Drawing policy insights from social innovation cases in the energy field

Abstract

Social innovation is increasingly turned to when attempting to address pressing social needs and emerging issues having a social impact because of its inherent promise for societal improvement. The aim of this paper is to explore, demonstrate and confirm the potential role of social innovations in contributing towards low-carbon transitions in the energy field. The study locates the adequate fields of intervention for energy policymaking for the support of social innovation through a multiple case study of six empirical social innovation cases in the energy field in Europe. We discuss the energy policy context of the social innovation cases and how they contribute to transition as well as their broader impacts. These cases demonstrate many positive effects including measurable impacts in emissions reduction, green investments and an increase in renewable energy production. The study shows that while there has been no general focus on diffusion, some social innovation cases have scaled up nationally and internationally highlighting the potential of transitions to social innovations on the system level. Finally, the paper highlights that legislative and non-legislative policies play a crucial role in the diffusion of social innovations as they are interlinked with administrative and socio-spatial scales and non-energy-related policies or societal fields.