European Social Innovation Competition 2023 - EmpowerMed

Meet EmpowerMed, one of the winners of the European Social Innovation Competition 2023.
Learn more about the competition here: eic.ec.europa....
EmpowerMed: Collective advisory assemblies (CAAs) are an innovative, flexible, impactful, ready-to-use tool applicable for addressing various forms and levels of energy poverty. CAAs take the form of sessions typically gathering 10 to 30 people and open to anyone who is experiencing difficulties in relation to the access and affordability of domestic energy services. Unlike individualised approaches based on one-on-one interventions CAAs constitute a horizontal engagement methodology in which people affected by energy poverty act ‘experts by practice’ capable of providing advanced peer-to-peer advice and guidance.
Over 300 CAAs have been organised across Europe since the methodology was initially devised in Barcelona (Spain) in 2014, and its viability has been further confirmed by the Horizon 2020 EmpowerMed project, which enabled its replication in France, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and Albania. The experience accumulated so far provides solid evidence on the positive impacts for vulnerable households in terms of cost savings, debt reduction, consumer empowerment and change of social imaginaries on energy poverty.