Renewable energy as a social innovation

Zana Cranmer

Chapter 3 in The Elgar Companion to Social Innovation and the Sustainable Development Goals, 2026, pp 55-72 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Energy is a critical part of modern life and one that has created and exacerbated inequities. Communities living with fossil fuel infrastructure bear the brunt of harms from activities like mining, refining, and power generation. The need to transition to a low carbon energy system poses tremendous challenges as well as the opportunity to reimagine and reconstruct the system. Renewables have flaws as well, but their environmental attributes and the more distributed nature of renewable energies like wind and solar could be leveraged to make the system more democratic. Renewable energy can be socially innovative. To do this successfully, researchers and practitioners need to work together to tap into diverse perspectives and develop ways to make energy infrastructure decisions that include and respond to those diverse voices. We need to identify and answer critical questions and develop concrete ways to measure success.

Keywords: Renewable energy; Energy justice; Sustainable energy; Energy transition; Social innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035326037
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