Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Marine Cornelis

Energ'Ethic asks the question most energy debates skip: who the transition is for. Hosted by Marine Cornelis, founder of Next Energy Consumer, each episode moves between frontline reality and the rooms where European energy policy is decided. The conversations follow one thread through energy, housing, digitalisation, and finance: whether the systems being built earn people's trust and improve their lives. For listeners, it offers a grounded guide to a transition too often told only in megawatts and money. For anyone weighing a collaboration, it shows how Next Energy Consumer reads the field. For organisations and sponsors: Energ'Ethic offers partnership opportunities for organisations seeking to reach a senior, policy-literate audience. Partnerships are selective and editorially independent. Contact: contact@nextenergyconsumer.eu (mailto:marine@nextenergyconsumer.eu) Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

  1. 6d ago

    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 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 contact@nextenergyconsumer.eu Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inbox Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedInMusic: I Need You Here - KamariusEdition: Podcast Media Factory  Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon © Next Energy Consumer, 2026 Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

    The Loudest Voice in the Village

  2. Sep 22

    The Statutory Advocate - Tom Lowe, Citizens Advice

    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 contact@nextenergyconsumer.eu Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inbox Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedInMusic: I Need You Here - KamariusEdition: Podcast Media Factory  Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon © Next Energy Consumer, 2026 Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

    The Statutory Advocate - Tom Lowe, Citizens Advice

  3. Sep 8

    What She Doesn't Know She's Owed - Nina Campbell, Consumers International

    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 markets Reference: 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 contact@nextenergyconsumer.eu Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inbox Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedInMusic: I Need You Here - KamariusEdition: Podcast Media Factory  Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon © Next Energy Consumer, 2026 Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

    What She Doesn't Know She's Owed - Nina Campbell, Consumers International

  4. Jun 30

    A Mirror or a Map? EUSEW at 20

    EUSEW turns 20. To mark it, Marine Cornelis sits down at the European Sustainable Energy Week with three people who have spent two decades inside EU energy policy: Thomas Nowak (heat pumps and buildings), Dušan Jakovljević (industrial energy efficiency) and Heike Winkler (offshore wind and the North Sea). The conversation treats EUSEW as a mirror. What it foregrounds, and what it sidelines, tracks whatever the Commission has in vogue, from hydrogen to carbon capture, often at the expense of people, consumers and energy poverty. What we get into: Why a convening that reflects priorities struggles to set them, and how limited slots turn the agenda into a zero-sum game Electrification as the efficient core of the system, and the "primary energy fallacy" still used against it Re-industrialisation, green hydrogen and jobs, and where a top-down European approach might have moved faster The single market's unfinished business, and the real cost of member-state deviations Why EUSEW keeps talking to the already-convinced, and how to bring member states and silos into the same room Parallel agendas, from the New European Bauhaus to energy poverty and citizen advisory hubs, and the risk of fragmentation A stocktake of what changed, what was harder than it should have been, and what a fair, socially accepted transition still demands.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 contact@nextenergyconsumer.eu Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inbox Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedInMusic: I Need You Here - KamariusEdition: Podcast Media Factory  Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon © Next Energy Consumer, 2026 Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

    A Mirror or a Map? EUSEW at 20

  5. Jun 16

    You Have More Power Than You Think (Literally)

    You have more energy rights than you think, and the EU's Unlock Your Power campaign wants you to start using them. Most of us never think about our energy rights until a bill stops adding up or a supplier gets something wrong. That is the day those rights are tested in real life, and the day you find out whether they mean anything at all. Recorded live on launch day at EU Sustainable Energy Week, Marine speaks with Katarzyna Wolos of European Commission's DG Energy about Unlock Your Power, the European Commission's first awareness campaign on consumer energy rights. Built around ordinary life stages rather than legislation, it rests on one idea: the power to understand, choose and act is already yours. In this conversation: Why awareness is the weak link when only a third of Europeans say they fully understand their bill How the Citizens Energy Package becomes real: protection from disconnection, transparent billing, the right to join an energy community One message across three realities: cooling in Greece, heating in Czechia, shared solar in Spain Redress as the invisible right, and why knowing a door exists changes how people act Trust as a confident relationship with the unknown, and what that asks of institutions A companion to Ep "The Public Square" with Ewelina Hartstein, the episode sits where consumer rights, vulnerability and the credibility of EU energy policy meet. Campaign: Unlock Your Power: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/markets-and-consumers/energy-consumers-and-prosumers/unlock-your-power_en 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.Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inbox Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedInMusic: I Need You Here - KamariusEdition: Podcast Media Factory  Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon © Next Energy Consumer, 2026 Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

    You Have More Power Than You Think (Literally)

  6. Jun 2

    The public square - Ewelina Hartstein, DG Energy

    Two years ago at EUSEW 2024, I called my vox pop episode "the dog who caught the bus." After years of running hard to define the European Green Deal, the EU had finally caught what it was chasing, and seemed unsure what to do next. I ended that episode saying it was time for extra communication efforts, starting with uncomfortable conversations. Two years on, this episode asks the same question from inside the institution. Ewelina Hartstein leads external communication at DG Energy and is one of the people responsible for staging EUSEW. We talk about the work behind the work: how DG Energy chooses what gets said, who gets to speak, and what remains off-stage at a moment when energy policy is entangled with affordability, security, and trust. What the conversation surfaces: Why "it comes from Brussels" is, in her own words, an expression she does not like What it means that EUSEW "brings together a community of people who are convinced," and how DG Energy thinks about engaging the unconverted The 20th anniversary edition's three-word theme (clean, secure, competitive) and the affordability dimension she insists belongs alongside them A live disagreement on whether the conversations EUSEW hosts are "uncomfortable" or "perfectly legitimate" The shift she names directly: energy moving from commodity to right, and a new EU awareness campaign on people's rights in energy launching at EUSEW A behind-the-scenes conversation released around EUSEW 2026 (9 to 11 June, Brussels and online). 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.Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inbox Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedInMusic: I Need You Here - KamariusEdition: Podcast Media Factory  Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon © Next Energy Consumer, 2026 Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

    The public square - Ewelina Hartstein, DG Energy

  7. May 19

    The Subsidy That Went to the Wrong Address — Anna Bajomi, FEANTSA

    The EU's energy transition contains clear legal obligations to prioritise vulnerable households. The EPBD requires financial incentives to target energy-poor households first. The Energy Efficiency Directive requires member states to make the best possible use of public funding for low-income consumers. And yet without binding targeting requirements, public money flows to middle-income and affluent groups by institutional default — not by accident, but by design. Anna Zsófia Bajomi, Energy Poverty Policy Officer at FEANTSA, traces the mechanism: post-financing schemes that assume households can pre-invest thousands of euros; eligibility criteria built around formal employment and debt-free status; CO₂ savings indicators easier to reach among better-off households. The outcome is predictable — and avoidable. In this episode: Why firewood users in Central and Eastern Europe remain invisible in EU statistics and crisis response, and how EU policy has perversely incentivised continued burning while punishing countries for the air pollution it causes How renovation schemes including France's MaPrimeRenov structurally exclude the poorest through co-contribution requirements The gap between EPBD and EED targeting obligations and what the MFF 2028–2034 actually delivers Why untargeted public subsidies crowd out private finance rather than leverage it New York State's 35% community benefit mandate as a governance reference for Europe References: FEANTSA · European Energy Poverty Handbook · Jacques Delors Institute · EPBD Art. 17(18) · EED Art. 24(3) · MaPrimeRenov · New York State Climate Act 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.Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inbox Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedInMusic: I Need You Here - KamariusEdition: Podcast Media Factory  Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon © Next Energy Consumer, 2026 Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

    The Subsidy That Went to the Wrong Address — Anna Bajomi, FEANTSA

  8. May 4

    [Replay] When Information Is the Infrastructure: Rethinking Energy Poverty from the Ground Up - Marta Garcia Paris

    Energy poverty didn't exist as a concept in Spain when Marta García París first encountered it. Today, Ecoserveis runs one of the most cited local intervention models in Europe — built not on technical expertise alone, but on the conviction that citizens are the experts, and institutions exist to translate that expertise into action. This episode, originally released in 2021, marks the beginning of Energ'Ethic. We're replaying it at episode 100 because the questions it raises have only sharpened: who gets to access the energy transition, on what terms, and through whose knowledge? What this episode covers: How Ecoserveis came to define energy poverty in a Mediterranean context where the concept had no name — and what that process reveals about the limits of Northern European policy frameworks when applied elsewhere The Barcelona energy advice points: a public service model that pairs technical energy guidance with peer support from people who have themselves experienced vulnerability Why information access — not technology — remains the central barrier to an inclusive energy transition, and how targeted advice can unblock situations that financial support alone cannot The compounding effect of COVID-19 on energy vulnerability, particularly for households that shifted from workplace to home without the financial or physical infrastructure to absorb that change How European project networks enabled Ecoserveis to import, test, and ultimately export intervention models — including a peer-to-peer training approach now being scaled through the SWEET project 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.Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inbox Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedInMusic: I Need You Here - KamariusEdition: Podcast Media Factory  Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon © Next Energy Consumer, 2026 Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

    [Replay] When Information Is the Infrastructure: Rethinking Energy Poverty from the Ground Up - Marta Garcia Paris
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Energ'Ethic asks the question most energy debates skip: who the transition is for. Hosted by Marine Cornelis, founder of Next Energy Consumer, each episode moves between frontline reality and the rooms where European energy policy is decided. The conversations follow one thread through energy, housing, digitalisation, and finance: whether the systems being built earn people's trust and improve their lives. For listeners, it offers a grounded guide to a transition too often told only in megawatts and money. For anyone weighing a collaboration, it shows how Next Energy Consumer reads the field. For organisations and sponsors: Energ'Ethic offers partnership opportunities for organisations seeking to reach a senior, policy-literate audience. Partnerships are selective and editorially independent. Contact: contact@nextenergyconsumer.eu (mailto:marine@nextenergyconsumer.eu) Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

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