Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

How do we make cities truly climate-neutral, according to science? In this episode, Marine Cornelis welcomes Giulia Ulpiani, a Scientific Project Officer at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, who is at the forefront of urban climate adaptation and mitigation.With a background in applied physics and energy efficiency, Giulia’s career has spanned building optimisation, urban overheating, and now large-scale climate governance. She shares her fascinating journey, from becoming a drone pilot in Australia to studying how cities can cool down and reduce emissions.Now supporting the EU’s 100 Climate Neutral and Smart Cities Mission, Giulia explains the biggest barriers cities face in reaching net zero and why climate governance is often as complex as thermodynamics! She also dives into the role of trust, storytelling, and public engagement in ensuring climate policies translate into real action.Key Takeaways: ✅ From Buildings to Cities: Giulia's journey from smart building optimisation to tackling urban overheating in Australia.✅ The Power of Implementation: Why local projects—like greening school streets—are crucial in winning hearts and minds.✅ Breaking Down Barriers: Cities struggle with funding, fragmented responsibilities, and bureaucratic inertia—but collaborative governance models and new financing approaches offer hope.✅ Science and Storytelling: Climate science needs compelling narratives and trusted messengers to drive action.✅ Empowering the Next Generation: The future of climate action lies in young leaders and community ambassadors.Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inboxReach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky https://bsky.app/profile/marinenextenerg.bsky.social or LinkedInMusic: I Need You Here - KamariusEdition: Podcast Media Factory Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon https://patreon.com/Energethic© Next Energy Consumer, 2025Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

When we picture the energy transition, we picture it from the city: rooftop solar, heat pumps, electric cars. Farms enter the picture mostly as a problem, through livestock emissions or competition for land. Biogas sits in that blind spot. It is rarely named among renewables, often associated with waste, and still a small share of European gas supply.Piero Gattoni is a farmer and livestock breeder in the Po Valley, President of the Consorzio Italiano Biogas and, since 2025, President of the European Biogas Association. He argues the reverse of the dominant picture: farming sits at the core of the transition, because cutting emissions will not restore the carbon balance without the soil. We recorded this conversation in Brussels during European Biomethane Week.We discuss:Why a dairy farm with tight margins turned to energy as a second marketHow digestate returns organic matter to the soil and replaces chemical fertiliserWhy food, feed and energy can share the same landWhere Italian biomethane goes today, and why it does not yet reach household heatingWhy the first farmers to invest had to organise togetherWhat long-term policy would mean for farmers and industry alikeA conversation about whose land, knowledge and trust the transition relies on, and who it still overlooks.Energ'Ethic, with Marine Cornelis of Next Energy Consumer: the energy transition examined through the people it touches and the systems that govern it. If you are working on a related mandate or research question, you can reach her at [email protected]' Ethic goes out every other week.Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inboxReach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedInMusic: I Need You Here - KamariusEdition: Podcast Media Factory Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon© Next Energy Consumer, 2026Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Citizens stop attending participation meetings dominated by the loudest voice in the village. Tenants stop lodging complaints when they no longer believe anyone is listening. The energy transition assumes a dialogue that, in many places, has already broken down. The institutions able to repair it, the mediator who steps in before conflict escalates and the ombudsman who steps in after the damage is done, remain treated as peripheral services.Urszula Papajak is a newly certified mediator for infrastructure and energy transition projects, with years of work on citizen energy and decentralised energy systems. She works on conflict at three layers: boards, teams, and whole villages facing a wind or PV project. In this episode, Ula also turns the questions back on me, on my years with the energy ombudsman and on the research behind our book on access to justice for vulnerable consumers.We discuss:Why democracy depends on people believing they can disagree without destroying each otherHow meeting structures that reward interruption push thoughtful, constructive voices out of the roomWho calls in a mediator, and why acknowledging conflict still carries a stigmaWhy people facing energy poverty rarely seek the redress they are entitled toLegal versus fair, nice versus empatheticWhy conflict competence grows only through human interaction, and why AI carries no accountabilityA conversation about trust as infrastructure, built through agency, empathy, accountability and belonging.Reference: Access to Justice for Vulnerable and Energy-Poor Consumers: Just Energy? (2021)Listen also to the episode with Dr Naomi Creutzfeldt and Dr Chris Gill. Marine Cornelis is the founder of Next Energy Consumer, a policy consultancy working on energy poverty, consumer rights, and housing at EU level. If you are working on a related mandate or research question, you can reach her at [email protected]' Ethic goes out every other week.Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inboxReach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedInMusic: I Need You Here - KamariusEdition: Podcast Media Factory Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon© Next Energy Consumer, 2026Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Markets do not correct themselves simply because a problem becomes visible. Correction usually needs an actor with a legal mandate, the evidence to support a claim, and enough independence to make companies and regulators respond. In Great Britain, that actor has held authority in energy and postal services for years, and now argues for extending the model into housing, telecoms, water, and financial services.Tom Lowe leads the energy networks and systems team at Citizens Advice, the statutory consumer advocate for domestic, small business, and heat network consumers in Great Britain. Sixteen years across energy suppliers, trade associations, regulators, and consumer advocacy inform his argument that a legal mandate, rather than goodwill, is what makes a market answerable to the people it serves.In this conversation:Why a statutory mandate changes how companies and regulators respond to a consumer body, compared with a voluntary or campaigning oneThe fifteen year path from identifying a problem with energy brokers to direct regulation by OfgemThe case made in Building Better Markets for extending the model into housing, telecoms, water, and financial servicesHow the advocate function is funded through an industry levy, and what protects that funding from becoming a dependency on the sector it holds accountableWhat an EU member state would need in place to replicate the model beyond the United KingdomThe conversation returns to a question that outlives any single sector: what a market owes the people who cannot easily walk away from it, and who holds the mandate to make sure it delivers.Energ'Ethic, with Marine Cornelis of Next Energy Consumer: the energy transition examined through the people it touches and the systems that govern it. If you are working on a related mandate or research question, you can reach her at [email protected]' Ethic goes out every other week.Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inboxReach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedInMusic: I Need You Here - KamariusEdition: Podcast Media Factory Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon© Next Energy Consumer, 2026Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Some of the most consequential facts about an energy system never appear on a policy dashboard: whether an 85-year-old can read her own bill, whether she knows help exists, whether she trusts the voice on the phone enough to answer it.Nina Campbell, Global Energy Lead at Consumers International, led the Blueprint for Inclusive Energy Services, the report examining a liberalised, choice-based energy market from the perspective of Italians aged 75 and over. Marine co-authored the Blueprint and brings that collaboration into this conversation on trust, exclusion, and who a market is actually built for.In this episode:– Why Consumers International moved away from "vulnerable consumer" toward "energy hardship," and what that shift changes about people's willingness to ask for help– The loyalty premium: why discovering you paid more for staying put damages trust more deeply than a plainly bad deal– The invisible labour of carers, 16% of Italians in a caregiving role around energy, mostly women over 45, absorbing costs the system doesn't recognise– How the Blueprint's ten solutions took shape through direct collaboration with suppliers– What it would take to replicate this method for other consumer groups and other marketsReference: Blueprint for Inclusive Energy Services, Consumers International. (2026)Energ'Ethic, with Marine Cornelis of Next Energy Consumer: the energy transition examined through the people it touches and the systems that govern it. If you are working on a related mandate or research question, you can reach her at [email protected]' Ethic goes out every other week.Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inboxReach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedInMusic: I Need You Here - KamariusEdition: Podcast Media Factory Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon© Next Energy Consumer, 2026Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.