Dr Emilia Melville is a facilitator, researcher and organisational developer with ten years’ experience of working on energy democracy across community, commercial, activist and academic sectors. She passionate about creating systemic change towards sustainability through the crafting of local and civic energy institutions. Follow Emilia on Linkedin and see her up to date biography on Praxis Research here.
Approaches
- Drawing on technical knowledge to make energy system information available in accessible formats.
- Drawing on experience of different sectors to
translate between distinct ways of knowing/doing. - Enjoyment of working collaboratively and in partnership.
- Facilitation with a focus on progress towards objectives with space for all voices to be heard.
- Working to recognise and understand power and privilege, including financial security, race, health, class, education, gender, age and sexual orientation.
Experience
Emilia has seven years of experience as a sustainability consultant at BuroHappold Engineering. Highlights include: Organising 2015 and 2017 Cornwall Energy Island events in partnership with the Eden Project, and authoring two white papers based on outcomes from the events. 2012 study of West of England technical potential for renewable energy.
Emilia’s doctorate at the University of Surrey explored the role of the civic energy sector in the sustainable energy transition. This was in partnership with BuroHappold Engineering, who were interested in social research into the mechanisms and best practice for community based management of resources. This work draws on Elinor Ostrom’s theories of commons and polycentric governance.
Throughout this time, Emilia has been actively involved as a community energy sector practitioner. This has included initial organisational setup and project development as a founding director of the Bristol Energy Co-operative, active membership of the Bristol Energy Network, using her platform as a doctoral researcher and staff of Carbon Co-op to speak about
energy democracy and community energy, and organisational development and technical research in Zero West.
Values and worldview
- Sustainable prosperity within environmental limits
- Democracy, agency and participation
- Recognising power and privilege
- Equality and redistribution
- Complexity theory, emergence and systems thinking
Emilia has an engineering degree from the University of Cambridge (MEng) and a doctorate from the University of Surrey, in partnership with BuroHappold Engineering (EngD).
Emilia Melville 