Project Director: Aimee Ambrose
Project Manager: Stephen Parkes
Project Duration: 2019-2021

With the end goal of engaging people in debates and decisions regarding energy production and consumption, WWE takes people ‘inside’ energy systems to see how they work and uses oral history techniques to ‘tap’ into personal experiences.

In turn, novel interactive elements take the project inside people’s minds, teasing out information on their knowledge and attitudes – before and after participating in an event. In short, the project is a highly innovative, creative and low-cost way of investigating modern society’s relationship with energy, starting from the reality that we are completely dependent on something that is largely invisible. That creates a massive disconnect between our consumption and associated environmental consequences. It also tends to make us disengaged from decisions about how the energy we use is produced and delivered to us, in terms of modes of generation, types of energy and distribution systems.

We believe the methods underpinning this project will encourage participants to reduce energy consumption and boost their environmental citizenship. The model offers great scope for use in both social and commercial purposes.

Following a series of successful in-person energy walks in the UK and Sweden, the project moved online during the pandemic, creating more opportunity to explore, engage and ‘walk with energy!’

The project is a collaboration between colleagues from Sheffield Hallam and Nottingham Trent Universities (UK) and Lund University (Sweden). It is funded by the Swedish Energy Agency.

Creative content has been developed by The Energy Action Project (EnAct).