ENERGY COMMUNITIES: THE EVOLUTION OF THE EUROPEAN AND ITALIAN REGULATORY FRAMEWORKS

by Alberica Aquili | Jul 28, 2023 | Commons Press

Background: climate emergency and energy transition

Climate change plagues the earth system, the anthropogenic activity of the inordinate use of fossil fuels in industrial supply chains, commercial activities and the energy sector is the main cause of the current climate crisis. The resulting concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has reached the highest level in recent years. As a result, the earth’s temperature rise is increasing, causing environmental damage and climate quality impacts such as melting glaciers, rising sea and ocean levels,[1] biodiversity loss, water acidification, and continuous catastrophic climate events worldwide.

The energy sector plays a key role in the search for a solution to counter the demise of our planet.

Into this tragic historical snapshot comes the European energy crisis caused by the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war. With EU sanctions against Russia, the resulting reduced supply of Russian gas and related price inflation show even more how energy independence of European states and the world is needed[2].

It is therefore essential to orient energy planning toward a sustainable energy system, replacing fossil sources with renewable sources[3]. There is, in fact, an intrinsic relationship between the energy market and sustainable development, the latter first defined by the 1987 Brundtland Report as: “development capable of ensuring the satisfaction of the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to realize their needs[4].” That said, in the following pages an attempt will be made to reconstruct the regulatory framework at the international and European level on the sustainable energy transition, which has become a lever for the emergence of energy communities. The discussion continues precisely with an in-depth look at the regulation of renewable energy communities (RECs) and citizen energy communities (CECs) at the European level. It continues, then, with a description of its transposition in Italy, through the presentation of the transition from the transitional regulatory phase to the new regulations introduced with the approval of the Integrated Text on Diffuse Self-consumption. The goal is to provide an overview of the energy community system in order to open a reflection on how this new widespread model of energy production allows to consider energy as a common good, fight energy poverty, create new forms of governance and enhance the figure of the so-called prosumer. Energy communities constitute a new solution resulting from a public-private community partnership in the field of environmental, social and economic innovation, and thus perhaps a real key to addressing climate change and making cities resilient and sustainable[5].

For reading the entire article, please refer to:
A. Aquili, Energy communities: the evolution of the European and national regulatory framework, Law and Society Review, Editoriale Scientifica Srl, 4, 2022, pp. 799-842.

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References

[1] P. Caputo, Importanza della risorsa biomassa nella pianificazione energetica e per lo sviluppo locale. Analisi di alcune esperienze in Nord Italia e possibili scenari evolutivi in Archivio di studi urbani e regionali”, 2021, 131, 186 ss.

[2] N. Braga, Progetti per la transizione energetica: caso di studio relativo ad una centrale di teleriscaldamento associata ad impianto fotovoltaico inserito in Comunità Energetica Rinnovabile, in Università degli Studi di Padova – Dipartimento di Agronomia, Animali, Alimenti, Risorse Naturali e Ambiente e Dipartimento Territorio e Sistemi Agro-Forestali, 2021.

[3] La Corte dei conti italiana definisce fonti rinnovabili: «quelle forme di energia generate da fonti, che per la loro caratteristica intrinseca, si generano o non sono esauribili, ed il cui utilizzo non pregiudica le risorse per le generazione future (…) contrapponendosi a quelle che necessitano di lunghi periodi di formazioni, essendo presenti in riserve esauribili nella scala dei tempi umani». Cfr. Relazione della Corte dei conti, Sezione di controllo per gli affari comunitari ed internazionali, delibera 20 gennaio 2012, n. 1 su «Energie rinnovabili, risparmio ed efficienza energetica nell’ambito della politica di coesione socio-economica dell’Unione europea». M. Romeo, Produzione di agroenergie, autoconsumo collettivo e comunità energetiche, in Diritto e giurisprudenza agraria, alimentare e dell’ambiente, 2021, 4. 

Sono considerate energie da fonti rinnovabili: «l’energia eolica, solare (eliotermica e fotovoltaico) e geotermica, da calore ambientale, mareomotrice, del moto ondoso e altre forme di energia marina, energia idroelettrica, energia della biomassa, dei gas di discarica, dei gas residuati dai processi di depurazione e biogas». Cfr. Art. 31 punto 1) direttiva (UE) 2019/944 del Parlamento europeo e del Consiglio del 5 giugno 2019 relativa a norme comuni per il mercato interno dell’energia elettrica e che modifica la direttiva 2012/27/UE. 

[4] F. Vetrò, Sviluppo sostenibile, transizione energetica e neutralità climatica. Profili di governance: efficienza energetica ed energie rinnovabili nel “nuovo ordinamento” dell’energia, in Riv. ital. dir. pubbl. com., 1, 2022, 56 ss.

[5] S.R. Foster, C. Iaione, Co-cities Innovative Transitions toward just and self-sustaining Communities, MIT Press, 2022.

The City as a Commons

by benedictaquarcoo | Jul 4, 2023 | Commons Press

This chapter looks at how public policies have developed in a few places that allow both public and private players to jointly or cooperatively generate and then manage shared urban resources across the city. It gives varying definitions of collaboration and how much it has evolved from mere governance. Since it is unclear if the examples described in the chapter represent engaging ad hoc experiments, unconnected to a city’s everyday operations and administration, the compelling question is: whether these policies, institutional procedures, and social infrastructure can spread and scale throughout a city, supported by the public administration? Are there laws or practices that enable a city, or specific areas of a city, to function as an urban commons?

Although this chapter contains seven sections, they are organized to enable the free flow of understanding. In this excerpt, two types of policies—declaratory and constitutive—are discussed concerning the establishment and maintenance of urban commons in local communities. Foster and Iaione explain that declaratory policies formally acknowledge the existence of locally controlled institutions or individually managed resources as urban commons. They support communities’ right to self-organize and fortify community efforts to collectively govern themselves. Declaratory policies may entail approving the collectively accepted social norms or the community’s contributions to the public good. The main examples of such policies are the cases of Naples and Barcelona. Local governments also have the power to contract with collectives, giving credibility and stability to their efforts and promoting similar projects around the city. Constitutive policies, on the other hand, adopt a more top-down strategy and seek to provide communities with the power to manage the city’s resources, infrastructure, and services. By providing new legal power or amending existing laws, these policies establish the necessary framework for cooperative government. The objective is to encourage the development of urban commons across the entire city.

The early city policies identified in the chapter place a strong emphasis on agreements for cooperation as a form of group action and shared administration of urban resources. The first city to implement collaborative pacts was the Italian city of Bologna. The Co-Bologna initiative adopted a new regulatory framework for the urban commons to integrate other local public policies with the co-governance of urban resources using the same design principles. That regulation provided for citizens, social innovators, business owners, members of civic society, academic institutions, and the municipal administration to work together to define the governance of specific urban spaces and services. With additional sectors joining later, this strategy aimed to make the public sector and the unorganized public the main players in the collaborative process.

The experimental process was called the Bologna Regulation, and the city used the Cities as a Commons project to carry it out. The project was supported by the Centro Antartide, a regional non-profit, the Fondazione del Monte di Bologna, and a group of legal and PR experts from the Labsus non-profit, where one of the authors of this book, Iaione, served as managing director. The first substantial regulatory innovation to encourage cooperation as a way of managing the city and its resources in Italy, Europe, and globally, this rule has won numerous awards. This prompted an analysis of the regulatory race toward the commons that carefully examined the regulation and its goals. Later, LabGov researchers evaluated to arrive at the Bologna rule, analyzing the first many partnership pacts were analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies (De Nictolis & Pais, 2018).

Seoul, the capital of South Korea, also implemented a similar approach through its Seoul Sharing City policy. That policy, initiated in 2011 and still ongoing, promotes the sharing and collaborative economy at the city and district levels. It included the enactment of the Seoul Metropolitan Government Ordinance on the Promotion of Sharing and supporting various sharing-based services, such as car sharing, bike sharing, meal sharing, and housing sharing. The policy evolved through three phases, focusing on expanding users’ access to the sharing economy, consolidating international standing, and catalyzing efforts to turn residents into proactive actors in co-producing sharing economy services.

Other cities’ adoption of the Bologna Regulation has sparked a regulatory arms race without taking Bologna’s lessons into account. While some Italian localities adopted the rule without question, others adopted it more cautiously. The Bologna experiment piqued the interest of cities like Amsterdam, Ghent, and Madrid, which tailored it to their circumstances. Madrid adopted a law that is very similar to the Bologna rule, while Ghent created its common governance principles. Participatory methods have a history in Ghent, which is now working on pilot programs to support citizen-led initiatives. The objective is to establish a cooperative relationship between the city and its citizens for the management of urban commons.

The declaratory approach acknowledges the right of the community to self-organize and exert control or management of important resources for local communities. This manifests through two types of practices or policies: urban civic uses and civic management. Urban civic uses include “use rights” belonging to the members of a given community over public or private property (Casprini et al; 2023). These policies allow communities to self-organize, be proactive, and manage a local public service that they need. Civic management policies, also known as civic stewardship, allow assets to be stewarded by non-governmental organizations and community organizations that protect, manage, observe, inform the public, promote, and alter their local ecological and socioeconomic surroundings (Caggiano et al; 2022).

Blending The Constitutive And Declaratory Approaches

Although different cities have adopted different legal approaches, the chapter points out that the Co-City Turin project, sponsored by the UIA initiative, embraced a new version of the “Regulation on Governing the urban commons in the City of Turin”. The New Turin Regulation’s innovation is its endorsement of two forms of co-governance for urban commons: shared governance and self-governance.

Both constitutive and declaratory approaches cannot stand alone but instead are interdependent and interrelated for supporting the urban commons in the Italian system and globally if it is adapted to suit the city or communities’ context. It is necessary to acknowledge the role of partnership alongside blending and working with these policies and regulations. Both are vital in managing urban commons in the general, public, and common interest. This chapter has provided various examples of cities that are experimenting with different legal tools that enable and empower urban communities to utilize city resources and infrastructure to collectively create and sustain different forms of urban commons. The subsequent chapter will examine whether the suggested legal tools are enough to promote the reduction of power asymmetries in the city and to enable urban communities to leverage legal and financial mechanisms that ensure the sustainability of urban commons and the survival and flourishing of the communities relying on them.

With the agreements for cooperation supported by the Co-City Turin project sponsored by the UIA initiative.

Short List of References

Casprini, D.; Oppio, A.; Torrieri, F. Usi Civici: Open Evaluation Issues in the Italian Legal Framework on Civic Use Properties Land 2023, 12, 871. https://doi.org/ 10.3390/land12040871

Caggiano, H; Landau Laura F.; Campbell, Lindsay K.; Johnson, Michelle L.; Svendsen Erika S.: Civic Stewardship and Urban Climate Governance: Opportunities for Transboundary Planning, 2022

Pais, I., & nictolis, E. D. (2018). Valutare una politica pubblica urbana sui beni comuni. La valutazione dei patti di collaborazione approvati per effetto del regolamento per la cura e rigenerazione dei beni comuni urbani di Bologna. In La Co-Città. Diritto urbano e politiche pubbliche per i beni comuni e la rigenerazione urbana. (pp. 203-242)

Author: Benedicta Quarcoo

The Urban Commons

by benedictaquarcoo | May 20, 2023 | Commons Press

The second chapter of the Co-city book is initiated by recalling Elinor Ostrom’s revolutionary studies of natural resource commons (Ostrom 1990), posing the question:

Are there groups of residents and/or resource users who are willing and able to organize themselves, work together to establish rules for sharing resources, and monitor themselves in the absence of external authority or externally imposed regulations?

The definite answer given by the authors of the Co-cities book is yes, considering the several empirical analysis and observations conducted in about 200 cities across the globe. This is reflected in many forms: from simple community mesh wireless networks to urban villages or parks. Usually, organized community groups or associations of users and or residents come together to manage and or co-create community resources.

The writers go ahead to apply Ostrom’s analytical framework to urban resources in cities. Ostrom’s design principles are seen to be most relevant in the management of many kinds of public and shared resources in a city but Foster and Iaione give evidence according to which these principles may not work in the exact same way outside the city.

Thus, chapter 2 offshoots Ostrom in the City.

OSTROM IN THE CITY

This part exposes readers to how much Ostrom’s design principles and observations are either applicable, of limited utility, or need to be modified to the current urban context. Instances such as community size and cohesion, shared social norms, social capital, community homogeneity, the scale of resources, and the recognition and support of central authorities and external actors all play a significant role in a community’s capacity to manage a shared resource collectively and sustainably over time.

It is quite significant, for example, to not undermine or disregard the role of central authority in the creation and sustainability of the urban commons. Since the State cannot be disregarded in the management and regulation of urban resources, sometimes collective natural resources demand a certain level of legal and property modification. Thus, a larger group of urban residents, many of whom are on the social and economic periphery of expanding cities gain access to these services. The benefit of the State’s effort to bridge the gap between the marginalized and the elite is partly bridged.

GOVERNING GREEN URBAN COMMONS

Another example regards “Urban Green Commons”, whose management considers them as urban ecological resources, such as lakes or urban parks. They are meant to promote social integration and enhance social networks in crowded, diverse, and frequently socially stratified metropolitan contexts. As much as they are beneficial to residents, they tend to be vulnerable and one way to tackle it is through collective action.

For instance, quoting: “Ostrom’s framework for the study of the commons in cities has been applied by researchers who have looked at ecological resources like lakes, rivers, and forests that urban local communities use for traditional cultural and economic uses and/or recent urban migrants use for aesthetic and recreational purposes” (D’Souza and Nagendra 2011).

ENABLING URBAN COMMONS

The following section focuses on all levels of support from the various actors and how their roles are significant to the management of urban commons. These kinds of cooperation take the legal or institutional form of agreements or partnerships between local government and the association of residents that have set up an asset, for instance, agreements like the one between the city of New York and the Central Park Conservancy serve to formalize the parameters of the conservancy’s responsibility for the day-to-day management of the park as well as to establish important norms regarding the limits of the group’s responsibility for the resource, such as reverse crowd-out protection that ensures public funds won’t be replaced by private donations.

Despite strong social links and cooperative activities, these efforts might not be successful or long-lasting if local, but also central, governments and their programs.

Other forms of enabling thus include partnerships between local businesses, property owners, and local governments established to manage the neighborhood commons, special institutions arrangements, hence, in most cases, public-private partnerships.

BOTTOM-UP VERSUS TOP-DOWN URBAN COMMONS

A top-down, institutionalized, state-enabled form of collective resource governance is initiated and comes into being only through government authority or action, especially in cases such as large park conservancies and BIDs. Yet for most urban commons, a bottom-up approach is used and as such needed, and these initiatives are made by locals or resource users who are driven to work together to create new goods and services that many urban areas lack or find inaccessible to overcome traditional collective action challenges. Citizens and community-led associations and groups identify opportunities within the community such as vacant land spaces, abandoned parks, and forest reserves. They then ensure that the local government’s attention is drawn to this. The bottom-up approach, fostering what is called public-private-community partnership, comes with challenges but is appropriate for the urban commons and encourages both collective action and an enabling State.

COMMONING IN THE CITY

This part characterizes commoning as a bottom-up technique of cooperatively generating or constructing resources that can be shared with others and that satisfy precise user needs. Commoning patterns and practices vary naturally based on the resource, the type of user community, and the social or cultural context. Both a resource and a community are requisite in this case to co-manage, steward, and cater for assets and services over a longer period.

LEGAL AND PROPERTY ADAPTATION

Indeed, the enterprise is not easy.

The cost and accessibility of urban land and infrastructure are noted as what precisely makes the development of new types of shared and jointly managed urban products hard. Legal and Property adaptation exposes how urban communities and “commoners” are striving to change the legal status of the land and structures they use and/or occupy to take ownership of them.  Alternative solutions are available, for example by using legal and property tools such as community land trusts (CLTs) or limited equity cooperatives (LECs).  CLTs are created to enable communities to self-govern and care for urban land and structures, keeping them accessible and affordable for future users. Gray, 2008 states that the essence of land trusts is to promote affordable home ownership and local control of the land. The International Community of Economics (ICE) describes CLTs as a private nonprofit corporation established to purchase and keep land for the benefit of a community and to provide community inhabitants with safe, affordable access to land and homes. CLTs can scale through networking with the support of local policies and public resources. The intent is to protect the community at a neighborhood level: nested urban commons.

CONCLUSION

This last portion of the second chapter is dedicated to numerous examples of community land trusts, how they work, when they were initiated, and the numerous benefits it has had on the residents in various parts of the US. This signifies that there are communities that have the capacity to organize, co-create, co-share, and co-produce assets and services that are beneficial to them. They also act as stewards to safeguard and protect these social amenities through the zeal of ownership. The bottom-up approach establishes the concept of the commons considering its participatory approach and collective action by all stakeholders. The legal factor is also upheld where necessary according to the context of the society or community. The pursuit of urban commons transcends theory.

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Short References

Bunce, Mel. (2015). International news and the image of Africa: New storytellers, new narratives?

D’Souza R, Nagendra H. Changes in public commons as a consequence of urbanization: the Agara lake in Bangalore, India. Environ Manage. 2011 May;47(5):840-50. doi: 10.1007/s00267-011-9658-8. Epub 2011 Mar 23. PMID: 21431444.

Institute for Community Economics. (1982). The Community land trust handbook. Emmaus, Pennsylvania: Rodale Press

Gray, Karen. (2008). Community Land Trusts in the United States. Journal of Community Practice. 16. 65-78. 10.1080/10705420801977999.

One-on-one conversation with Professor Sheila Foster about the Co-Cities book

by benedictaquarcoo | May 3, 2023 | Commons Press

Welcome to our CO-Cities book blog, readers. 

This post features a one-on-one conversation with Professor Sheila Foster, co-author of the Co-Cities book and co-director of LabGov, a scientific and applied research laboratory in multiple cities.

Let’s get started.

1. What inspired you to write this book about co-cities? 

Foster stated that the inspiration to write Co-cities arose from working with Professor Christian Iaione, co-director of LabGov, as they investigated the idea of the city as a “shared infrastructure” or a commons. She stated: “Working with LabGov in Bologna, seeing how they regulated and developed the city, inspired me. We then went on to host a gathering in Bologna and later in Bellagio at the Rockefeller Foundation. In Bellagio, we invited various representatives from cities across America and Europe to workshop the co-city framework. Clearly, this framework could be effectively used to motivate other cities. I then was inspired to bring it to the U.S.”

2. How do you balance being a mother, a mentor, a researcher, and a writer?

When asked how she copes and balances her life being a lecturer, a mother, a researcher, a writer, a community builder, and a mentor to many, she smiled and happily responded that service is something that she enjoys doing. She also explained that she is currently involved in applying the co-city framework in Baton Rouge, Louisiana:

“As part of a co-city project in Baton Rouge in the U.S. South, I’m usually not on the ground but meet with the local actors on Zoom. We have a project manager that travels to Baton Rouge and is on the ground. I make time for travel, conferences, research, papers, articles, and writing during breaks because we do not teach all year round. As well as being a member of the New York City Mayor panel on Climate Change, I also advise and support grassroots community groups.” She stresses that the co-city model is highly practical and poses the question of how to assist vulnerable communities with becoming net-zero and making a successful transition. This framework provides a pathway towards climate neutrality, sustainability, and just transitions, as well as reducing energy costs. She says that no institution alone can make this happen, yet it is possible by implementing larger policies from higher levels of government. For example, the US’s Inflation Reduction Act means incentives are available at an individual and household level, as well as at the community, local, and state government levels. It is necessary to consider how to facilitate these funds reaching those who need them most – through solar panel installation, creative community solar projects, or networked microgrids.

3. How does the co-city paradigm differ from traditional conceptions of cities (give me an example)?

Urban theorists have come up with various models and frameworks to guide cities in the desired direction. The Co-city book discusses “Creative Cities”, “Smart Cities”, and “Right to the City” approaches, among others. Foster elaborates on Richard Florida’s model wherein cities should be a hub for educated and innovative minds in the tech, knowledge, and healthcare domains; an idea that is similar to what former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has said, “capital follows talent”. Urban Agglomeration is one result of people’s movement into cities as per economic theory which entails the concentration of knowledge actors learning from each other. The book also discusses the Smart City concept which sees the city as a platform for the greatest technologies meant to improve every area of city functioning. The Co-city paradigm takes it further by focusing on “The Right to the City” idea – redirecting these innovations to help disadvantaged regions/communities become empowered.

The co-city concept is also rooted more in the “right to the city” and Owen Hatherley’s “Rebel City”. These concepts have grown in popularity in Latin America and Europe. In this framework, everyone has a right to physically participate in the governance of their city—especially those who are usually left out. The difference between the two stages of the conceptualization is that the “right to the city” has been challenged in its implementation in Latin America, in particular, due to rising land prices. The co-city, on the contrary, offers responsive prototypes and tools like community land trusts, limited equity cooperatives, and wireless energy networks that can create an environment allowing residents to co-govern their neighborhoods while attending to rising land values. It is this practicality that distinguishes it from other conceptualizations.

4. Can you give me some examples of co-cities in action? 

Foster mentioned Baton Rouge as the second largest metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana- a racially and economically stratified city populated by blacks, Latinos, and many living in poverty. The area of the city LabGov is working in is predominantly black and poor and is an “infrastructure desert”, lacking good sidewalks, traffic lights, green space, adequate housing, and small businesses. It is filled with vacant lots. At the same time, it is near “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana, a stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge with a heavy concentration of petrochemical facilities.  Foster was invited into Baton Rouge to apply the co-city model to bring together, and pool resources, from a wide network of stakeholders such as local redevelopment authorities, local innovators and entrepreneurs, civic groups, private industries, foundations, both local and national, and others. “Co-City Baton Rouge” (CCBR) is focused on a 4-mile area of the city which, as described above, is in dire need of innovative approaches to urban revitalization. JPMorgan Chase Bank has provided funding to CCBR, which is part of a larger collaborative working in the area, including the local redevelopment agency, community and civic organizations, and community development financial institutions. CCBR has co-designed and is implementing prototypes that will provide goods and services—such as entrepreneurial spaces, high-speed internet, green space, and housing— tailored specifically for that community. A notable prototype is an eco-park that could address flooding issues while providing green space. It was co-designed with local authorities, residents, and a design studio at a local university.  The park, using vacant lots, will provide residents with safe spaces to recreate, a place to put a new bus stop, and offers a green infrastructure to ensure climate resiliency. The eco-park will be managed and paid for by the city’s park agency but will be held by the Community Land Bank and Trust (CLBT) which Foster created for the project and which will hold properties until they are redeveloped. Eventually, the CLBT will contain a food incubator cooperative helping people from food trucks create sustainable businesses as well. A number of other projects have been launched in other parts of the world, including Hong Kong, Sao Paolo, and Costa Rica. Understanding the context is crucial if the co-city framework is to function in a city, as it isn’t a cut-and-paste operation, and what worked in one city might not work in the other due to a variety of factors including location, culture, and governance model.

5. What can be done to adapt co-city models to different cultures and contexts? 

In her opinion, the co-city model must be tailored to the place, the politics, and the culture of the area. The principles of the co-cities have been designed to allow actors to come together, map out resources, and prototype. Only democratic cultures and governance systems may be able to implement the co-city model, which is experimental and adaptive.

6. Which lessons can be learned from successful cases or examples around the world? 

In an answer to this question, Foster proposed that much can be learned from specific applications of the co-city approach. These examples require local residents, officials, and different sectors to contemplate how the approach can be rooted in a specific place and context. One of the things that Foster and LabGov researchers and practitioners are exploring now is whether the co-city approach can help promote energy democracy, energy justice, or even climate justice in places like the U.S., Sub-Saharan Africa, or Latin America. Further research needs to be conducted to determine its suitability for various cities. It will be a great advantage if some cities begin employing the co-city governance model ensuring consistency. This can act as a learning experience and enable experimental-based exploration by everyone involved.

7. What elements of the Co-cities book did you think received more attention for you to win the Prose 2023 award? 

Foster believes that the Co-cities book’s nomination for the 2023 Prose Award was a result of its combination of theoretical background, practical illustrations, and empirical research. She revealed that it took 550 examples from 200 cities to create their co-city survey, believing that it is a novel approach within academic literature. Another aspect contributing to its practicality was the collaborations and dialogues of various players involved. She expressed great joy with the number of positive reactions she has been receiving, highlighting how the process was a long yet affectionate endeavour.

Author: Benedicta Quarcoo