What She Doesn't Know She's Owed - Nina Campbell, Consumers International | Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Description

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

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Transcription

Speaker #0
One person told us that they felt like talking about the energy bills or their struggle with energy bills was a taboo. Actually, they just wouldn't dream of reaching out for help about that issue. And it's to us that there are huge issues around basic trust in the sector that need to be urgently addressed.
Speaker #1
Yeah, for me, something that really came up was also how people, you know, this sense of powerlessness. And the sense that people need it to kind of shrink themselves in. Some of the most important things about how we use energy never show up on a policy dashboard. Whether an 85-year-old can read her own bill. Whether she knows that help exists. Whether she trusts the voice on the phone enough to pick up. Over the past year, I worked with Consumers International on the Blueprint for Inclusive Energy Services, and I want to be honest that it is a project close to me. The first edition started from a deliberate decision. Instead of talking about older consumers, go and sit with them. It looked at people aged 75 and over in Italy, and what it surfaced was confusion, exclusion, And... A quiet resignation that most of us working in this sector rarely see up close. My guest today was the leader of that work. Nina Campbell is Global Energy Lead at Consumers International. She came to it through energy efficiency and climate policy, including work on energy hardship in New Zealand. And she has spent years arguing that the transition only works if it works for the people at its edges. She's here to complicate a you comfortable assumption that fairer market automatically produces a fairer experience. Nina, welcome to the show.
Speaker #0
Hi, thanks for having me, Marine.
Speaker #1
So Nina, you have moved from energy efficiency and climate policy, including hardship work in New Zealand, where you are still based, into leading energy globally. Was there... a specific moment or a specific person that really changed how you think about who energy systems are actually built for?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I think actually there was a specific moment. I mean, I am fundamentally a social scientist. So although I've worked in the energy sector my whole career, I definitely look at these issues from a human perspective, sort of by nature. But I started my career at the International Energy Agency, which was a real honour and I'll be sure. opportunity, I guess, to get some quite broad exposure to the different issues in the sector. And I was in the energy efficiency team, and I think it really struck me there quite quickly that we talk quite openly and frequently about the gap between the technical savings potentials and the realized potential. And analysts talk about it all the time without really questioning, what are we missing? Why is there this gap? And to me, and I guess, To everyone, it's obvious that that is the sort of human element that most technical people feel like is quite unknowable and difficult to diagnose. But as a social scientist, I was like, there's a problem that I'd love to understand. So that's where it started for me, for sure.
Speaker #1
Okay. And then you moved back between Europe and New Zealand. So can you, I mean, Yuki, we have also... Pretty different understanding of what it is like. Like we are recording in the summer, but for you it's winter. So you're all able to kind of make a step back, like physically make a step back to observe what's happening elsewhere. Yeah,
Speaker #0
yeah, that's right. Well, I really got switched on to the issue of energy poverty within this question of energy efficiency when I was leading the multiple benefits of energy efficiency work at the IEA. And that's where we were looking at what are the social implications or benefits that we could get out of energy efficiency for individual households. And that's where that sort of issues around residential energy efficiency popped up. And I started to see that actually there are a lot of issues that show up globally in different places that I know very well from my own experience in New Zealand. So we have a very similar sort of housing stock problems as our experience in... The UK, for example, and other European and even American and beyond housing systems, which is basically that we have poor housing, poor quality housing is a really widespread issue. And people are ready to accept cold homes, inadequate heating systems, and all of the implications that flow from that around bad health, social problems, family issues and beyond. So, yeah, so I've worked on those issues. at the IEA. But then I moved back, I had a real urge to get closer to the problems of honour in a particular place with real people. So that's when I moved back to New Zealand and into the Ministry of Energy. We call it energy hardship in New Zealand. So energy hardship became my focus. And I was really lucky with the timing because we had a government who was really interesting in addressing some of the equity issues in the energy system. And we had an electricity price review about the time I got back and that identified the need for an investigation into this problem of energy hardship. And I was able to serve on the secretariat for a ministerially appointed expert group. who looked into the problem over the course of a couple of years and came up with a report with about 45 or so recommendations on how we can do better on the problem in New Zealand. Yeah, we found a lot.
Speaker #1
That's indeed like very extensive recommendations, I suppose, with that 45. So how is energy hardship different from energy poverty the way it's understood in Europe? Or is it just denomination? Because, for instance, I know that in the US, the term rate is used instead of tariff. So, you know, it's like this different terminology. And at Consumers International, you also have to deal with this kind of different terminologies to define the same thing, like what people pay, what people experience, etc. So I think it's so interesting also because you're a native speaker, but from the... completely opposite side of the planet. So you have to deal with different people with different perspectives, right? I mean, throughout your careers, it's what you have been doing.
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's part of the work that I really enjoy, to be honest. And actually, there is some interesting nuance in the language. It's more than just translation or semantics, because actually the word hardship was chosen. In order to get around, well, first of all, the sort of stigma that comes around labelling people as being in energy poverty, because what we see is that if we attach those kinds of stigmatising labels, then people are less likely to reach out for help or identify themselves as people who might be in that category and need that support. So hardship was more like, you know, this is just a tough time. It's something that anybody might have to deal with. And part of the definition in New Zealand that... It's really effective in capturing that is that we talk about the flip side of energy hardship as being energy well-being. And actually, we try to talk as much about achieving well-being as combating hardship. And then we think about it on a spectrum. So people might move back and forth along a spectrum between well-being and hardship, depending on lots of different factors, either in the market or in their own lives. So I think it's been really a helpful definition.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I think it's indeed very helpful also because it's kind of more active. And, you know, one of the terminologies that have been used in Europe is vulnerable consumers. When I started working on this social dimension of the energy transition, it was more about vulnerable energy consumers. And it was very top-down because you are the vulnerable. But actually, the vulnerability dimension is so dynamic. And again, we are not necessarily, I mean, we are not. only consumers, we're also citizens and putting only this aspect of consumer, a vulnerable consumer, it becomes very, yeah, very, very passive, very stigmatizing in a way you don't really necessarily identify yourself within that. And this notion of hardship, I find it quite interesting. But I think it also ties well to a question I have regarding the birth of this blueprint for energy inclusive services. So you choose to focus first. on Italy. But apart from the geography, I think that what also drew me to this project is that the idea was to start by beginning to listening to a lot of older people rather than really starting from a framework and trying to guess or second guess what they were experiencing. So we have really had to learn. something to design things. But was there anything that kind of surprised or unsettled you in those conversations?
Speaker #0
Yeah, well, first I would say, just going back to your first point that, yeah, at Consumers International as well, we really try to avoid the label of vulnerable consumer, even though we recognize that it sort of exists in the policy world and is useful for some purposes, but we talk about... consumers who are experiencing vulnerabilities for that same, to try and reach that same kind of acknowledgement of people's experience. Yeah. And then the other thing we do is that as a consumer rights organization, obviously everything that we do, we've come from the starting point of a perspective of rights-based. Thinking. So we take the same point that every consumer has a right to access affordable energy services that fully meet their needs. And we think about when we're trying to solve problems, we start from consumer experience first, as you said. So we really want to first understand what is the consumer's or the person's experience in their own life, in their own home. and then look at how we might solve those challenges and what tools there are, either in policy regulation or beyond, that can help to solve those problems. And we sort of frame that around the energy consumer journey. So that's kind of the thinking that we bring to help organize the process from that consumer-centered approach. And we imagine that there are sort of five stages that consumers go through when engaging with energy from knowledge and awareness, of opportunities and issues through affordability and looking at what options they can afford, what options are out there, then into options around the technology, how they use it day to day, and then actually even sort of post-purchase or redress opportunities. So when we did this project, we looked at that whole kind of consumer journey from the perspective of, you know, what older consumers initially were experiencing. in the energy market there. And it was really fascinating experience. So we spoke to a lot of experts, both inside Italy and beyond. We also spoke directly to consumers, Italian consumers. And I guess that was the part that was very moving, I think, for the team, was to hear some of those stories. So, you know, we heard that a lot of people, a lot of people in Italy are feeling really confused by the system. that the language that's used is too technical and that the channels that are being used are increasingly excluding of older people as we move into this more digitalized world, for example. So much of the opportunities are now online, but we were hearing older consumers say to us, I'm tired of these call center robots that I try. For those who actually do take the step of reaching out for help, they encounter automated responses. They have to deal with chatbots or, yeah, they find themselves in a loop and it's incredibly frustrating.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, this contrast between what is available, like the kind of menu of options to enforce your energy rights and what people can actually make use of is like, is so big. And I remember going to the market and speaking to people. out there just to get their experience. People I didn't know from anywhere, right? This was like completely random encounters. And some of them said things that, I mean, when we reported that all back to you, we could see how moved you were too, like on the other side of the world. Because, I mean, I think I will always remember this old man, 90 plus. who said that cooking was the only joy he had in his life. And given the price of energy, he lost that joy. And that was terrible because you really see that in a few words, in his own words, you could see that he knew he had only so much years to live. And he was making efforts. And it doesn't feel fair that he has to make these efforts, right? But... But as you stated, there is this kind of consumer journey, which is kind of based on an ideal consumer, which is very different from actually the proper experience of someone who is over 75 or with different physical or cognitive abilities and so on. A woman has also, I don't know, I don't even know if I'm entitled to something or what I'm entitled to something. So... Reflecting on this and on what's in the blueprint, what did that teach you?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I think one of the most alarming messages, sort of larger messages that came out of the work was probably around the sense that actually there was a really deep lack of trust in the energy sector generally. that actually we heard people talk about how, you know, If we talk about the team talks about the offers that are available and then people are saying, well, that's not for people like me. really feeling totally left out of the system. And that actually, yeah, a sense that there was no help available, no idea of where to go. And I think that sense of that lack of trust has been eroding over time. I mean, the sector's always been very complicated and probably not very good at expressing itself in ordinary terms, which has left a lot of people disengaged from their energy use. But that's only increasing as... The new technologies come online, especially for older people who just don't feel ready to engage with those opportunities. And actually, the offers aren't tailored for them either. They're really targeting younger sort of tech savvy people with their communications. And then you have the added layer of digitalization, but then also scams. So we heard a lot of the older folks we spoke to talk about the real fear that is developing around scams, around... even just pushy sales practices, cold calls, people trying to upsell them with bundled deals that they didn't really understand and weren't sure if they were really advantageous, let alone just flat out scams, which we know are on the rise in all sectors. So yeah, so this sense that the sector was just a bit of a minefield and that really the help that's available wasn't tailored for older consumers was quite concerning. And we might remember, Marlene, we you One person told us that they felt like talking about their energy bills or their struggle with energy bills was a taboo, that actually they just wouldn't dream of reaching out for help about that issue. So, yeah, it really said to us that there are huge issues around basic trust in the sector that need to be urgently addressed.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For me, something that really came up was also how people... You know, this sense of powerlessness and the sense that people needed to kind of shrink themselves in because of this table, because the coping mechanism they had put in place, like switching everything off or giving up the oven. But the project was also about caretakers, right? So to caretakers also stepping in, but without any recognition. stepping in but really walking on, like they were walking on eggshells because they didn't feel like legitimate. And this profound sense of lack of agency, right, or lack of control, something that is so fundamental to our daily lives, was really hard to see, right, and hard to notice.
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's right. It was, that was a big learning to look at the role of carers in the Italian energy sector in particular, because we found that actually something like 16% of Italians are in a caregiving role, often for an older adult, and that actually the system doesn't really allow for those people to be acknowledged, to get access to the information they need to support whoever they're caring for, let alone to have support for themselves, because we also heard about the stress and worry and time you that is associated with being a caregiver for somebody around their energy bills. So that was one of the solutions that we proposed was around smoothing the path for caregivers to have access to information and to advocate on behalf of their loved one, as well as calling for better compensation for caregivers for the time and energy that they invest in that role. So, yeah, I think it's really important to acknowledge those people as actors in the energy system and start to bring in more measures to support those people and by extension, the people they care for.
Speaker #1
And interestingly, those caregivers who also found out that they were mostly women over 45, so they are suffering this kind of multiple penalty, if we want, because, of course, they should be working. outside the home and earn a revenue. But they are also very often asked to be the one taking care of the children or even the grandchildren. But they have to take care also of the parents who are aging. So some of them must step out of formal employment. So they end up having less revenues as well. So everything makes it like the burden, extremely clear and gendered. And that makes it quite a... Yeah, I think that's part of the invisible women or invisibilizing women equation, right? So that's a dimension that I think would need to be explored further to anyone or any future edition of this blueprint. But if we go back to the blueprint itself, so the output, which is this kind of report with a lot of recommendations, it was... built with suppliers. Suppliers decided to kind of take responsibility over the... points that we showed them. We said, okay, things are, I mean, your assumptions may be a little, may be quite off. So how can we build something that delivers better? So two things, like how did you work with, to our audience, how did you work with these suppliers? How do you kind of recruited them and made sure that, you know, the results of this blueprint are And forcible, both on the end, and like you get enthusiasm both from the consumer side and from the supplier side, because, you know, this conversation is hard to happen, right? So how did you make the magic happen?
Speaker #0
Well, we do at Consumers International, we really believe in collaborative ways of working because we really think that is how you are likely to have the most impact and really affect change. And so when we were designing this project, what we really wanted, we wanted to empower consumers with more inclusive access to services. But we wanted to make sure that the outcome was not a set of policies or principles, but actually meaningful, real change in the marketplace. And hopefully, you know, on a faster track than typically these processes move. and who are the actors? and the energy system that have the ability to move at pace and to make real change for consumers fast. And that is the energy suppliers who have the relationship with customers. They are engaging with them on a daily basis. They have visibility over who's paying, able to pay, who's not, or who's paying and who's not, how much they're using. You know, there is actually an incredibly rich relationship there. And we wanted... to leverage that and encourage suppliers who, many of which we know are conscious of the struggles that their customers face. They're aware of the issues of energy poverty and vulnerability and do have a willingness to do better, but probably just don't have a good understanding of what the real issues and barriers are and how to fix them and perhaps also just need a bit of a nudge. So that is really what we're here for. Yeah, so we built a multi-stakeholder group around this project. We approached some larger suppliers as well as some smaller ones. So some of the larger ones with a very large customer base, so a large scope for impact and resources to be able to absorb the costs of those changes. But then also we had in the group some of the smaller suppliers who are a bit more innovative and agile and actually tended to be better informed about. the challenges that consumers are facing in the energy market. Yeah, so we also brought consumer advocates into the conversation. That's sort of core to everything we do is to really connect consumer advocates to whichever stakeholders hold the other levers and also NGOs. So we had a really good balance of voices and perspectives, I think, from the Italian energy market. Yeah, and we co-created, so we went out and gathered the evidence about what was happening for Italian consumers and brought it back to that group. And then we discussed and co-created the list of 10 solutions that we came up with in the end. And yeah, that was a journey. That was an experience, just navigating the different interests of those different stakeholders around the table. involved. a bit of negotiation and a bit of sort of back and forth and compromise. But it was important to us to do it that way because we wanted to keep those, again, those actors who really hold the levers for change at the table. So at times we, you know, we came in with very ambitious proposals and at times we had to step them back slightly. But I think it was a huge win to come away with the solutions that we landed and with those suppliers still on board. still eager and enthusiastic about going away and actioning those changes.
Speaker #1
Yeah, full disclaimer here, I wasn't involved in the latest months of the project, so I don't know how the negotiations went. But indeed, I think I was one of these people promoting very ambitious solutions also because of my experience in the field and what I see as the responsibility of their various stakeholders, but I must say that The 10 solutions that have been selected, like the top 10, are indeed very enforceable. And I think that it will make a world of difference because, you know. There must be like, it shouldn't be only about the big words, but really about how things really deliver. So can you, on top of your mind, can you kind of navigate us through these 10 solutions for our listeners? Or maybe only two, three, like your favorites?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I could call out a few. Yeah, so the 10 solutions spread across those five stages of the consumer journey. And we had a few, you identified a few opportunities in each space. Without going through all of them, I think in the knowledge and awareness space, one of the opportunities, there are a couple of opportunities in that space. There are so many, actually, but one of the ones I think was really important to start exploring, and I think there's a lot of scope to go deeper into, is the opportunity for suppliers to be proactively identifying. who their customers are that might be experiencing vulnerability or struggling to pay their bills and to proactively go out and offer them support. So that was one of our recommendations, actually analysing the data as well as all sorts of data that I hold, whether it's sort of the billing data or the complaints data or anything around engagement they've had with the customers, observing privacy rules, of course, but using that information to actually... Provide better service. I was really excited about that one. And that's one that we've seen is we got a bit of pushback around, you know, will this breach privacy rules? But we know that it's been done elsewhere in the U.S. and beyond with real success. So we're hoping that that one will take off and create some change. We also offered a dedicated caseworker model. So... Addressing that issue that we talked about at the beginning, Marlene, where older consumers can feel really confused and frustrated by the system, but also by any attempt to actually get help and how hard that can be, especially if you are having to tell your story over again every time you manage to get through to somebody or navigating chatbots and so on who really can't appreciate the nuance of your situation. So, yeah, the... case worker model where actually consumers or customers who have been identified as really needing extra support could have a dedicated person yeah they could go back to time and again yeah being the helper in a way yeah yeah and that yeah and that might be that caregiver that we talked about too might also have access to that kind of support in a sort of ongoing way one i really liked around affordability was where we're encouraging suppliers to be really looking at the plans that their customers are on. And again, proactively giving people information about what plans are available, whether they're on the right plan and helping people to access the best possible tariffs for them. Because that really tackles one of the issues, particularly for older consumers that we uncovered in the research is this, what we call the loyalty premium.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Which was- Sometimes it can be called- Yeah.
Speaker #0
Well, absolutely, because basically what happens is older consumers like to stay loyal and dedicated to their supplier and imagine, falsely assume that they get rewarded for that loyalty. And in fact, it's the opposite, that those longstanding customers will be paying, typically paying a lot more. So actually to flip that and say, no, the responsibility is on the supplier to ensure that your customer is on the right plan and hasn't fallen into and been lured into some kind of trap.
Speaker #1
Yeah, at the same time, we also know that it might be at the heart of the supplier's business model. But I think what makes this work so interesting is also if you take, if you make a step back and see that, you know, Europe is a continent that is...
Speaker #0
aging so there will be more and more people over 75 having an active energy contract in so you need to kind of also understand that this i mean this kind of practice is of course legal it has been around for some time but it's not because it's legal that it's just that it's fair and it's acceptable. So I think... Right. For me, it's an interesting topic, and it was an interesting conversation as well, because it's a bit touchy, right? It's a bit challenging what suppliers are, how they are building their businesses in a way. So I found this part really, really exciting as well. Can we have proper conversations as people who tend to be more on the consumer side? Can we have proper conversations with suppliers? and the the answer was yes, right? So that was great. And I mean, the final recommendation is this kind of decalogue. Can you, I mean, decalogue is of course a terrible word, but can you explain what it is?
Speaker #1
Yeah, so the word decalogue, interestingly, it was proposed by our partners, Italian partners, and it turns out to be a sort of iconic concept in Italy around pronouncements of 10 things. So it worked nicely for our purpose. But really what that's about is recommending an ongoing collaboration across the sector to continue to pursue these goals around inclusive energy services and empowerment of energy users. So, yes, we brought together this group around this project. It was a fantastic learning experience for everyone. And I think we came out with some really important results, but we don't want the conversation to stop. there. So the idea of the Decalogue is that it provides a structure for those stakeholders, but actually more than just the ones who participated in the project, but hopefully bringing in more actors in the Italian energy sector to join that conversation and to collectively sort of raise the ambition and encourage each other to go further to execute these 10 solutions and hopefully to go beyond that. over time. So yeah, so we wanted to leave a structure in place, offer a structure that could enable that conversation to carry on even after we've moved on to the next thing. Yeah,
Speaker #0
that's so important, right? To leave a legacy and make sure that, you know, again, it's not a top-down action, but really a process, a project. that is not only Consumers International, but it's Consumers International and its partner, right?
Speaker #1
And we're actually, so just to say that, you know, I guess the way we work, we're a membership organization. So we leave behind our members and the whole network, which is very rich in Italy, of consumer advocacy groups who are really well-placed to sort of be the champions for that ongoing conversation. So that's the vision we have, is that, you know, that those actors who... We're there before we started the project and we'll continue to be there after we'll be able to run with it.
Speaker #0
Since you're going to be after a new project, so you're planning to replicate this method, right? Other markets, other places, with other vulnerable groups, not only 7tech plus, perhaps, but other vulnerable groups or groups experiencing hardships, different form of hardship. So what would it look like for someone listening or watching now, a regulator, an energy company? or even a consumer advocacy group, to become a champion for replication in their own context. So what needs to happen for building the next edition?
Speaker #1
That's right. We're really eager to replicate the methodology because we found that it worked really well. That sort of starting from consumer experience, looking for a really place-based and consumer-centered approach, and then, you know, honing in on some really local. problems and experiences for consumers and that key piece around building the multi-stakeholder group across the sector. So that's the model that we'd love to take elsewhere, yeah, because we felt it worked well. So we're thinking about other markets where we could potentially look again at older consumers, but there are other consumer segments that would be really interesting to explore. Like you talked about gender issues, for example, we're also thinking about you the particular experience of renters or apartment dwellers, you know, and obviously there are lots of different ways that we could explore the problem. So we're really interested to do, you know, we've got a lot of things we'd like to do, but I think the first step in moving on to the next project is, you know, to identify some champions who want, in-country, who want to, yeah, lead this project and sort of advocate for it alongside us. in the next market. So yeah, that could be any one of those stakeholders. It could be from the policy side, the NGO side, consumer organizations or suppliers who reach out to us and say, we like the work and we'd like to do it in our market or on this consumer group. And then we, you know, we will look to build projects around where we can work with the willing because that's what's really key to the success is to have stakeholders in country who are passionate about the work and interested to collaborate on it. So yes, we welcome any expressions of interest in that. So yeah, we'll be having a lot of conversations over the coming months about that. And welcome anyone to reach out.
Speaker #0
Yeah, I mean, you need to be ready to speak early in the morning. That's true. That's absolutely brilliant. And yeah, and you've been traveling also a lot. You come to Europe quite often as well. You were in Canada for the International Energy Agency. are you not so long ago, so it's always possible to catch up with you in between flights.
Speaker #1
I was going to say, we have a global team, so it doesn't always have to be me coming from New Zealand, but actually, yeah, we've got team members here and there that can connect with people in any region. So that's part of the beauty of the way we work at Consumers International.
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's great. You know, I think that would be absolutely brilliant to have an equivalent blueprint in, I don't know, places like Singapore or, you know, some in or Nigeria. Right. With the completely, completely, completely different settings and different stage of the market and relationships and things like that. So, yeah. I'm looking forward to next edition. Please keep us posted.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. Well, you mentioned Asia, and I'm definitely thinking about Asia at the moment, given the energy crisis that we're in. And that's what I was discussing with the IEA on that trip you mentioned. But, you know, thinking about how the current energy crisis is just exacerbating all of these challenges. And of course, it's the most vulnerable consumers, lower income households that are being worst hit. And And actually, it's Asia. From a global perspective, Asia is the worst hit region. So thinking about what issues, challenges might be unique to Asian markets that we could tackle at this moment in time seems like a really important opportunity.
Speaker #0
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of promising work then. So thank you so, so much, Nina. For me, it has been an absolute pleasure to work on this blueprint for inclusive energy services in Italy. There is, of course, so much more work to do, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how this technology unfolds. And yeah, I'm looking also very much forward to seeing how you will make this blueprint live in other contexts or that it's localized to different projects. Yeah.
Speaker #1
Yeah, well, same here, Marine. It was really fantastic to have you on that project and really enrich the work. So I hope we'll find ways to work again together in the future.
Speaker #0
Energetic explores the people, policies and institutions shaping Europe's and the world's energy transition. I am Marine Cornelis. If you found this conversation valuable, you can share it with colleagues working on housing, governance and consumer protection. You will find references and further reading in the show notes. Until next time.

About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

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.

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Reference: Blueprint for Inclusive Energy Services, Consumers International. (2026)

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Transcription

Speaker #0
One person told us that they felt like talking about the energy bills or their struggle with energy bills was a taboo. Actually, they just wouldn't dream of reaching out for help about that issue. And it's to us that there are huge issues around basic trust in the sector that need to be urgently addressed.
Speaker #1
Yeah, for me, something that really came up was also how people, you know, this sense of powerlessness. And the sense that people need it to kind of shrink themselves in. Some of the most important things about how we use energy never show up on a policy dashboard. Whether an 85-year-old can read her own bill. Whether she knows that help exists. Whether she trusts the voice on the phone enough to pick up. Over the past year, I worked with Consumers International on the Blueprint for Inclusive Energy Services, and I want to be honest that it is a project close to me. The first edition started from a deliberate decision. Instead of talking about older consumers, go and sit with them. It looked at people aged 75 and over in Italy, and what it surfaced was confusion, exclusion, And... A quiet resignation that most of us working in this sector rarely see up close. My guest today was the leader of that work. Nina Campbell is Global Energy Lead at Consumers International. She came to it through energy efficiency and climate policy, including work on energy hardship in New Zealand. And she has spent years arguing that the transition only works if it works for the people at its edges. She's here to complicate a you comfortable assumption that fairer market automatically produces a fairer experience. Nina, welcome to the show.
Speaker #0
Hi, thanks for having me, Marine.
Speaker #1
So Nina, you have moved from energy efficiency and climate policy, including hardship work in New Zealand, where you are still based, into leading energy globally. Was there... a specific moment or a specific person that really changed how you think about who energy systems are actually built for?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I think actually there was a specific moment. I mean, I am fundamentally a social scientist. So although I've worked in the energy sector my whole career, I definitely look at these issues from a human perspective, sort of by nature. But I started my career at the International Energy Agency, which was a real honour and I'll be sure. opportunity, I guess, to get some quite broad exposure to the different issues in the sector. And I was in the energy efficiency team, and I think it really struck me there quite quickly that we talk quite openly and frequently about the gap between the technical savings potentials and the realized potential. And analysts talk about it all the time without really questioning, what are we missing? Why is there this gap? And to me, and I guess, To everyone, it's obvious that that is the sort of human element that most technical people feel like is quite unknowable and difficult to diagnose. But as a social scientist, I was like, there's a problem that I'd love to understand. So that's where it started for me, for sure.
Speaker #1
Okay. And then you moved back between Europe and New Zealand. So can you, I mean, Yuki, we have also... Pretty different understanding of what it is like. Like we are recording in the summer, but for you it's winter. So you're all able to kind of make a step back, like physically make a step back to observe what's happening elsewhere. Yeah,
Speaker #0
yeah, that's right. Well, I really got switched on to the issue of energy poverty within this question of energy efficiency when I was leading the multiple benefits of energy efficiency work at the IEA. And that's where we were looking at what are the social implications or benefits that we could get out of energy efficiency for individual households. And that's where that sort of issues around residential energy efficiency popped up. And I started to see that actually there are a lot of issues that show up globally in different places that I know very well from my own experience in New Zealand. So we have a very similar sort of housing stock problems as our experience in... The UK, for example, and other European and even American and beyond housing systems, which is basically that we have poor housing, poor quality housing is a really widespread issue. And people are ready to accept cold homes, inadequate heating systems, and all of the implications that flow from that around bad health, social problems, family issues and beyond. So, yeah, so I've worked on those issues. at the IEA. But then I moved back, I had a real urge to get closer to the problems of honour in a particular place with real people. So that's when I moved back to New Zealand and into the Ministry of Energy. We call it energy hardship in New Zealand. So energy hardship became my focus. And I was really lucky with the timing because we had a government who was really interesting in addressing some of the equity issues in the energy system. And we had an electricity price review about the time I got back and that identified the need for an investigation into this problem of energy hardship. And I was able to serve on the secretariat for a ministerially appointed expert group. who looked into the problem over the course of a couple of years and came up with a report with about 45 or so recommendations on how we can do better on the problem in New Zealand. Yeah, we found a lot.
Speaker #1
That's indeed like very extensive recommendations, I suppose, with that 45. So how is energy hardship different from energy poverty the way it's understood in Europe? Or is it just denomination? Because, for instance, I know that in the US, the term rate is used instead of tariff. So, you know, it's like this different terminology. And at Consumers International, you also have to deal with this kind of different terminologies to define the same thing, like what people pay, what people experience, etc. So I think it's so interesting also because you're a native speaker, but from the... completely opposite side of the planet. So you have to deal with different people with different perspectives, right? I mean, throughout your careers, it's what you have been doing.
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's part of the work that I really enjoy, to be honest. And actually, there is some interesting nuance in the language. It's more than just translation or semantics, because actually the word hardship was chosen. In order to get around, well, first of all, the sort of stigma that comes around labelling people as being in energy poverty, because what we see is that if we attach those kinds of stigmatising labels, then people are less likely to reach out for help or identify themselves as people who might be in that category and need that support. So hardship was more like, you know, this is just a tough time. It's something that anybody might have to deal with. And part of the definition in New Zealand that... It's really effective in capturing that is that we talk about the flip side of energy hardship as being energy well-being. And actually, we try to talk as much about achieving well-being as combating hardship. And then we think about it on a spectrum. So people might move back and forth along a spectrum between well-being and hardship, depending on lots of different factors, either in the market or in their own lives. So I think it's been really a helpful definition.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I think it's indeed very helpful also because it's kind of more active. And, you know, one of the terminologies that have been used in Europe is vulnerable consumers. When I started working on this social dimension of the energy transition, it was more about vulnerable energy consumers. And it was very top-down because you are the vulnerable. But actually, the vulnerability dimension is so dynamic. And again, we are not necessarily, I mean, we are not. only consumers, we're also citizens and putting only this aspect of consumer, a vulnerable consumer, it becomes very, yeah, very, very passive, very stigmatizing in a way you don't really necessarily identify yourself within that. And this notion of hardship, I find it quite interesting. But I think it also ties well to a question I have regarding the birth of this blueprint for energy inclusive services. So you choose to focus first. on Italy. But apart from the geography, I think that what also drew me to this project is that the idea was to start by beginning to listening to a lot of older people rather than really starting from a framework and trying to guess or second guess what they were experiencing. So we have really had to learn. something to design things. But was there anything that kind of surprised or unsettled you in those conversations?
Speaker #0
Yeah, well, first I would say, just going back to your first point that, yeah, at Consumers International as well, we really try to avoid the label of vulnerable consumer, even though we recognize that it sort of exists in the policy world and is useful for some purposes, but we talk about... consumers who are experiencing vulnerabilities for that same, to try and reach that same kind of acknowledgement of people's experience. Yeah. And then the other thing we do is that as a consumer rights organization, obviously everything that we do, we've come from the starting point of a perspective of rights-based. Thinking. So we take the same point that every consumer has a right to access affordable energy services that fully meet their needs. And we think about when we're trying to solve problems, we start from consumer experience first, as you said. So we really want to first understand what is the consumer's or the person's experience in their own life, in their own home. and then look at how we might solve those challenges and what tools there are, either in policy regulation or beyond, that can help to solve those problems. And we sort of frame that around the energy consumer journey. So that's kind of the thinking that we bring to help organize the process from that consumer-centered approach. And we imagine that there are sort of five stages that consumers go through when engaging with energy from knowledge and awareness, of opportunities and issues through affordability and looking at what options they can afford, what options are out there, then into options around the technology, how they use it day to day, and then actually even sort of post-purchase or redress opportunities. So when we did this project, we looked at that whole kind of consumer journey from the perspective of, you know, what older consumers initially were experiencing. in the energy market there. And it was really fascinating experience. So we spoke to a lot of experts, both inside Italy and beyond. We also spoke directly to consumers, Italian consumers. And I guess that was the part that was very moving, I think, for the team, was to hear some of those stories. So, you know, we heard that a lot of people, a lot of people in Italy are feeling really confused by the system. that the language that's used is too technical and that the channels that are being used are increasingly excluding of older people as we move into this more digitalized world, for example. So much of the opportunities are now online, but we were hearing older consumers say to us, I'm tired of these call center robots that I try. For those who actually do take the step of reaching out for help, they encounter automated responses. They have to deal with chatbots or, yeah, they find themselves in a loop and it's incredibly frustrating.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, this contrast between what is available, like the kind of menu of options to enforce your energy rights and what people can actually make use of is like, is so big. And I remember going to the market and speaking to people. out there just to get their experience. People I didn't know from anywhere, right? This was like completely random encounters. And some of them said things that, I mean, when we reported that all back to you, we could see how moved you were too, like on the other side of the world. Because, I mean, I think I will always remember this old man, 90 plus. who said that cooking was the only joy he had in his life. And given the price of energy, he lost that joy. And that was terrible because you really see that in a few words, in his own words, you could see that he knew he had only so much years to live. And he was making efforts. And it doesn't feel fair that he has to make these efforts, right? But... But as you stated, there is this kind of consumer journey, which is kind of based on an ideal consumer, which is very different from actually the proper experience of someone who is over 75 or with different physical or cognitive abilities and so on. A woman has also, I don't know, I don't even know if I'm entitled to something or what I'm entitled to something. So... Reflecting on this and on what's in the blueprint, what did that teach you?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I think one of the most alarming messages, sort of larger messages that came out of the work was probably around the sense that actually there was a really deep lack of trust in the energy sector generally. that actually we heard people talk about how, you know, If we talk about the team talks about the offers that are available and then people are saying, well, that's not for people like me. really feeling totally left out of the system. And that actually, yeah, a sense that there was no help available, no idea of where to go. And I think that sense of that lack of trust has been eroding over time. I mean, the sector's always been very complicated and probably not very good at expressing itself in ordinary terms, which has left a lot of people disengaged from their energy use. But that's only increasing as... The new technologies come online, especially for older people who just don't feel ready to engage with those opportunities. And actually, the offers aren't tailored for them either. They're really targeting younger sort of tech savvy people with their communications. And then you have the added layer of digitalization, but then also scams. So we heard a lot of the older folks we spoke to talk about the real fear that is developing around scams, around... even just pushy sales practices, cold calls, people trying to upsell them with bundled deals that they didn't really understand and weren't sure if they were really advantageous, let alone just flat out scams, which we know are on the rise in all sectors. So yeah, so this sense that the sector was just a bit of a minefield and that really the help that's available wasn't tailored for older consumers was quite concerning. And we might remember, Marlene, we you One person told us that they felt like talking about their energy bills or their struggle with energy bills was a taboo, that actually they just wouldn't dream of reaching out for help about that issue. So, yeah, it really said to us that there are huge issues around basic trust in the sector that need to be urgently addressed.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For me, something that really came up was also how people... You know, this sense of powerlessness and the sense that people needed to kind of shrink themselves in because of this table, because the coping mechanism they had put in place, like switching everything off or giving up the oven. But the project was also about caretakers, right? So to caretakers also stepping in, but without any recognition. stepping in but really walking on, like they were walking on eggshells because they didn't feel like legitimate. And this profound sense of lack of agency, right, or lack of control, something that is so fundamental to our daily lives, was really hard to see, right, and hard to notice.
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's right. It was, that was a big learning to look at the role of carers in the Italian energy sector in particular, because we found that actually something like 16% of Italians are in a caregiving role, often for an older adult, and that actually the system doesn't really allow for those people to be acknowledged, to get access to the information they need to support whoever they're caring for, let alone to have support for themselves, because we also heard about the stress and worry and time you that is associated with being a caregiver for somebody around their energy bills. So that was one of the solutions that we proposed was around smoothing the path for caregivers to have access to information and to advocate on behalf of their loved one, as well as calling for better compensation for caregivers for the time and energy that they invest in that role. So, yeah, I think it's really important to acknowledge those people as actors in the energy system and start to bring in more measures to support those people and by extension, the people they care for.
Speaker #1
And interestingly, those caregivers who also found out that they were mostly women over 45, so they are suffering this kind of multiple penalty, if we want, because, of course, they should be working. outside the home and earn a revenue. But they are also very often asked to be the one taking care of the children or even the grandchildren. But they have to take care also of the parents who are aging. So some of them must step out of formal employment. So they end up having less revenues as well. So everything makes it like the burden, extremely clear and gendered. And that makes it quite a... Yeah, I think that's part of the invisible women or invisibilizing women equation, right? So that's a dimension that I think would need to be explored further to anyone or any future edition of this blueprint. But if we go back to the blueprint itself, so the output, which is this kind of report with a lot of recommendations, it was... built with suppliers. Suppliers decided to kind of take responsibility over the... points that we showed them. We said, okay, things are, I mean, your assumptions may be a little, may be quite off. So how can we build something that delivers better? So two things, like how did you work with, to our audience, how did you work with these suppliers? How do you kind of recruited them and made sure that, you know, the results of this blueprint are And forcible, both on the end, and like you get enthusiasm both from the consumer side and from the supplier side, because, you know, this conversation is hard to happen, right? So how did you make the magic happen?
Speaker #0
Well, we do at Consumers International, we really believe in collaborative ways of working because we really think that is how you are likely to have the most impact and really affect change. And so when we were designing this project, what we really wanted, we wanted to empower consumers with more inclusive access to services. But we wanted to make sure that the outcome was not a set of policies or principles, but actually meaningful, real change in the marketplace. And hopefully, you know, on a faster track than typically these processes move. and who are the actors? and the energy system that have the ability to move at pace and to make real change for consumers fast. And that is the energy suppliers who have the relationship with customers. They are engaging with them on a daily basis. They have visibility over who's paying, able to pay, who's not, or who's paying and who's not, how much they're using. You know, there is actually an incredibly rich relationship there. And we wanted... to leverage that and encourage suppliers who, many of which we know are conscious of the struggles that their customers face. They're aware of the issues of energy poverty and vulnerability and do have a willingness to do better, but probably just don't have a good understanding of what the real issues and barriers are and how to fix them and perhaps also just need a bit of a nudge. So that is really what we're here for. Yeah, so we built a multi-stakeholder group around this project. We approached some larger suppliers as well as some smaller ones. So some of the larger ones with a very large customer base, so a large scope for impact and resources to be able to absorb the costs of those changes. But then also we had in the group some of the smaller suppliers who are a bit more innovative and agile and actually tended to be better informed about. the challenges that consumers are facing in the energy market. Yeah, so we also brought consumer advocates into the conversation. That's sort of core to everything we do is to really connect consumer advocates to whichever stakeholders hold the other levers and also NGOs. So we had a really good balance of voices and perspectives, I think, from the Italian energy market. Yeah, and we co-created, so we went out and gathered the evidence about what was happening for Italian consumers and brought it back to that group. And then we discussed and co-created the list of 10 solutions that we came up with in the end. And yeah, that was a journey. That was an experience, just navigating the different interests of those different stakeholders around the table. involved. a bit of negotiation and a bit of sort of back and forth and compromise. But it was important to us to do it that way because we wanted to keep those, again, those actors who really hold the levers for change at the table. So at times we, you know, we came in with very ambitious proposals and at times we had to step them back slightly. But I think it was a huge win to come away with the solutions that we landed and with those suppliers still on board. still eager and enthusiastic about going away and actioning those changes.
Speaker #1
Yeah, full disclaimer here, I wasn't involved in the latest months of the project, so I don't know how the negotiations went. But indeed, I think I was one of these people promoting very ambitious solutions also because of my experience in the field and what I see as the responsibility of their various stakeholders, but I must say that The 10 solutions that have been selected, like the top 10, are indeed very enforceable. And I think that it will make a world of difference because, you know. There must be like, it shouldn't be only about the big words, but really about how things really deliver. So can you, on top of your mind, can you kind of navigate us through these 10 solutions for our listeners? Or maybe only two, three, like your favorites?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I could call out a few. Yeah, so the 10 solutions spread across those five stages of the consumer journey. And we had a few, you identified a few opportunities in each space. Without going through all of them, I think in the knowledge and awareness space, one of the opportunities, there are a couple of opportunities in that space. There are so many, actually, but one of the ones I think was really important to start exploring, and I think there's a lot of scope to go deeper into, is the opportunity for suppliers to be proactively identifying. who their customers are that might be experiencing vulnerability or struggling to pay their bills and to proactively go out and offer them support. So that was one of our recommendations, actually analysing the data as well as all sorts of data that I hold, whether it's sort of the billing data or the complaints data or anything around engagement they've had with the customers, observing privacy rules, of course, but using that information to actually... Provide better service. I was really excited about that one. And that's one that we've seen is we got a bit of pushback around, you know, will this breach privacy rules? But we know that it's been done elsewhere in the U.S. and beyond with real success. So we're hoping that that one will take off and create some change. We also offered a dedicated caseworker model. So... Addressing that issue that we talked about at the beginning, Marlene, where older consumers can feel really confused and frustrated by the system, but also by any attempt to actually get help and how hard that can be, especially if you are having to tell your story over again every time you manage to get through to somebody or navigating chatbots and so on who really can't appreciate the nuance of your situation. So, yeah, the... case worker model where actually consumers or customers who have been identified as really needing extra support could have a dedicated person yeah they could go back to time and again yeah being the helper in a way yeah yeah and that yeah and that might be that caregiver that we talked about too might also have access to that kind of support in a sort of ongoing way one i really liked around affordability was where we're encouraging suppliers to be really looking at the plans that their customers are on. And again, proactively giving people information about what plans are available, whether they're on the right plan and helping people to access the best possible tariffs for them. Because that really tackles one of the issues, particularly for older consumers that we uncovered in the research is this, what we call the loyalty premium.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Which was- Sometimes it can be called- Yeah.
Speaker #0
Well, absolutely, because basically what happens is older consumers like to stay loyal and dedicated to their supplier and imagine, falsely assume that they get rewarded for that loyalty. And in fact, it's the opposite, that those longstanding customers will be paying, typically paying a lot more. So actually to flip that and say, no, the responsibility is on the supplier to ensure that your customer is on the right plan and hasn't fallen into and been lured into some kind of trap.
Speaker #1
Yeah, at the same time, we also know that it might be at the heart of the supplier's business model. But I think what makes this work so interesting is also if you take, if you make a step back and see that, you know, Europe is a continent that is...
Speaker #0
aging so there will be more and more people over 75 having an active energy contract in so you need to kind of also understand that this i mean this kind of practice is of course legal it has been around for some time but it's not because it's legal that it's just that it's fair and it's acceptable. So I think... Right. For me, it's an interesting topic, and it was an interesting conversation as well, because it's a bit touchy, right? It's a bit challenging what suppliers are, how they are building their businesses in a way. So I found this part really, really exciting as well. Can we have proper conversations as people who tend to be more on the consumer side? Can we have proper conversations with suppliers? and the the answer was yes, right? So that was great. And I mean, the final recommendation is this kind of decalogue. Can you, I mean, decalogue is of course a terrible word, but can you explain what it is?
Speaker #1
Yeah, so the word decalogue, interestingly, it was proposed by our partners, Italian partners, and it turns out to be a sort of iconic concept in Italy around pronouncements of 10 things. So it worked nicely for our purpose. But really what that's about is recommending an ongoing collaboration across the sector to continue to pursue these goals around inclusive energy services and empowerment of energy users. So, yes, we brought together this group around this project. It was a fantastic learning experience for everyone. And I think we came out with some really important results, but we don't want the conversation to stop. there. So the idea of the Decalogue is that it provides a structure for those stakeholders, but actually more than just the ones who participated in the project, but hopefully bringing in more actors in the Italian energy sector to join that conversation and to collectively sort of raise the ambition and encourage each other to go further to execute these 10 solutions and hopefully to go beyond that. over time. So yeah, so we wanted to leave a structure in place, offer a structure that could enable that conversation to carry on even after we've moved on to the next thing. Yeah,
Speaker #0
that's so important, right? To leave a legacy and make sure that, you know, again, it's not a top-down action, but really a process, a project. that is not only Consumers International, but it's Consumers International and its partner, right?
Speaker #1
And we're actually, so just to say that, you know, I guess the way we work, we're a membership organization. So we leave behind our members and the whole network, which is very rich in Italy, of consumer advocacy groups who are really well-placed to sort of be the champions for that ongoing conversation. So that's the vision we have, is that, you know, that those actors who... We're there before we started the project and we'll continue to be there after we'll be able to run with it.
Speaker #0
Since you're going to be after a new project, so you're planning to replicate this method, right? Other markets, other places, with other vulnerable groups, not only 7tech plus, perhaps, but other vulnerable groups or groups experiencing hardships, different form of hardship. So what would it look like for someone listening or watching now, a regulator, an energy company? or even a consumer advocacy group, to become a champion for replication in their own context. So what needs to happen for building the next edition?
Speaker #1
That's right. We're really eager to replicate the methodology because we found that it worked really well. That sort of starting from consumer experience, looking for a really place-based and consumer-centered approach, and then, you know, honing in on some really local. problems and experiences for consumers and that key piece around building the multi-stakeholder group across the sector. So that's the model that we'd love to take elsewhere, yeah, because we felt it worked well. So we're thinking about other markets where we could potentially look again at older consumers, but there are other consumer segments that would be really interesting to explore. Like you talked about gender issues, for example, we're also thinking about you the particular experience of renters or apartment dwellers, you know, and obviously there are lots of different ways that we could explore the problem. So we're really interested to do, you know, we've got a lot of things we'd like to do, but I think the first step in moving on to the next project is, you know, to identify some champions who want, in-country, who want to, yeah, lead this project and sort of advocate for it alongside us. in the next market. So yeah, that could be any one of those stakeholders. It could be from the policy side, the NGO side, consumer organizations or suppliers who reach out to us and say, we like the work and we'd like to do it in our market or on this consumer group. And then we, you know, we will look to build projects around where we can work with the willing because that's what's really key to the success is to have stakeholders in country who are passionate about the work and interested to collaborate on it. So yes, we welcome any expressions of interest in that. So yeah, we'll be having a lot of conversations over the coming months about that. And welcome anyone to reach out.
Speaker #0
Yeah, I mean, you need to be ready to speak early in the morning. That's true. That's absolutely brilliant. And yeah, and you've been traveling also a lot. You come to Europe quite often as well. You were in Canada for the International Energy Agency. are you not so long ago, so it's always possible to catch up with you in between flights.
Speaker #1
I was going to say, we have a global team, so it doesn't always have to be me coming from New Zealand, but actually, yeah, we've got team members here and there that can connect with people in any region. So that's part of the beauty of the way we work at Consumers International.
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's great. You know, I think that would be absolutely brilliant to have an equivalent blueprint in, I don't know, places like Singapore or, you know, some in or Nigeria. Right. With the completely, completely, completely different settings and different stage of the market and relationships and things like that. So, yeah. I'm looking forward to next edition. Please keep us posted.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. Well, you mentioned Asia, and I'm definitely thinking about Asia at the moment, given the energy crisis that we're in. And that's what I was discussing with the IEA on that trip you mentioned. But, you know, thinking about how the current energy crisis is just exacerbating all of these challenges. And of course, it's the most vulnerable consumers, lower income households that are being worst hit. And And actually, it's Asia. From a global perspective, Asia is the worst hit region. So thinking about what issues, challenges might be unique to Asian markets that we could tackle at this moment in time seems like a really important opportunity.
Speaker #0
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of promising work then. So thank you so, so much, Nina. For me, it has been an absolute pleasure to work on this blueprint for inclusive energy services in Italy. There is, of course, so much more work to do, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how this technology unfolds. And yeah, I'm looking also very much forward to seeing how you will make this blueprint live in other contexts or that it's localized to different projects. Yeah.
Speaker #1
Yeah, well, same here, Marine. It was really fantastic to have you on that project and really enrich the work. So I hope we'll find ways to work again together in the future.
Speaker #0
Energetic explores the people, policies and institutions shaping Europe's and the world's energy transition. I am Marine Cornelis. If you found this conversation valuable, you can share it with colleagues working on housing, governance and consumer protection. You will find references and further reading in the show notes. Until next time.

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Reference: Blueprint for Inclusive Energy Services, Consumers International. (2026)

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Transcription

Speaker #0
One person told us that they felt like talking about the energy bills or their struggle with energy bills was a taboo. Actually, they just wouldn't dream of reaching out for help about that issue. And it's to us that there are huge issues around basic trust in the sector that need to be urgently addressed.
Speaker #1
Yeah, for me, something that really came up was also how people, you know, this sense of powerlessness. And the sense that people need it to kind of shrink themselves in. Some of the most important things about how we use energy never show up on a policy dashboard. Whether an 85-year-old can read her own bill. Whether she knows that help exists. Whether she trusts the voice on the phone enough to pick up. Over the past year, I worked with Consumers International on the Blueprint for Inclusive Energy Services, and I want to be honest that it is a project close to me. The first edition started from a deliberate decision. Instead of talking about older consumers, go and sit with them. It looked at people aged 75 and over in Italy, and what it surfaced was confusion, exclusion, And... A quiet resignation that most of us working in this sector rarely see up close. My guest today was the leader of that work. Nina Campbell is Global Energy Lead at Consumers International. She came to it through energy efficiency and climate policy, including work on energy hardship in New Zealand. And she has spent years arguing that the transition only works if it works for the people at its edges. She's here to complicate a you comfortable assumption that fairer market automatically produces a fairer experience. Nina, welcome to the show.
Speaker #0
Hi, thanks for having me, Marine.
Speaker #1
So Nina, you have moved from energy efficiency and climate policy, including hardship work in New Zealand, where you are still based, into leading energy globally. Was there... a specific moment or a specific person that really changed how you think about who energy systems are actually built for?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I think actually there was a specific moment. I mean, I am fundamentally a social scientist. So although I've worked in the energy sector my whole career, I definitely look at these issues from a human perspective, sort of by nature. But I started my career at the International Energy Agency, which was a real honour and I'll be sure. opportunity, I guess, to get some quite broad exposure to the different issues in the sector. And I was in the energy efficiency team, and I think it really struck me there quite quickly that we talk quite openly and frequently about the gap between the technical savings potentials and the realized potential. And analysts talk about it all the time without really questioning, what are we missing? Why is there this gap? And to me, and I guess, To everyone, it's obvious that that is the sort of human element that most technical people feel like is quite unknowable and difficult to diagnose. But as a social scientist, I was like, there's a problem that I'd love to understand. So that's where it started for me, for sure.
Speaker #1
Okay. And then you moved back between Europe and New Zealand. So can you, I mean, Yuki, we have also... Pretty different understanding of what it is like. Like we are recording in the summer, but for you it's winter. So you're all able to kind of make a step back, like physically make a step back to observe what's happening elsewhere. Yeah,
Speaker #0
yeah, that's right. Well, I really got switched on to the issue of energy poverty within this question of energy efficiency when I was leading the multiple benefits of energy efficiency work at the IEA. And that's where we were looking at what are the social implications or benefits that we could get out of energy efficiency for individual households. And that's where that sort of issues around residential energy efficiency popped up. And I started to see that actually there are a lot of issues that show up globally in different places that I know very well from my own experience in New Zealand. So we have a very similar sort of housing stock problems as our experience in... The UK, for example, and other European and even American and beyond housing systems, which is basically that we have poor housing, poor quality housing is a really widespread issue. And people are ready to accept cold homes, inadequate heating systems, and all of the implications that flow from that around bad health, social problems, family issues and beyond. So, yeah, so I've worked on those issues. at the IEA. But then I moved back, I had a real urge to get closer to the problems of honour in a particular place with real people. So that's when I moved back to New Zealand and into the Ministry of Energy. We call it energy hardship in New Zealand. So energy hardship became my focus. And I was really lucky with the timing because we had a government who was really interesting in addressing some of the equity issues in the energy system. And we had an electricity price review about the time I got back and that identified the need for an investigation into this problem of energy hardship. And I was able to serve on the secretariat for a ministerially appointed expert group. who looked into the problem over the course of a couple of years and came up with a report with about 45 or so recommendations on how we can do better on the problem in New Zealand. Yeah, we found a lot.
Speaker #1
That's indeed like very extensive recommendations, I suppose, with that 45. So how is energy hardship different from energy poverty the way it's understood in Europe? Or is it just denomination? Because, for instance, I know that in the US, the term rate is used instead of tariff. So, you know, it's like this different terminology. And at Consumers International, you also have to deal with this kind of different terminologies to define the same thing, like what people pay, what people experience, etc. So I think it's so interesting also because you're a native speaker, but from the... completely opposite side of the planet. So you have to deal with different people with different perspectives, right? I mean, throughout your careers, it's what you have been doing.
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's part of the work that I really enjoy, to be honest. And actually, there is some interesting nuance in the language. It's more than just translation or semantics, because actually the word hardship was chosen. In order to get around, well, first of all, the sort of stigma that comes around labelling people as being in energy poverty, because what we see is that if we attach those kinds of stigmatising labels, then people are less likely to reach out for help or identify themselves as people who might be in that category and need that support. So hardship was more like, you know, this is just a tough time. It's something that anybody might have to deal with. And part of the definition in New Zealand that... It's really effective in capturing that is that we talk about the flip side of energy hardship as being energy well-being. And actually, we try to talk as much about achieving well-being as combating hardship. And then we think about it on a spectrum. So people might move back and forth along a spectrum between well-being and hardship, depending on lots of different factors, either in the market or in their own lives. So I think it's been really a helpful definition.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I think it's indeed very helpful also because it's kind of more active. And, you know, one of the terminologies that have been used in Europe is vulnerable consumers. When I started working on this social dimension of the energy transition, it was more about vulnerable energy consumers. And it was very top-down because you are the vulnerable. But actually, the vulnerability dimension is so dynamic. And again, we are not necessarily, I mean, we are not. only consumers, we're also citizens and putting only this aspect of consumer, a vulnerable consumer, it becomes very, yeah, very, very passive, very stigmatizing in a way you don't really necessarily identify yourself within that. And this notion of hardship, I find it quite interesting. But I think it also ties well to a question I have regarding the birth of this blueprint for energy inclusive services. So you choose to focus first. on Italy. But apart from the geography, I think that what also drew me to this project is that the idea was to start by beginning to listening to a lot of older people rather than really starting from a framework and trying to guess or second guess what they were experiencing. So we have really had to learn. something to design things. But was there anything that kind of surprised or unsettled you in those conversations?
Speaker #0
Yeah, well, first I would say, just going back to your first point that, yeah, at Consumers International as well, we really try to avoid the label of vulnerable consumer, even though we recognize that it sort of exists in the policy world and is useful for some purposes, but we talk about... consumers who are experiencing vulnerabilities for that same, to try and reach that same kind of acknowledgement of people's experience. Yeah. And then the other thing we do is that as a consumer rights organization, obviously everything that we do, we've come from the starting point of a perspective of rights-based. Thinking. So we take the same point that every consumer has a right to access affordable energy services that fully meet their needs. And we think about when we're trying to solve problems, we start from consumer experience first, as you said. So we really want to first understand what is the consumer's or the person's experience in their own life, in their own home. and then look at how we might solve those challenges and what tools there are, either in policy regulation or beyond, that can help to solve those problems. And we sort of frame that around the energy consumer journey. So that's kind of the thinking that we bring to help organize the process from that consumer-centered approach. And we imagine that there are sort of five stages that consumers go through when engaging with energy from knowledge and awareness, of opportunities and issues through affordability and looking at what options they can afford, what options are out there, then into options around the technology, how they use it day to day, and then actually even sort of post-purchase or redress opportunities. So when we did this project, we looked at that whole kind of consumer journey from the perspective of, you know, what older consumers initially were experiencing. in the energy market there. And it was really fascinating experience. So we spoke to a lot of experts, both inside Italy and beyond. We also spoke directly to consumers, Italian consumers. And I guess that was the part that was very moving, I think, for the team, was to hear some of those stories. So, you know, we heard that a lot of people, a lot of people in Italy are feeling really confused by the system. that the language that's used is too technical and that the channels that are being used are increasingly excluding of older people as we move into this more digitalized world, for example. So much of the opportunities are now online, but we were hearing older consumers say to us, I'm tired of these call center robots that I try. For those who actually do take the step of reaching out for help, they encounter automated responses. They have to deal with chatbots or, yeah, they find themselves in a loop and it's incredibly frustrating.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, this contrast between what is available, like the kind of menu of options to enforce your energy rights and what people can actually make use of is like, is so big. And I remember going to the market and speaking to people. out there just to get their experience. People I didn't know from anywhere, right? This was like completely random encounters. And some of them said things that, I mean, when we reported that all back to you, we could see how moved you were too, like on the other side of the world. Because, I mean, I think I will always remember this old man, 90 plus. who said that cooking was the only joy he had in his life. And given the price of energy, he lost that joy. And that was terrible because you really see that in a few words, in his own words, you could see that he knew he had only so much years to live. And he was making efforts. And it doesn't feel fair that he has to make these efforts, right? But... But as you stated, there is this kind of consumer journey, which is kind of based on an ideal consumer, which is very different from actually the proper experience of someone who is over 75 or with different physical or cognitive abilities and so on. A woman has also, I don't know, I don't even know if I'm entitled to something or what I'm entitled to something. So... Reflecting on this and on what's in the blueprint, what did that teach you?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I think one of the most alarming messages, sort of larger messages that came out of the work was probably around the sense that actually there was a really deep lack of trust in the energy sector generally. that actually we heard people talk about how, you know, If we talk about the team talks about the offers that are available and then people are saying, well, that's not for people like me. really feeling totally left out of the system. And that actually, yeah, a sense that there was no help available, no idea of where to go. And I think that sense of that lack of trust has been eroding over time. I mean, the sector's always been very complicated and probably not very good at expressing itself in ordinary terms, which has left a lot of people disengaged from their energy use. But that's only increasing as... The new technologies come online, especially for older people who just don't feel ready to engage with those opportunities. And actually, the offers aren't tailored for them either. They're really targeting younger sort of tech savvy people with their communications. And then you have the added layer of digitalization, but then also scams. So we heard a lot of the older folks we spoke to talk about the real fear that is developing around scams, around... even just pushy sales practices, cold calls, people trying to upsell them with bundled deals that they didn't really understand and weren't sure if they were really advantageous, let alone just flat out scams, which we know are on the rise in all sectors. So yeah, so this sense that the sector was just a bit of a minefield and that really the help that's available wasn't tailored for older consumers was quite concerning. And we might remember, Marlene, we you One person told us that they felt like talking about their energy bills or their struggle with energy bills was a taboo, that actually they just wouldn't dream of reaching out for help about that issue. So, yeah, it really said to us that there are huge issues around basic trust in the sector that need to be urgently addressed.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For me, something that really came up was also how people... You know, this sense of powerlessness and the sense that people needed to kind of shrink themselves in because of this table, because the coping mechanism they had put in place, like switching everything off or giving up the oven. But the project was also about caretakers, right? So to caretakers also stepping in, but without any recognition. stepping in but really walking on, like they were walking on eggshells because they didn't feel like legitimate. And this profound sense of lack of agency, right, or lack of control, something that is so fundamental to our daily lives, was really hard to see, right, and hard to notice.
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's right. It was, that was a big learning to look at the role of carers in the Italian energy sector in particular, because we found that actually something like 16% of Italians are in a caregiving role, often for an older adult, and that actually the system doesn't really allow for those people to be acknowledged, to get access to the information they need to support whoever they're caring for, let alone to have support for themselves, because we also heard about the stress and worry and time you that is associated with being a caregiver for somebody around their energy bills. So that was one of the solutions that we proposed was around smoothing the path for caregivers to have access to information and to advocate on behalf of their loved one, as well as calling for better compensation for caregivers for the time and energy that they invest in that role. So, yeah, I think it's really important to acknowledge those people as actors in the energy system and start to bring in more measures to support those people and by extension, the people they care for.
Speaker #1
And interestingly, those caregivers who also found out that they were mostly women over 45, so they are suffering this kind of multiple penalty, if we want, because, of course, they should be working. outside the home and earn a revenue. But they are also very often asked to be the one taking care of the children or even the grandchildren. But they have to take care also of the parents who are aging. So some of them must step out of formal employment. So they end up having less revenues as well. So everything makes it like the burden, extremely clear and gendered. And that makes it quite a... Yeah, I think that's part of the invisible women or invisibilizing women equation, right? So that's a dimension that I think would need to be explored further to anyone or any future edition of this blueprint. But if we go back to the blueprint itself, so the output, which is this kind of report with a lot of recommendations, it was... built with suppliers. Suppliers decided to kind of take responsibility over the... points that we showed them. We said, okay, things are, I mean, your assumptions may be a little, may be quite off. So how can we build something that delivers better? So two things, like how did you work with, to our audience, how did you work with these suppliers? How do you kind of recruited them and made sure that, you know, the results of this blueprint are And forcible, both on the end, and like you get enthusiasm both from the consumer side and from the supplier side, because, you know, this conversation is hard to happen, right? So how did you make the magic happen?
Speaker #0
Well, we do at Consumers International, we really believe in collaborative ways of working because we really think that is how you are likely to have the most impact and really affect change. And so when we were designing this project, what we really wanted, we wanted to empower consumers with more inclusive access to services. But we wanted to make sure that the outcome was not a set of policies or principles, but actually meaningful, real change in the marketplace. And hopefully, you know, on a faster track than typically these processes move. and who are the actors? and the energy system that have the ability to move at pace and to make real change for consumers fast. And that is the energy suppliers who have the relationship with customers. They are engaging with them on a daily basis. They have visibility over who's paying, able to pay, who's not, or who's paying and who's not, how much they're using. You know, there is actually an incredibly rich relationship there. And we wanted... to leverage that and encourage suppliers who, many of which we know are conscious of the struggles that their customers face. They're aware of the issues of energy poverty and vulnerability and do have a willingness to do better, but probably just don't have a good understanding of what the real issues and barriers are and how to fix them and perhaps also just need a bit of a nudge. So that is really what we're here for. Yeah, so we built a multi-stakeholder group around this project. We approached some larger suppliers as well as some smaller ones. So some of the larger ones with a very large customer base, so a large scope for impact and resources to be able to absorb the costs of those changes. But then also we had in the group some of the smaller suppliers who are a bit more innovative and agile and actually tended to be better informed about. the challenges that consumers are facing in the energy market. Yeah, so we also brought consumer advocates into the conversation. That's sort of core to everything we do is to really connect consumer advocates to whichever stakeholders hold the other levers and also NGOs. So we had a really good balance of voices and perspectives, I think, from the Italian energy market. Yeah, and we co-created, so we went out and gathered the evidence about what was happening for Italian consumers and brought it back to that group. And then we discussed and co-created the list of 10 solutions that we came up with in the end. And yeah, that was a journey. That was an experience, just navigating the different interests of those different stakeholders around the table. involved. a bit of negotiation and a bit of sort of back and forth and compromise. But it was important to us to do it that way because we wanted to keep those, again, those actors who really hold the levers for change at the table. So at times we, you know, we came in with very ambitious proposals and at times we had to step them back slightly. But I think it was a huge win to come away with the solutions that we landed and with those suppliers still on board. still eager and enthusiastic about going away and actioning those changes.
Speaker #1
Yeah, full disclaimer here, I wasn't involved in the latest months of the project, so I don't know how the negotiations went. But indeed, I think I was one of these people promoting very ambitious solutions also because of my experience in the field and what I see as the responsibility of their various stakeholders, but I must say that The 10 solutions that have been selected, like the top 10, are indeed very enforceable. And I think that it will make a world of difference because, you know. There must be like, it shouldn't be only about the big words, but really about how things really deliver. So can you, on top of your mind, can you kind of navigate us through these 10 solutions for our listeners? Or maybe only two, three, like your favorites?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I could call out a few. Yeah, so the 10 solutions spread across those five stages of the consumer journey. And we had a few, you identified a few opportunities in each space. Without going through all of them, I think in the knowledge and awareness space, one of the opportunities, there are a couple of opportunities in that space. There are so many, actually, but one of the ones I think was really important to start exploring, and I think there's a lot of scope to go deeper into, is the opportunity for suppliers to be proactively identifying. who their customers are that might be experiencing vulnerability or struggling to pay their bills and to proactively go out and offer them support. So that was one of our recommendations, actually analysing the data as well as all sorts of data that I hold, whether it's sort of the billing data or the complaints data or anything around engagement they've had with the customers, observing privacy rules, of course, but using that information to actually... Provide better service. I was really excited about that one. And that's one that we've seen is we got a bit of pushback around, you know, will this breach privacy rules? But we know that it's been done elsewhere in the U.S. and beyond with real success. So we're hoping that that one will take off and create some change. We also offered a dedicated caseworker model. So... Addressing that issue that we talked about at the beginning, Marlene, where older consumers can feel really confused and frustrated by the system, but also by any attempt to actually get help and how hard that can be, especially if you are having to tell your story over again every time you manage to get through to somebody or navigating chatbots and so on who really can't appreciate the nuance of your situation. So, yeah, the... case worker model where actually consumers or customers who have been identified as really needing extra support could have a dedicated person yeah they could go back to time and again yeah being the helper in a way yeah yeah and that yeah and that might be that caregiver that we talked about too might also have access to that kind of support in a sort of ongoing way one i really liked around affordability was where we're encouraging suppliers to be really looking at the plans that their customers are on. And again, proactively giving people information about what plans are available, whether they're on the right plan and helping people to access the best possible tariffs for them. Because that really tackles one of the issues, particularly for older consumers that we uncovered in the research is this, what we call the loyalty premium.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Which was- Sometimes it can be called- Yeah.
Speaker #0
Well, absolutely, because basically what happens is older consumers like to stay loyal and dedicated to their supplier and imagine, falsely assume that they get rewarded for that loyalty. And in fact, it's the opposite, that those longstanding customers will be paying, typically paying a lot more. So actually to flip that and say, no, the responsibility is on the supplier to ensure that your customer is on the right plan and hasn't fallen into and been lured into some kind of trap.
Speaker #1
Yeah, at the same time, we also know that it might be at the heart of the supplier's business model. But I think what makes this work so interesting is also if you take, if you make a step back and see that, you know, Europe is a continent that is...
Speaker #0
aging so there will be more and more people over 75 having an active energy contract in so you need to kind of also understand that this i mean this kind of practice is of course legal it has been around for some time but it's not because it's legal that it's just that it's fair and it's acceptable. So I think... Right. For me, it's an interesting topic, and it was an interesting conversation as well, because it's a bit touchy, right? It's a bit challenging what suppliers are, how they are building their businesses in a way. So I found this part really, really exciting as well. Can we have proper conversations as people who tend to be more on the consumer side? Can we have proper conversations with suppliers? and the the answer was yes, right? So that was great. And I mean, the final recommendation is this kind of decalogue. Can you, I mean, decalogue is of course a terrible word, but can you explain what it is?
Speaker #1
Yeah, so the word decalogue, interestingly, it was proposed by our partners, Italian partners, and it turns out to be a sort of iconic concept in Italy around pronouncements of 10 things. So it worked nicely for our purpose. But really what that's about is recommending an ongoing collaboration across the sector to continue to pursue these goals around inclusive energy services and empowerment of energy users. So, yes, we brought together this group around this project. It was a fantastic learning experience for everyone. And I think we came out with some really important results, but we don't want the conversation to stop. there. So the idea of the Decalogue is that it provides a structure for those stakeholders, but actually more than just the ones who participated in the project, but hopefully bringing in more actors in the Italian energy sector to join that conversation and to collectively sort of raise the ambition and encourage each other to go further to execute these 10 solutions and hopefully to go beyond that. over time. So yeah, so we wanted to leave a structure in place, offer a structure that could enable that conversation to carry on even after we've moved on to the next thing. Yeah,
Speaker #0
that's so important, right? To leave a legacy and make sure that, you know, again, it's not a top-down action, but really a process, a project. that is not only Consumers International, but it's Consumers International and its partner, right?
Speaker #1
And we're actually, so just to say that, you know, I guess the way we work, we're a membership organization. So we leave behind our members and the whole network, which is very rich in Italy, of consumer advocacy groups who are really well-placed to sort of be the champions for that ongoing conversation. So that's the vision we have, is that, you know, that those actors who... We're there before we started the project and we'll continue to be there after we'll be able to run with it.
Speaker #0
Since you're going to be after a new project, so you're planning to replicate this method, right? Other markets, other places, with other vulnerable groups, not only 7tech plus, perhaps, but other vulnerable groups or groups experiencing hardships, different form of hardship. So what would it look like for someone listening or watching now, a regulator, an energy company? or even a consumer advocacy group, to become a champion for replication in their own context. So what needs to happen for building the next edition?
Speaker #1
That's right. We're really eager to replicate the methodology because we found that it worked really well. That sort of starting from consumer experience, looking for a really place-based and consumer-centered approach, and then, you know, honing in on some really local. problems and experiences for consumers and that key piece around building the multi-stakeholder group across the sector. So that's the model that we'd love to take elsewhere, yeah, because we felt it worked well. So we're thinking about other markets where we could potentially look again at older consumers, but there are other consumer segments that would be really interesting to explore. Like you talked about gender issues, for example, we're also thinking about you the particular experience of renters or apartment dwellers, you know, and obviously there are lots of different ways that we could explore the problem. So we're really interested to do, you know, we've got a lot of things we'd like to do, but I think the first step in moving on to the next project is, you know, to identify some champions who want, in-country, who want to, yeah, lead this project and sort of advocate for it alongside us. in the next market. So yeah, that could be any one of those stakeholders. It could be from the policy side, the NGO side, consumer organizations or suppliers who reach out to us and say, we like the work and we'd like to do it in our market or on this consumer group. And then we, you know, we will look to build projects around where we can work with the willing because that's what's really key to the success is to have stakeholders in country who are passionate about the work and interested to collaborate on it. So yes, we welcome any expressions of interest in that. So yeah, we'll be having a lot of conversations over the coming months about that. And welcome anyone to reach out.
Speaker #0
Yeah, I mean, you need to be ready to speak early in the morning. That's true. That's absolutely brilliant. And yeah, and you've been traveling also a lot. You come to Europe quite often as well. You were in Canada for the International Energy Agency. are you not so long ago, so it's always possible to catch up with you in between flights.
Speaker #1
I was going to say, we have a global team, so it doesn't always have to be me coming from New Zealand, but actually, yeah, we've got team members here and there that can connect with people in any region. So that's part of the beauty of the way we work at Consumers International.
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's great. You know, I think that would be absolutely brilliant to have an equivalent blueprint in, I don't know, places like Singapore or, you know, some in or Nigeria. Right. With the completely, completely, completely different settings and different stage of the market and relationships and things like that. So, yeah. I'm looking forward to next edition. Please keep us posted.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. Well, you mentioned Asia, and I'm definitely thinking about Asia at the moment, given the energy crisis that we're in. And that's what I was discussing with the IEA on that trip you mentioned. But, you know, thinking about how the current energy crisis is just exacerbating all of these challenges. And of course, it's the most vulnerable consumers, lower income households that are being worst hit. And And actually, it's Asia. From a global perspective, Asia is the worst hit region. So thinking about what issues, challenges might be unique to Asian markets that we could tackle at this moment in time seems like a really important opportunity.
Speaker #0
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of promising work then. So thank you so, so much, Nina. For me, it has been an absolute pleasure to work on this blueprint for inclusive energy services in Italy. There is, of course, so much more work to do, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how this technology unfolds. And yeah, I'm looking also very much forward to seeing how you will make this blueprint live in other contexts or that it's localized to different projects. Yeah.
Speaker #1
Yeah, well, same here, Marine. It was really fantastic to have you on that project and really enrich the work. So I hope we'll find ways to work again together in the future.
Speaker #0
Energetic explores the people, policies and institutions shaping Europe's and the world's energy transition. I am Marine Cornelis. If you found this conversation valuable, you can share it with colleagues working on housing, governance and consumer protection. You will find references and further reading in the show notes. Until next time.

About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

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About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Description

Reference: Blueprint for Inclusive Energy Services, Consumers International. (2026)

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Transcription

Speaker #0
One person told us that they felt like talking about the energy bills or their struggle with energy bills was a taboo. Actually, they just wouldn't dream of reaching out for help about that issue. And it's to us that there are huge issues around basic trust in the sector that need to be urgently addressed.
Speaker #1
Yeah, for me, something that really came up was also how people, you know, this sense of powerlessness. And the sense that people need it to kind of shrink themselves in. Some of the most important things about how we use energy never show up on a policy dashboard. Whether an 85-year-old can read her own bill. Whether she knows that help exists. Whether she trusts the voice on the phone enough to pick up. Over the past year, I worked with Consumers International on the Blueprint for Inclusive Energy Services, and I want to be honest that it is a project close to me. The first edition started from a deliberate decision. Instead of talking about older consumers, go and sit with them. It looked at people aged 75 and over in Italy, and what it surfaced was confusion, exclusion, And... A quiet resignation that most of us working in this sector rarely see up close. My guest today was the leader of that work. Nina Campbell is Global Energy Lead at Consumers International. She came to it through energy efficiency and climate policy, including work on energy hardship in New Zealand. And she has spent years arguing that the transition only works if it works for the people at its edges. She's here to complicate a you comfortable assumption that fairer market automatically produces a fairer experience. Nina, welcome to the show.
Speaker #0
Hi, thanks for having me, Marine.
Speaker #1
So Nina, you have moved from energy efficiency and climate policy, including hardship work in New Zealand, where you are still based, into leading energy globally. Was there... a specific moment or a specific person that really changed how you think about who energy systems are actually built for?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I think actually there was a specific moment. I mean, I am fundamentally a social scientist. So although I've worked in the energy sector my whole career, I definitely look at these issues from a human perspective, sort of by nature. But I started my career at the International Energy Agency, which was a real honour and I'll be sure. opportunity, I guess, to get some quite broad exposure to the different issues in the sector. And I was in the energy efficiency team, and I think it really struck me there quite quickly that we talk quite openly and frequently about the gap between the technical savings potentials and the realized potential. And analysts talk about it all the time without really questioning, what are we missing? Why is there this gap? And to me, and I guess, To everyone, it's obvious that that is the sort of human element that most technical people feel like is quite unknowable and difficult to diagnose. But as a social scientist, I was like, there's a problem that I'd love to understand. So that's where it started for me, for sure.
Speaker #1
Okay. And then you moved back between Europe and New Zealand. So can you, I mean, Yuki, we have also... Pretty different understanding of what it is like. Like we are recording in the summer, but for you it's winter. So you're all able to kind of make a step back, like physically make a step back to observe what's happening elsewhere. Yeah,
Speaker #0
yeah, that's right. Well, I really got switched on to the issue of energy poverty within this question of energy efficiency when I was leading the multiple benefits of energy efficiency work at the IEA. And that's where we were looking at what are the social implications or benefits that we could get out of energy efficiency for individual households. And that's where that sort of issues around residential energy efficiency popped up. And I started to see that actually there are a lot of issues that show up globally in different places that I know very well from my own experience in New Zealand. So we have a very similar sort of housing stock problems as our experience in... The UK, for example, and other European and even American and beyond housing systems, which is basically that we have poor housing, poor quality housing is a really widespread issue. And people are ready to accept cold homes, inadequate heating systems, and all of the implications that flow from that around bad health, social problems, family issues and beyond. So, yeah, so I've worked on those issues. at the IEA. But then I moved back, I had a real urge to get closer to the problems of honour in a particular place with real people. So that's when I moved back to New Zealand and into the Ministry of Energy. We call it energy hardship in New Zealand. So energy hardship became my focus. And I was really lucky with the timing because we had a government who was really interesting in addressing some of the equity issues in the energy system. And we had an electricity price review about the time I got back and that identified the need for an investigation into this problem of energy hardship. And I was able to serve on the secretariat for a ministerially appointed expert group. who looked into the problem over the course of a couple of years and came up with a report with about 45 or so recommendations on how we can do better on the problem in New Zealand. Yeah, we found a lot.
Speaker #1
That's indeed like very extensive recommendations, I suppose, with that 45. So how is energy hardship different from energy poverty the way it's understood in Europe? Or is it just denomination? Because, for instance, I know that in the US, the term rate is used instead of tariff. So, you know, it's like this different terminology. And at Consumers International, you also have to deal with this kind of different terminologies to define the same thing, like what people pay, what people experience, etc. So I think it's so interesting also because you're a native speaker, but from the... completely opposite side of the planet. So you have to deal with different people with different perspectives, right? I mean, throughout your careers, it's what you have been doing.
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's part of the work that I really enjoy, to be honest. And actually, there is some interesting nuance in the language. It's more than just translation or semantics, because actually the word hardship was chosen. In order to get around, well, first of all, the sort of stigma that comes around labelling people as being in energy poverty, because what we see is that if we attach those kinds of stigmatising labels, then people are less likely to reach out for help or identify themselves as people who might be in that category and need that support. So hardship was more like, you know, this is just a tough time. It's something that anybody might have to deal with. And part of the definition in New Zealand that... It's really effective in capturing that is that we talk about the flip side of energy hardship as being energy well-being. And actually, we try to talk as much about achieving well-being as combating hardship. And then we think about it on a spectrum. So people might move back and forth along a spectrum between well-being and hardship, depending on lots of different factors, either in the market or in their own lives. So I think it's been really a helpful definition.
Speaker #1
Yeah, I think it's indeed very helpful also because it's kind of more active. And, you know, one of the terminologies that have been used in Europe is vulnerable consumers. When I started working on this social dimension of the energy transition, it was more about vulnerable energy consumers. And it was very top-down because you are the vulnerable. But actually, the vulnerability dimension is so dynamic. And again, we are not necessarily, I mean, we are not. only consumers, we're also citizens and putting only this aspect of consumer, a vulnerable consumer, it becomes very, yeah, very, very passive, very stigmatizing in a way you don't really necessarily identify yourself within that. And this notion of hardship, I find it quite interesting. But I think it also ties well to a question I have regarding the birth of this blueprint for energy inclusive services. So you choose to focus first. on Italy. But apart from the geography, I think that what also drew me to this project is that the idea was to start by beginning to listening to a lot of older people rather than really starting from a framework and trying to guess or second guess what they were experiencing. So we have really had to learn. something to design things. But was there anything that kind of surprised or unsettled you in those conversations?
Speaker #0
Yeah, well, first I would say, just going back to your first point that, yeah, at Consumers International as well, we really try to avoid the label of vulnerable consumer, even though we recognize that it sort of exists in the policy world and is useful for some purposes, but we talk about... consumers who are experiencing vulnerabilities for that same, to try and reach that same kind of acknowledgement of people's experience. Yeah. And then the other thing we do is that as a consumer rights organization, obviously everything that we do, we've come from the starting point of a perspective of rights-based. Thinking. So we take the same point that every consumer has a right to access affordable energy services that fully meet their needs. And we think about when we're trying to solve problems, we start from consumer experience first, as you said. So we really want to first understand what is the consumer's or the person's experience in their own life, in their own home. and then look at how we might solve those challenges and what tools there are, either in policy regulation or beyond, that can help to solve those problems. And we sort of frame that around the energy consumer journey. So that's kind of the thinking that we bring to help organize the process from that consumer-centered approach. And we imagine that there are sort of five stages that consumers go through when engaging with energy from knowledge and awareness, of opportunities and issues through affordability and looking at what options they can afford, what options are out there, then into options around the technology, how they use it day to day, and then actually even sort of post-purchase or redress opportunities. So when we did this project, we looked at that whole kind of consumer journey from the perspective of, you know, what older consumers initially were experiencing. in the energy market there. And it was really fascinating experience. So we spoke to a lot of experts, both inside Italy and beyond. We also spoke directly to consumers, Italian consumers. And I guess that was the part that was very moving, I think, for the team, was to hear some of those stories. So, you know, we heard that a lot of people, a lot of people in Italy are feeling really confused by the system. that the language that's used is too technical and that the channels that are being used are increasingly excluding of older people as we move into this more digitalized world, for example. So much of the opportunities are now online, but we were hearing older consumers say to us, I'm tired of these call center robots that I try. For those who actually do take the step of reaching out for help, they encounter automated responses. They have to deal with chatbots or, yeah, they find themselves in a loop and it's incredibly frustrating.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, this contrast between what is available, like the kind of menu of options to enforce your energy rights and what people can actually make use of is like, is so big. And I remember going to the market and speaking to people. out there just to get their experience. People I didn't know from anywhere, right? This was like completely random encounters. And some of them said things that, I mean, when we reported that all back to you, we could see how moved you were too, like on the other side of the world. Because, I mean, I think I will always remember this old man, 90 plus. who said that cooking was the only joy he had in his life. And given the price of energy, he lost that joy. And that was terrible because you really see that in a few words, in his own words, you could see that he knew he had only so much years to live. And he was making efforts. And it doesn't feel fair that he has to make these efforts, right? But... But as you stated, there is this kind of consumer journey, which is kind of based on an ideal consumer, which is very different from actually the proper experience of someone who is over 75 or with different physical or cognitive abilities and so on. A woman has also, I don't know, I don't even know if I'm entitled to something or what I'm entitled to something. So... Reflecting on this and on what's in the blueprint, what did that teach you?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I think one of the most alarming messages, sort of larger messages that came out of the work was probably around the sense that actually there was a really deep lack of trust in the energy sector generally. that actually we heard people talk about how, you know, If we talk about the team talks about the offers that are available and then people are saying, well, that's not for people like me. really feeling totally left out of the system. And that actually, yeah, a sense that there was no help available, no idea of where to go. And I think that sense of that lack of trust has been eroding over time. I mean, the sector's always been very complicated and probably not very good at expressing itself in ordinary terms, which has left a lot of people disengaged from their energy use. But that's only increasing as... The new technologies come online, especially for older people who just don't feel ready to engage with those opportunities. And actually, the offers aren't tailored for them either. They're really targeting younger sort of tech savvy people with their communications. And then you have the added layer of digitalization, but then also scams. So we heard a lot of the older folks we spoke to talk about the real fear that is developing around scams, around... even just pushy sales practices, cold calls, people trying to upsell them with bundled deals that they didn't really understand and weren't sure if they were really advantageous, let alone just flat out scams, which we know are on the rise in all sectors. So yeah, so this sense that the sector was just a bit of a minefield and that really the help that's available wasn't tailored for older consumers was quite concerning. And we might remember, Marlene, we you One person told us that they felt like talking about their energy bills or their struggle with energy bills was a taboo, that actually they just wouldn't dream of reaching out for help about that issue. So, yeah, it really said to us that there are huge issues around basic trust in the sector that need to be urgently addressed.
Speaker #1
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For me, something that really came up was also how people... You know, this sense of powerlessness and the sense that people needed to kind of shrink themselves in because of this table, because the coping mechanism they had put in place, like switching everything off or giving up the oven. But the project was also about caretakers, right? So to caretakers also stepping in, but without any recognition. stepping in but really walking on, like they were walking on eggshells because they didn't feel like legitimate. And this profound sense of lack of agency, right, or lack of control, something that is so fundamental to our daily lives, was really hard to see, right, and hard to notice.
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's right. It was, that was a big learning to look at the role of carers in the Italian energy sector in particular, because we found that actually something like 16% of Italians are in a caregiving role, often for an older adult, and that actually the system doesn't really allow for those people to be acknowledged, to get access to the information they need to support whoever they're caring for, let alone to have support for themselves, because we also heard about the stress and worry and time you that is associated with being a caregiver for somebody around their energy bills. So that was one of the solutions that we proposed was around smoothing the path for caregivers to have access to information and to advocate on behalf of their loved one, as well as calling for better compensation for caregivers for the time and energy that they invest in that role. So, yeah, I think it's really important to acknowledge those people as actors in the energy system and start to bring in more measures to support those people and by extension, the people they care for.
Speaker #1
And interestingly, those caregivers who also found out that they were mostly women over 45, so they are suffering this kind of multiple penalty, if we want, because, of course, they should be working. outside the home and earn a revenue. But they are also very often asked to be the one taking care of the children or even the grandchildren. But they have to take care also of the parents who are aging. So some of them must step out of formal employment. So they end up having less revenues as well. So everything makes it like the burden, extremely clear and gendered. And that makes it quite a... Yeah, I think that's part of the invisible women or invisibilizing women equation, right? So that's a dimension that I think would need to be explored further to anyone or any future edition of this blueprint. But if we go back to the blueprint itself, so the output, which is this kind of report with a lot of recommendations, it was... built with suppliers. Suppliers decided to kind of take responsibility over the... points that we showed them. We said, okay, things are, I mean, your assumptions may be a little, may be quite off. So how can we build something that delivers better? So two things, like how did you work with, to our audience, how did you work with these suppliers? How do you kind of recruited them and made sure that, you know, the results of this blueprint are And forcible, both on the end, and like you get enthusiasm both from the consumer side and from the supplier side, because, you know, this conversation is hard to happen, right? So how did you make the magic happen?
Speaker #0
Well, we do at Consumers International, we really believe in collaborative ways of working because we really think that is how you are likely to have the most impact and really affect change. And so when we were designing this project, what we really wanted, we wanted to empower consumers with more inclusive access to services. But we wanted to make sure that the outcome was not a set of policies or principles, but actually meaningful, real change in the marketplace. And hopefully, you know, on a faster track than typically these processes move. and who are the actors? and the energy system that have the ability to move at pace and to make real change for consumers fast. And that is the energy suppliers who have the relationship with customers. They are engaging with them on a daily basis. They have visibility over who's paying, able to pay, who's not, or who's paying and who's not, how much they're using. You know, there is actually an incredibly rich relationship there. And we wanted... to leverage that and encourage suppliers who, many of which we know are conscious of the struggles that their customers face. They're aware of the issues of energy poverty and vulnerability and do have a willingness to do better, but probably just don't have a good understanding of what the real issues and barriers are and how to fix them and perhaps also just need a bit of a nudge. So that is really what we're here for. Yeah, so we built a multi-stakeholder group around this project. We approached some larger suppliers as well as some smaller ones. So some of the larger ones with a very large customer base, so a large scope for impact and resources to be able to absorb the costs of those changes. But then also we had in the group some of the smaller suppliers who are a bit more innovative and agile and actually tended to be better informed about. the challenges that consumers are facing in the energy market. Yeah, so we also brought consumer advocates into the conversation. That's sort of core to everything we do is to really connect consumer advocates to whichever stakeholders hold the other levers and also NGOs. So we had a really good balance of voices and perspectives, I think, from the Italian energy market. Yeah, and we co-created, so we went out and gathered the evidence about what was happening for Italian consumers and brought it back to that group. And then we discussed and co-created the list of 10 solutions that we came up with in the end. And yeah, that was a journey. That was an experience, just navigating the different interests of those different stakeholders around the table. involved. a bit of negotiation and a bit of sort of back and forth and compromise. But it was important to us to do it that way because we wanted to keep those, again, those actors who really hold the levers for change at the table. So at times we, you know, we came in with very ambitious proposals and at times we had to step them back slightly. But I think it was a huge win to come away with the solutions that we landed and with those suppliers still on board. still eager and enthusiastic about going away and actioning those changes.
Speaker #1
Yeah, full disclaimer here, I wasn't involved in the latest months of the project, so I don't know how the negotiations went. But indeed, I think I was one of these people promoting very ambitious solutions also because of my experience in the field and what I see as the responsibility of their various stakeholders, but I must say that The 10 solutions that have been selected, like the top 10, are indeed very enforceable. And I think that it will make a world of difference because, you know. There must be like, it shouldn't be only about the big words, but really about how things really deliver. So can you, on top of your mind, can you kind of navigate us through these 10 solutions for our listeners? Or maybe only two, three, like your favorites?
Speaker #0
Yeah, I could call out a few. Yeah, so the 10 solutions spread across those five stages of the consumer journey. And we had a few, you identified a few opportunities in each space. Without going through all of them, I think in the knowledge and awareness space, one of the opportunities, there are a couple of opportunities in that space. There are so many, actually, but one of the ones I think was really important to start exploring, and I think there's a lot of scope to go deeper into, is the opportunity for suppliers to be proactively identifying. who their customers are that might be experiencing vulnerability or struggling to pay their bills and to proactively go out and offer them support. So that was one of our recommendations, actually analysing the data as well as all sorts of data that I hold, whether it's sort of the billing data or the complaints data or anything around engagement they've had with the customers, observing privacy rules, of course, but using that information to actually... Provide better service. I was really excited about that one. And that's one that we've seen is we got a bit of pushback around, you know, will this breach privacy rules? But we know that it's been done elsewhere in the U.S. and beyond with real success. So we're hoping that that one will take off and create some change. We also offered a dedicated caseworker model. So... Addressing that issue that we talked about at the beginning, Marlene, where older consumers can feel really confused and frustrated by the system, but also by any attempt to actually get help and how hard that can be, especially if you are having to tell your story over again every time you manage to get through to somebody or navigating chatbots and so on who really can't appreciate the nuance of your situation. So, yeah, the... case worker model where actually consumers or customers who have been identified as really needing extra support could have a dedicated person yeah they could go back to time and again yeah being the helper in a way yeah yeah and that yeah and that might be that caregiver that we talked about too might also have access to that kind of support in a sort of ongoing way one i really liked around affordability was where we're encouraging suppliers to be really looking at the plans that their customers are on. And again, proactively giving people information about what plans are available, whether they're on the right plan and helping people to access the best possible tariffs for them. Because that really tackles one of the issues, particularly for older consumers that we uncovered in the research is this, what we call the loyalty premium.
Speaker #1
Yeah. Which was- Sometimes it can be called- Yeah.
Speaker #0
Well, absolutely, because basically what happens is older consumers like to stay loyal and dedicated to their supplier and imagine, falsely assume that they get rewarded for that loyalty. And in fact, it's the opposite, that those longstanding customers will be paying, typically paying a lot more. So actually to flip that and say, no, the responsibility is on the supplier to ensure that your customer is on the right plan and hasn't fallen into and been lured into some kind of trap.
Speaker #1
Yeah, at the same time, we also know that it might be at the heart of the supplier's business model. But I think what makes this work so interesting is also if you take, if you make a step back and see that, you know, Europe is a continent that is...
Speaker #0
aging so there will be more and more people over 75 having an active energy contract in so you need to kind of also understand that this i mean this kind of practice is of course legal it has been around for some time but it's not because it's legal that it's just that it's fair and it's acceptable. So I think... Right. For me, it's an interesting topic, and it was an interesting conversation as well, because it's a bit touchy, right? It's a bit challenging what suppliers are, how they are building their businesses in a way. So I found this part really, really exciting as well. Can we have proper conversations as people who tend to be more on the consumer side? Can we have proper conversations with suppliers? and the the answer was yes, right? So that was great. And I mean, the final recommendation is this kind of decalogue. Can you, I mean, decalogue is of course a terrible word, but can you explain what it is?
Speaker #1
Yeah, so the word decalogue, interestingly, it was proposed by our partners, Italian partners, and it turns out to be a sort of iconic concept in Italy around pronouncements of 10 things. So it worked nicely for our purpose. But really what that's about is recommending an ongoing collaboration across the sector to continue to pursue these goals around inclusive energy services and empowerment of energy users. So, yes, we brought together this group around this project. It was a fantastic learning experience for everyone. And I think we came out with some really important results, but we don't want the conversation to stop. there. So the idea of the Decalogue is that it provides a structure for those stakeholders, but actually more than just the ones who participated in the project, but hopefully bringing in more actors in the Italian energy sector to join that conversation and to collectively sort of raise the ambition and encourage each other to go further to execute these 10 solutions and hopefully to go beyond that. over time. So yeah, so we wanted to leave a structure in place, offer a structure that could enable that conversation to carry on even after we've moved on to the next thing. Yeah,
Speaker #0
that's so important, right? To leave a legacy and make sure that, you know, again, it's not a top-down action, but really a process, a project. that is not only Consumers International, but it's Consumers International and its partner, right?
Speaker #1
And we're actually, so just to say that, you know, I guess the way we work, we're a membership organization. So we leave behind our members and the whole network, which is very rich in Italy, of consumer advocacy groups who are really well-placed to sort of be the champions for that ongoing conversation. So that's the vision we have, is that, you know, that those actors who... We're there before we started the project and we'll continue to be there after we'll be able to run with it.
Speaker #0
Since you're going to be after a new project, so you're planning to replicate this method, right? Other markets, other places, with other vulnerable groups, not only 7tech plus, perhaps, but other vulnerable groups or groups experiencing hardships, different form of hardship. So what would it look like for someone listening or watching now, a regulator, an energy company? or even a consumer advocacy group, to become a champion for replication in their own context. So what needs to happen for building the next edition?
Speaker #1
That's right. We're really eager to replicate the methodology because we found that it worked really well. That sort of starting from consumer experience, looking for a really place-based and consumer-centered approach, and then, you know, honing in on some really local. problems and experiences for consumers and that key piece around building the multi-stakeholder group across the sector. So that's the model that we'd love to take elsewhere, yeah, because we felt it worked well. So we're thinking about other markets where we could potentially look again at older consumers, but there are other consumer segments that would be really interesting to explore. Like you talked about gender issues, for example, we're also thinking about you the particular experience of renters or apartment dwellers, you know, and obviously there are lots of different ways that we could explore the problem. So we're really interested to do, you know, we've got a lot of things we'd like to do, but I think the first step in moving on to the next project is, you know, to identify some champions who want, in-country, who want to, yeah, lead this project and sort of advocate for it alongside us. in the next market. So yeah, that could be any one of those stakeholders. It could be from the policy side, the NGO side, consumer organizations or suppliers who reach out to us and say, we like the work and we'd like to do it in our market or on this consumer group. And then we, you know, we will look to build projects around where we can work with the willing because that's what's really key to the success is to have stakeholders in country who are passionate about the work and interested to collaborate on it. So yes, we welcome any expressions of interest in that. So yeah, we'll be having a lot of conversations over the coming months about that. And welcome anyone to reach out.
Speaker #0
Yeah, I mean, you need to be ready to speak early in the morning. That's true. That's absolutely brilliant. And yeah, and you've been traveling also a lot. You come to Europe quite often as well. You were in Canada for the International Energy Agency. are you not so long ago, so it's always possible to catch up with you in between flights.
Speaker #1
I was going to say, we have a global team, so it doesn't always have to be me coming from New Zealand, but actually, yeah, we've got team members here and there that can connect with people in any region. So that's part of the beauty of the way we work at Consumers International.
Speaker #0
Yeah, that's great. You know, I think that would be absolutely brilliant to have an equivalent blueprint in, I don't know, places like Singapore or, you know, some in or Nigeria. Right. With the completely, completely, completely different settings and different stage of the market and relationships and things like that. So, yeah. I'm looking forward to next edition. Please keep us posted.
Speaker #1
Absolutely. Well, you mentioned Asia, and I'm definitely thinking about Asia at the moment, given the energy crisis that we're in. And that's what I was discussing with the IEA on that trip you mentioned. But, you know, thinking about how the current energy crisis is just exacerbating all of these challenges. And of course, it's the most vulnerable consumers, lower income households that are being worst hit. And And actually, it's Asia. From a global perspective, Asia is the worst hit region. So thinking about what issues, challenges might be unique to Asian markets that we could tackle at this moment in time seems like a really important opportunity.
Speaker #0
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of promising work then. So thank you so, so much, Nina. For me, it has been an absolute pleasure to work on this blueprint for inclusive energy services in Italy. There is, of course, so much more work to do, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how this technology unfolds. And yeah, I'm looking also very much forward to seeing how you will make this blueprint live in other contexts or that it's localized to different projects. Yeah.
Speaker #1
Yeah, well, same here, Marine. It was really fantastic to have you on that project and really enrich the work. So I hope we'll find ways to work again together in the future.
Speaker #0
Energetic explores the people, policies and institutions shaping Europe's and the world's energy transition. I am Marine Cornelis. If you found this conversation valuable, you can share it with colleagues working on housing, governance and consumer protection. You will find references and further reading in the show notes. Until next time.

About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

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About Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

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