Posted on: 3rd June 2025
At this year’s Klimacamp in Vienna, we hosted a workshop in St. Marx centered on one of our core missions: bottom-up energy transition. Having spent the past few years working at the intersection of energy and community—through projects like PED-ACT, POSEIDON, and our publication of the PED Manifesto—we saw Klimacamp as the perfect space to share what we’ve learned and to open up space for fresh perspectives.
Dialogue on the energy transition
The session included a screening of our documentary on BürgerInnenKraftwerk, an inspiring energy community in rural Austria. We also walked participants through the fundamentals of building an energy community, based on real-world cases and our research into how local initiatives can thrive. At the heart of our discussion was the PED Manifesto, particularly its focus on the social fabric of energy projects: participation, transparency, and the power of communities to lead change from the ground up.
Together with participants, we explored the roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders in the energy transition—residents, municipalities, private actors—and reflected on what still needs to shift to make space for more just, inclusive systems. We even co-created new demands to add to the Manifesto, based on the experiences and visions in the room.
We left feeling inspired and re-energized. Events like these remind us that change doesn’t only happen in policy or labs—it grows in shared conversations, collective imagination, and the willingness to act together. We’re looking forward to continuing this journey with more communities in the near future.
