Today we launch our Community Energy Briefing. In this blog Vice President Robbiie Young outlines why NUS are focusing on campus community energy projects as a reinvestment option and how this can form part of the push for a just transition.

Developed in partnership with Leeds Beckett Students' Union, with guidance from Solar SOAS, our Community Energy Briefing was originally authored to reorient Leeds Beckett's investment discussions away from large scale renewable energy corporations and into initiatives that form part of the just transition to a low-carbon world.

A just transition means one that doesn't just benefit the privileged few, but everyone - regardless of race, class, gender, citizenship status and/ sexual or gender identity.

Given that over one-third of UK universities have now committed to go fossil free in some way - be that a full or partial commitment - it makes sense for us to consider what kind of world we are seeking to co-create as we push forward with this campaign. And where we want fossil capital moved to in order to get us there. After all: divestment is a tactic, a just and equitable future is the goal.

Alongside supporting indigenous-owned community energy initiatives based in the Global South, like the Yansa Project, pushing for the establishment of community-owned energy schemes on our very own campuses can be part of such a vision for the future. This is because opting to support student-led community energy projects would allow for the creation of microcosms for how decentralised, community energy systems could function in wider society. They also have the potential to transform how our educational institutions conceive of their responsibilities to our local and global communities in their commitments to tackling climate change and reducing carbon emissions. By making it clear that they don't support the ongoing injustices and inequities associated with the actions of transnational corporations our institutions can challenge a status quo the majority do not benefit from.

As such, this move would be an act of meaningful solidarity with indigenous and frontline communities who are most directly and actively detrimentally impacted by the business models of these corporations. Even renewable energy companies, which are so often presented as the perfect alternative to the fossil fuelled climate crisis.

The way these companies function in the global economy mean some renewable energy companies have reproduced and echoed the colonial behaviour of fossil fuel companies in the Global South - dispossessing indigenous peoples of their land to construct wind parks, for example and often using repressive, coercive and manipulative methods to do so. This is not reflective of the just transition to a low-carbon world that the divestment movement seeks to establish and isn't at all reflective of its support for indigenous and frontline communities in their calls for climate justice and indigenous self-determination.

However, student-led community energy projects could form part of intentions to shift these dynamics.  They have the ability to cultivate grassroots ownership of the energy system whilst simultaneously challenging the monopoly that transnational corporations have over our lives and the disproportionate wealth and power they yield as a result.

At an institutional level they also allow for a greater degree of democracy and transparency, truly embracing students as active partners in the decisions the institution make as opposed to the passive consumers they are too often constructed as by an increasingly marketised education system.

And it's possible to create such schemes. Solar SOAS are a group who have successfully lobbied their institution to get community energy on campus. And one of its members, Micheil Page, speaks to the power of being a part of this:

'Solar SOAS is proud to have been involved in the important campaigning that resulted not just in SOAS becoming the first London University to divest from the fossil fuel industry, but also to be the base for the start of student-led community energy in the UK. We wholeheartedly support campaigns across other universities seeking to have a democratic say in how their University is powered and funded.'

Megan Robinson, Leeds Beckett Student Union President, said of the launch:

'Alongside being a meaningful step towards a more just world and a true embracement of students as partners within institutions such schemes, if adopted, would help prepare students for a fast approaching future where skills and knowledge around building zero-carbon societies will be a necessity.'

Whilst community energy projects aren't the only answer, they're another tactic and potential demand as we push reinvestment conversations in a direction that seeks a just transition.

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Check out our Community Energy Briefing here and please don't hesitate to get in touch if NUS can support you further in cultivating such a demand in your own divestment and reinvestment campaigns. The briefing can be edited for use in any institutional context - to go alongside a piece making the argument for the institution to commit to going fossil free and/or for use as a stand-alone document should your institution have already committed to this. At present it is written from a Leeds Beckett perspective, but the arguments used are applicable to all.