Sunday, May 16, 2010

Transitioning

I have been slow on sharing information on all things related to sustainability that I have been experiencing of late in Sweden. Maybe this is due to writing a Master's thesis? However, now that the thesis is being finalized, I can catch you up on some things very inspirational- The Transition Town Movement happening consciously and even unconsciously in communities around the world.
Germany
Aero Island, Denmark
Fredrickshavn, Denmark
Southern Denmark

Well, first, to catch up- I and two other colleagues traveled to Denmark & Germany via Southern Sweden to learn from many communities working with decentralized community-supported renewable energy. Communities in these countries are total role models for other communities and great teachers in lending first-hand experience in how to successfully establish community-supported RE. Through interviewing people across Denmark and Northern Germany we gathered a great amount of 'keys to success' that helped us formulate and design the Sustainable Community REnewable Energy Tool (SCRE Tool), which I'll be posting soon in all of its glory. For now, you can visit our blog- Renewable Communities reporting on our work with SCRE.

Here you can see a visual relating SCRE as the ideal vision for communities to 'backcast' from and work towards, where the first stepping stones for many communities is transitioning from insufficient and unsustainable centralized non-renewable energy towards renewable energy development, and then ideally incorporating as much community involvement and participation as possible making the RE production distributed and localized- this is community renewable energy (CRE).

Please visit Renewable Communities to contribute to this SCRE Tool with feedback, if you are a community member working with renewable energy.