How can we get 80,000 people to agree on something? | Anna Rodon Font | TEDxDanubia

[Music] foreign it's such a pleasure to be with you today I'd like to tell you just a few key facts and figures about someone Aria is a not-for-profit renewable energy cooperative we have 83 000 members we manage 120 000 electricity contracts we collectively own and operate 16 power plants across Catalonia and Spain we have a team of 130 people and every year our production is around 63 gigawatts hour but is not about numbers is about people and someone are real with simply not exist without its community so let me tell you a bit more about our story Once Upon a Time in a land not so far away and not so long ago a man came from the north and he came to this beautiful mountainous land on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea a land that was blessed with endless hours of sunshine and strong powerful winds there he bought a gorgeous Farmhouse looking to live in nature and enjoy this bounty of natural resources that were available to all who lived there he was just stunned to find out that this country was underusing its natural resources and instead was running on environmentally damaging and finite fossil fuels and what's more energy was in the hands of quite literally a handful of powerful men who reaped great benefits from exploiting this natural resources how could this be it simply made no sense you see he came from the north where it was gray and wet with very few days of sunshine and yet in his homeland they were using they were getting about nine percent of electricity from renewable sources and now in this new adopted country Sun wind and water were only providing 10 percent of electricity why not more he realized he had two options he could either just carry on with his life after all he had his solar panels on his roof and his amazing Garden to enjoy the occasional siestra in or he could do something about it and luckily for us he chose to do something about it he turned to colleagues and students at the University where he worked and he was relieved to find that he was not alone there were others who were just as perplexed as he was there were others who shared his discontent and finally there were also a group of people who just like him also wanted to do something about it you see this was 2010 and the time was ripe for change now let's go back to 2010 for a moment many of you will remember that this was a time of great Global unrest people all over the world were rising up peacefully against the ruling parties to fight against inequality and Injustice this was the time of the Arab Springs and the anti-austerity movement in Spain the 15m and worldwide occupy movements so this was the time and this was the place where a group of people came together to take action we were driven by the desire to effectively put our son and our wind in the hands of the people instead of just a handful of powerful men together we decided to drive forward a transformation and yes it would be a renewable energy transformation but that was not enough it also had to be a social transformation because this is a story about power it is a story about electric power of course but it's also a story about the power to govern our lives and so we decided on our way a way to share the power equally amongst us a way to get organized a way to get engaged and a way to take action we would become a Cooperative one person one vote but could a small Cooperative really go up against the big ones could we really change the energy system to make it all together fairer and Greener could a bunch of driven environmentalist amateurs really pull dissolve in their spare time we had no resources why would anyone follow us well we rallied we went out to the world spreading the word about this game-changing dream we jumped out of cars and vans and trains and buses we went to cities and Villages and towns and we gave talks about what someone else here was and what it wanted to become we were Unstoppable and to our amazement people heard us out they came to our talks and they started trusting us they trusted us with a time but they also trusted us with their money they each contributed 100 euros to our share Capital so they could turn this dream into a reality now remember this was 2010 and it was a Mosley non-digital age and yet through Word of Mouth we grew and we grew by as many as three new members every day and it was also around this time that we heard about other renewable energy cooperatives in Far Away lands so yes it could be done and no we were not alone and so we gathered momentum and we took the plunge this is us this is quite literally us jumping into the sea one or two morning near Barcelona and we were celebrating what was the start of a new chapter for us a chapter in our story but taking the plunge also meant that we were the first Cooperative to deliver certified renewable electricity it meant that we were driving forward a fundamental Paradigm shifts we didn't want to be the biggest we didn't even want to be the only players but we were a not-for-profit organization operating in a highly lucrative Market taking the plunge also meant that we continued to grow our members got organized by our first anniversary we'd reached 1 000 members and we started building our first solar plant with our members money taking the plunge also meant that we started hiring our first employees but most importantly of all taking the punishment though we had started sowing the seed of the change that we wanted to bring to the world and that's it we made it this is where our story ends well this is how we told fairy tales go but we know better than that fairy tales don't exist and life is a lot more complicated than that so the time went on and we continued to grow there were more and more of us our members got organized and continued growing the community but we also had to face new and bigger challenges aggressive legislation was put into place that threatened renewable energies governance and engagement in a growing Community got increasingly more complex as did running an organization with no hierarchy and no bosses we had to find ways to address our members needs and ideas and we had to find ways to make the most of the community's collective intelligence now imagine trying to get 80 000 people 80 000 people to agree on something how would you go about that one person one vote such a strong and powerful idea well let me tell you that at times it's extremely frustrating exhausting and a down right nightmare because you see climate change it's here and it's a Relentless and life-threatening emergency we feel the need to act quickly but at the same time we want to hear our members voices and decide collectively so this means that sometimes we're slow because our decision-making processes are complex and sometimes it feels hopeless like it's really hard to find the balance and we pay a price sometimes we lose people along the way and we miss opportunities because we simply can't come to a middle ground quickly enough so yes we pay a price and no it's not always easy and you might be wondering is it worth it I've wondered that myself is it worth it is it worth paying this price well let me answer this with an example from our story and this is no fairy tale it's quite real back in 2016 we had a very good year and we found ourselves with a 500 000 Euro Surplus that we had to deal with so we turn to our members and we asked them what would you like to do would you like to take a dividend and have some extra money in your pocket or would you like to leave the money in the cooperative for future projects what would you have done well 85 of our members voted to say no to a dividend and instead chose to leave the money in the cooperative for us to drive our project forwards on yet another story I'm sure you'll all remember winter 2021 Energy prices across Europe reached unprecedented highs and the repercussions from those events had enormous repercussions and for us it meant that for the first time ever we faced the real possibility of thinking we needed 15 million euros and we needed it really quickly what could we do to say afloat who could help us who do you think gave us the support we needed was it the banks was it the government no it was our community our community found a way they maybe they got their money from the personal savings we don't really know where the money came from but we found a way and in just one week we'd raised 5 million euros and we then went on to exceed our targets and ended up raising 16 and a half million so we were saved and we could continue on our mission for greener energy and social change so back to our question do you think it's worth it despite all the difficulty well we think so we think it's worth it and yes it's excruciating at times and it's low and we may lose some people along the way but we feel very strongly that it's worth giving everybody an equal voice one person one vote and we feel it's worth it being part of a committed community with a shared vision for greener energy and social transformation because together we are stronger and finally we think it's worth it because together we have so in this seed of change which puts nature and people in the center and you know what right now this seed is growing remember we didn't want to be the biggest or even the only players and we are not other cooperatives have been been born and we share knowledge and we share resources and we're building things together with a shared Cooperative vision these other cooperatives are operating in the fields of I.T Services shared Electric Mobility and Telecommunications but for sure there will be more so yes this seed is growing roots and even though everything and everyone is green these days because being green has become really cool remember we didn't just want to be greener we also wanted social change we wanted people to engage and to take action and our roots are spreading out further than we ever thought see this germinating and it's growing with strong roots and now we have a voice and we have a seat at the table where policy is being decided so yes we're small but our voice is being heard now I realize that all this talk about seeds and roots and community may sound a bit cliched but this is real and it's meaningful and it's urgent and we need a lot more of it growing everywhere so if there's anything about our story that stirs something in you if there's something that you feel passionately about that you strongly believe in please please please do not ignore it do something about it find your community and take action it is really urgent that we take care of the people around us our neighbors our communities because we are the only ones that can do something to look after this planet to take care of this planet and our hope is to plant this seed of social transformation of taking care of the planet and putting nature and people in the center we know that sometimes things feel so big they can be overwhelming but the power of people working together makes us Unstoppable there's so much at stake so what can you do to find and grow your community this is our experience our story and we urgently need more stories of Hope so we invite you to write your own thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 4,760

Keywords: Activism, Alternative energy, Community, Cooperation, Energy, English, Green, TEDxTalks, Technology, [TEDxEID:52057]

Id: RcPgnnxzDvo

Length: 16min 16sec (976 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 27 2023