Socio-economical aspects

In an ideal Energy Sustainable Community (ESC) the sustainable energy strategy is part of the overall concerns of the community. This includes not only the energy sector in household and industry, but also other important sectors such as the buildings, the transport and the economic sector. The ESC-approach contains – besides technical and political issues – several socio-economic aspects which are interlinked, such as financial support especially for the start-up of projects, acceptance of RES & RUE technologies in the community and the citizen’s energy consumption behaviour. For the successful implementation of the RES psychological aspects, which are taking the specific cultural and social aspects within a community into account, are essential. Here, the focus should be set on the participatory design of the RES implication, on measures for the attitude and behaviour modification as well as on the support of environmental protective behaviour. The research within this project figured out some key success factors for the implementation of an ESC on the socio-economic level:

Economic Level	Social Level – behavioural level	Structural Level
· Funding (EU, national, regional, municipal)	· Lobbying and Public Relations	· Support structure · Award structure
· Energy-contracting	· Information and training
· Taxation	· Awareness and acceptance
	· Consumption behaviour
	· Citizen’s active involvement and participation
	· Examples and models (good practice)
	· Networks for information and experience exchange