habitats, catastrophic loss of wildlife, and mass extinction of species; lethal modern war; the spread of modern armaments; the menace of nuclear weapons; pollution of earth, sea and air; rapid rise in the human population; increasing antibiotic resistance; the degradation of democratic politics, brought about in part by the internet. It is not just that universities around the world have failed to help humanity solve these global problems; they have made the genesis of these problems possible. Modern science and technology, developed in universities, have made possible modern industry and agriculture, modern hygiene and medicine, modern power production and travel, modern armaments, which in turn make possible much that is good, all the great benefits of the modern world, but also all the global crises that now threaten our future.
What has gone wrong? The fault lies with the whole conception of inquiry built into universities around the world. The basic idea is to help promote human welfare by, in the first instance, acquiring scientific knowledge and technological know-how. First, knowledge is to be acquired; once acquired, it can be applied to help solve social problems, and promote human welfare.
But this basic idea is an intellectual disaster. Judged from the standpoint of promoting human welfare, it is profoundly and damagingly irrational, in a structural way. As a result of being restricted to the tasks of acquiring and applying knowledge, universities are prevented from doing what they most need to do to help humanity solve global problems, namely, engage actively with the public to promote action designed to solve global problems. Universities do not take their basic task to be public education about what our problems are, and what we need to do about them. As a result of giving priority to the pursuit of knowledge, universities do not even give priority within academia to the vital tasks of articulating problems of living, local and global, and proposing and critically assessing possible solutions – possible and actual actions, policies, political programmes, ways of living.
Universities are in part responsible for the genesis of the global problems we face today, not because they have pursued scientific knowledge and technological know-how in such an extraordinarily successful way, but because they have done so in a way that is dissociated from a more fundamental concern to help humanity learn what our problems are, and what we need to do about them. We need urgently to bring about a revolution in universities around the world, wherever possible, so that their central task becomes to help humanity learn how to solve local and global problems of living, so that we may make progress towards a good, civilized world. Almost every branch and aspect of the university needs to change. Every university should seek to take a leading role, both by itself bringing about the changes that are required and advocating that this needs to be done on a world-wide basis.
A recent book from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) highlights how universities are not providing the majority of their students with the critical thinking skills required by employers. In their study analysing data from the US, UK, Italy, Mexico, Finland and China, 45 per cent of students were found to be proficient in critical thinking, with only 20 per cent having an “emerging” talent.
Crucially, the OECD’s definition of critical thinking skills involves not only thinking, but the application of this thinking to real-life scenarios through the interrelated processes of “inquiring, imagining, doing and reflecting”. This definition echoes the Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire’s concept of “critical consciousness”, whereby students inquire about and develop an understanding of society in order to take action and transform their communities.
While research from cognitive sciences focuses on how critical thinking skills should be taught through direct instruction, an argument should also be made that direct instruction it precisely what hinders students from developing critical thinking skills in the first place. How many university tutors have reflected upon the ways in which an outcome-driven school system has presented them with undergraduate students who want to be told what to do and what to think? How many university tutors have found themselves meticulously preparing their first-year undergraduate students for their assessments? How many university tutors have felt themselves complicit in perpetuating an absence of critical thinking through direct instruction?
If not direct instruction, what might be another solution to developing critical thinking in our students? The obvious answer is to think about other pedagogical approaches, which include students practically applying their learning and which develop the key competency of independent learning – an established prerequisite to critical thinking.
To go back to the OECD’s book, what is perhaps most surprising is that university courses that are more vocational seem to score worse in terms of developing students’ critical thinking skills. Of course, there are utilitarian reasons for this, with some of these courses leaning more towards training than education. But the fact that students on these courses will often benefit from the practical application of their learning through partnerships in their local community offers a clear opportunity for the take-up of pedagogies that have been proven to develop critical thinking skills.
Commissioned by Enactus UK, a non-profit organisation supporting young people in schools and universities to engage in social action and build sustainable community enterprises, I undertook a review of research into pedagogies used with 11- to 19-year-olds where the students engaged with their local communities on projects of their own devising. In the review, I found substantive evidence of positive outcomes when students had experienced one of two pedagogical approaches: project-based learning (PBL); and youth participatory action research (YPAR).
With both PBL and YPAR, students work in groups on projects of interest that will bring about positive change in their local communities. Examples of PBL from Enactus UK’s work with secondary school students through their NextGenLeaders programme include: Project Pawject, helping the homeless in Norwich through the selling of dog beds; Foodprint, providing people with affordable food that would otherwise go to waste in Nottingham; and Coding with Codex, delivering inclusive and affordable computer coding courses for neurodivergent learners.
For each of these projects, students work through processes with a facilitator in a way that mirrors the OECD’s definition of critical thinking skills: they “imagine and inquire”, developing and researching a problem and thinking about beneficiaries and barriers involved; they take action, working in partnership with local businesses and third sector organisations; and they receive feedback on their actions, helping them reflect and set actions and targets for the future development of their projects.
YPAR is differentiated from PBL in that it also involves the explicit teaching of research methods to students. This formal understanding of research methods helps students gather data to develop their problem statement as well as design a project that will impact positively upon their target beneficiaries. To date, YPAR is relatively underused in the UK and tends to take place in the US where students work specifically with and for marginalised communities.
The organisations currently working with Derbyshire Dales Community Energy for solar panel installations in the not too distant future.
There is a growing appetite for the development of community energy programmes across the UK. Currently over 400 proactive programmes exist in the UK according to Community Energy England’s State of the Sector report, which have generated over £3 million of community benefits.
In Derbyshire there are currently five second stage 1 Rural Community Energy Funded (RCEF) programmes, which have been supported by the Midlands Net Zero Hub. These include the Derbyshire Dales Community Energy programme in Matlock and the Derbyshire Dales, Arkwright Society programme at Cromford Mill, Hope Valley Community Energy, Solar electric vehicle (EV) charging in Belper, and a Heat network programme in Brassington. There are at least two others being considered – a Hydro scheme in Darley Abbey and another similar scheme in Belper.
The 5 Confirmed RCEF funded Community Energy Projects in Derbyshire
Just like the pioneering Georgian engineers such as Arkwright and Smedley – who used the abundant rivers and streams to power the industrial revolution in the Derwent Valley – these renewable energy democracy pioneers are now seeking ways to ramp up the application of solar energy in our schools and businesses.
1 Second Stage Programmes move from feasibility studies to the stage of implementation of solar panels on buildings – both community owned and commercial -who agree to being involved. Derbyshire has more RCEF programmes than any other County in England.
New investment partner energises and enhances plans for Derbyshire Dales community energy scheme. Plans for a social renewable energy scheme in Matlock have been supercharged by a new partner organisation which has identified potential to harness up to 1 million Watts of solar electricity from sites in the district. Derbyshire Dales Community Energy Ltd (DDCE) has enlisted the support of Shropshire cooperative Sharenergy to help guide the process, drawing on its experience of raising more than £20 million through community share offers linked to similar initiatives all over the UK.
The first two Matlock rooftop sites, Highfields School and Twiggs on Bakewell Road, have already passed feasibility assessments to install solar panels. These solar arrays will have an approximate capacity of 220 kilowatts, equivalent to the energy needed to power around 25 average households. But Sharenergy says there is scope to go far beyond that. DDCE spokesperson and Chair of its board of directors, Dr Steve Martin, said: “Sharenergy has identified an ambitious opportunity for us to ensure the longevity and stability of the group. The plan is to take community energy in Derbyshire to the next level by installing 1MW worth of solar photovoltaics (solar PV) in up to nine or 10 different locations ( see first stage portfolio sites below).
“The project partners plan to install the first two solar arrays on top of buildings in Matlock in 2023. This will not only be providing a significant amount of renewable energy, but it will also make DDCE more resilient to the potential risks associated with small scale solar PV. We also believe this will help safeguard the future energy security of our schools and other community buildings as well as key businesses in Derbyshire.”
Dr Martin also added: “There are a growing number of other sites in the pipeline that could potentially work well, but they need further analysis and commitment from their owners and trustees. One of the main factors is that a good solar site doesn’t only need roof space for the PV installation. For a community project to be financially viable, it’s important that a large portion of the energy generated by the solar is also consumed on site.”
Derbyshire Dales Community Energy Ltd has gone out to tender to several local and regional solar installers for the following sites: Twigg Stores Highfields School Lower Highfields School Upper Hurst Farm Social Club John Palin Fresh Produce Peak Converters Milner Off-Road
Once the installation tenders are received, it will then be possible to move quickly forward on negotiating with each of these sites to establish some price options along with setting out the legal agreements for leasing their roof space. This will allow the programme to move forward on initiating a share offer both regionally and nationally. If all goes according to plan, DDCE expects to release shares this autumn, funding the first two installations in early 2023.
DDCE volunteers have also been busy working to set up a community energy hub which will link all the existing, and potential new, projects around Derbyshire, so they can coordinate resources and mutual support. The team is celebrating news that Derbyshire County Council have granted Derbyshire Dales Community Energy Ltd £50,000 to fund a Community Hub Coordinator to support the existing five Rural Community Funded Stage 2 programmes in Derbyshire and other community energy developments in Derbyshire. The aim is to widen the uptake of community energy activities across the county to realise the net zero carbon targets of county and district councils, in addition to acting as a catalyst to encourage wider community action and tangible engagement.
For more details, contact derbyshiredalescommunityenergy@gmail.com.
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