Proceedings of the 4th World Conference on Management and Economics
Year: 2023
DOI:
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Socio-Economic Benefits and Activation of Local Society as Drivers of The Creation of Bioenergy Cooperatives – Lessons Learned from The Becoop Project
Łukasz Sobol1, Arkadiusz Dyjakon, Bernard Knutel , Przemysław Bukowski, Szymon Szufa , Mia Dragović Matosović , Stefan Bouzarovski , Isabel Froes, Amalia Giannakopoulou, Jaime Guerrero Belza, Michalis-Alexandros Kougioumtzis , Dimitrios Chapizanis , Antonia Kalimeri , Ioannis Kostopoulos
ABSTRACT:
Bioenergy cooperatives and communities are referred to as local social groups whose goal is to establish cooperation and partnership to implement a new approach to generating electricity and heat, using the local biomass potential. Although this idea has been known as bringing tangible benefits for decades, in many countries of the world (e.g. Poland) bioenergy cooperatives still do not function. The BECoop project may be helpful for this purpose, as it aims to create optimal conditions for the development of energy cooperatives in selected pilot areas. In this presentation, we discussed the special role of activating the local community and the potential socio-economic benefits that may strengthen the possibility of creating energy communities.
The analysis carried out over the three years of the project’s duration has shown that important factors driving the possibility of creating bioenergy cooperatives and communities are the cooperation of residents with local government authorities, who act as mentors/tutors or even the initiators of the project. A number of activation actions undertaken, including: trainings, workshops, integration meetings, demonstrations, trust building and ecological education showed a significant improvement in self-awareness in the context of the need to implement renewable energy sources and use local potential as part of actions for the common success. Over time, the local community began to notice the socio-economic advantages resulting from the possibility of creating bioenergy cooperatives or short logistic chains using regional raw materials. In particular, the possibility of
creating new jobs and the possibility of developing the region through the promotion of renewable energy sources, economic savings and interregional cooperation were noted. Moreover, the possible reduction of energy poverty among local residents, decrease of final energy costs for heating, and improvement of air quality in the region have been also accepted as having an significant impact on the life standard of local society.
keywords: bioenergy cooperatives, local society, socio-economic benefits, Becoop project, sustainability