SOCIALNRG

With a goal to create long-lasting energy communities for 460 families, SOCIALNRG is bringing together social and cooperative housing providers operating in Belgium, Italy, and Slovenia to support low-income residents amid soaring energy costs. But beyond economic relief, the project aims to empower residents by strengthening local resilience, fostering social connections, and promoting citizen ownership of the energy system.

By actively involving households in vulnerable situations, SOCIALNRG ensures that they have a voice in shaping the energy transition—demonstrating that climate action and social justice can go hand in hand without compromising long-term sustainability. In a time when social and environmental policies risk being sidelined for the sake of competitiveness, SOCIALNRG stands as a blueprint for an inclusive and democratic energy transition.

Energy poverty and vulnerability are multidimensional problems which still affect a great number of households in Europe today. Many Member States are still narrowly focusing on (short term) one-size-fits all financial reliefs or social tariffs. Additionally, while people in vulnerable situations have long been considered “victims” of the current energy system, they are actually experts on how to improve the system and deliver basic, clean, reliable, and affordable energy services for all. 

The SOCIALNRG consortium is developing, testing and validating a novel and fully adaptable approach in 3 pilot social housing communities in Slovenia, Italy and Belgium. 

The approach is underpinned by: 

• A participated co-designing process by vulnerable families for vulnerable families (‘by them, for them’) to create, or adapt existing, energy communities and tackle their energy vulnerability
• Peer exchanging and learning within and between the three pilots projects
• The development of recommendations to remove existing policy level obstacles. 

The approach will be translated into blueprints (for replication) which, though holding a common methodological core, will be entirely customisable to the specific circumstances and will of each vulnerable population and territory. 

Through an innate participatory methodology, vulnerable families become part of the governance and decision-making structure of the neighbourhood. They will have the opportunity to not only reduce their energy costs, but to intervene in their collective destiny, which will have an impact on their empowerment and sense of community. To support the replication in other context and similar receptive cross-sectoral coordination structures elsewhere, a capacity building programme (and materials) will also be developed and activated to train local and regional authorities, energy communities, social housing providers and energy poor families (among others) in 9 other EU countries.

Partners

COMITE EUROPEEN DE COORDINATION DE L’HABITAT SOCIAL AISBL 

WOONMAATSCHAPPIJ RIVIERENLAND 

RESCOOP EU ASBL 

KLIMAAN 

FINABITA S.R.L. 

E’ NOSTRA SOCIETA COOPERATIVA 

STANOVANJSKO PODJETJE PODJETJE ZA GOSPODARJENJE Z OBJEKTI D.O.O. 

FOCUS ASSOCIATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT 

Institute for Innovation and Development of University of Ljubljana