Social Franchises and Energy

Social franchises: opportunities for Living Labs in the energy sector?

BACKGROUND/HISTORY AND CONTEXT OF THE WORKSHOP

The Energy Living Lab, an effective member of ENoLL, has developed successful methods in the energy sector, described in a recent phd thesis from Mastelic (2019). Different actors are interested to launch LLs in the energy field such as the co-organisers, Yves Zieba Business Coach for EIC (Horizon 2020, SME Instruments) and entrepreneur in Geneva (private actor), Stefano Tarantola from JRC (public research center), Giorgio Maric from the city of Lugano (public authority). 

How to share the existing learning in order not to reinvent the wheel? How to develop international partnerships? How to scale a Lab from local to global? A potential answer could be the “social franchise”: “[…] a process by which the developer of a successfully tested social concept, the franchisor, in order to scale up the coverage of target group and the quality of product (service) enables others, the franchisees, to replicate the model, using the tested system, using the brand name in return for social results, system development” (Fleich, 2008).

MAIN AIM / OBJECTIVE

The main aim of the workshop is to gather the community of LLs working in the energy sector, to share best practices in the energy field and to co-design a social franchise together. The aim is also to stimulate a closer international cooperation in this sector and to accelerate the scaling of Labs from local to global.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

1) Best practices of LLs in the energy field 
2) Participation in the co-design of the social franchise
 3) Opportunity to collaborate internationally with other LLs in this field 
4) Development of new LLs as franchisees and members of ENoLL
 

BRIEF OUTLINE / METHODOLOGY

   The method of the entire workshop will be based on co-design (Sanders & Stappers, 2008) and collective intelligence (Malone, Bernstein, 2015). 

   First, examples of LLs in the energy field will be presented such as Energy Living Lab, using the elevator pitches format for the attendants to present their labs (3 minutes per lab). 

   Then, a world cafe will explore the opportunity of developing a social franchise to scale the impact of this type of initiatives from local to global. The methodology is based on business model design from Osterwalder & Pigneur (2011) and on the workshop “Business Model Crash Test” for the deployment of the social franchise. 

  The participants will then present the result of the different tables, feedback will be given on the different presentations. The participants will have the opportunity to declare their interest in participating in the development of the social franchise in energy. A time for networking will be proposed at the end of the workshop.

Workshop Facilitators

Joëlle Mastelic

Full professor, HES-SO, Switzerland

Stefano Tarantola

Scientific Officer at the Joint Research Centre