Matthew Day & Kate Daley - Breaking the Status Quo

Promethea Rising

English - March 11, 2021 21:28 - 24 minutes - 22.4 MB
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Social innovations are needed to accelerate the transition to a decarbonized energy system. My guests Matthew Day and Kate Daley are leading a collaboration dedicated to deep and sustained investment in a smart energy future.

When a community has developed a community energy plan and has set goals to transition to a decarbonized future, the hard work begins.

Implementation of a community energy plan is a community-wide effort. However, maintaining momentum after the initial planning stage and over many years can be challenging.

Communities are learning that while the energy technologies exist to get started, the primary barrier to implementation success is the status quo – an existing energy system that prefers conventional modes of energy generation and distribution which work well within prevailing regulatory systems, utility business models, and energy markets.

How will change be coordinated when there are so many moving parts to be considered?

Communities are beginning to experiment with social innovations designed to sustain the engagement of key community stakeholders to achieve community energy plan goals.

My guests for this episode of Promethea Rising are leading just such a social innovation - a collaboration dedicated to deep and sustained investment in a smart energy future for Waterloo Region in southern Ontario.

The most effective way to challenge the status quo is through collaboration. Communities like Waterloo Region are experimenting with social innovations designed to institutionalize collaborations to catalyze and coordinate the implementation of community energy plans. Sometimes referred to as “intermediary” organizations, they do not deliver services or products. Rather, they work between the organizations that do. They serve as a backbone for collaboration across government, community organizations, businesses, and the public.

In Ontario, some examples can be found in Brampton, Guelph, Oakville, and Waterloo. In each case, their mandate is to accelerate the energy transition in their community through the implementation of their community energy plans.