The Loudest Voice in the Village
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 other
- How meeting structures that reward interruption push thoughtful, constructive voices out of the room
- Who calls in a mediator, and why acknowledging conflict still carries a stigma
- Why people facing energy poverty rarely seek the redress they are entitled to
- Legal versus fair, nice versus empathetic
- Why conflict competence grows only through human interaction, and why AI carries no accountability
A 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 contact@nextenergyconsumer.eu
Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.
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Music: I Need You Here - Kamarius
Edition: Podcast Media FactoryÂ
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