RESILIENCE - Research on the social and political issues surrounding energy precarity and energy consumption (2016)

Summary:

The rise in energy prices in the 2000s revealed the energy vulnerability of certain households, linked to their dependence on cars, for some, or the poor thermal performance of their homes, for others, or even both at the same time. A number of research and operationally oriented works have been conducted to define, measure and understand the mechanisms behind the economic fragility of certain households in the face of these cost increases. However, local authorities remain little mobilised in designing and implementing local policies on such a cross-sectional subject, touching at the very least on the housing, transport and social welfare sectors.

In this context, the approach of the RESILIENCE project addresses issues linked both to the process of energy precarity and changes in public action on this subject. In particular, it aims to define the conditions for the intersectoral development of energy transition social policy tools for practical implementation at the local level. The project consists of two main complementary objectives:

• To explore housing and transport precarity and vulnerability in the three areas exposed to the risk of energy precarity. This part of the project will be based on a quantitative investigation using available databases and indicators to determine the diverse nature of issues according to contexts, which may then be linked (or not) to action taken at the local level.
• To analyse the roles of players, public decision making, changes to public action and the results in the areas concerned, to then be able to establish public policy recommendations appropriate for the various contexts taking into account as fully as possible the constraints and expectations of the various players involved. Priority will be given to a qualitative approach based on an interview campaign intended to better identify blocking points for public action in this field, as well as the results of experiments underway to address these situations.

The point at which these two objectives meet also provides the opportunity to develop a dialogue between the quantitative and qualitative approaches, on the one hand, and the engineering sciences and human and social sciences, on the other, feeding into and challenging each other in the spirit of the IMU call for projects.