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The IMAGINE think-tank

What is it | Who is it | IMAGINE label | Blog

• What is it?

A multidisciplinary / multi-actors platform is needed to create, share and discuss future-oriented approaches of urban sustainability. This will ensure that energy is no longer considered as a sectoral problem, but as an integral part of local and regional development, with an impact on employment, sustainable growth, competitiveness, quality of life, health and safety.

While focusing on the relationship between Energy and Territories and on the Low Energy City, the IMAGINE think-tank feeds the actions of European local authorities, providing lines of thought which are likely to fuel the strategies of the private, community and public sectors.

IMAGINE is bringing together a wide range of actors who have direct or indirect influence on energy consumption and supply at the local and urban level and unites a number of partners from the public, private and community sectors around Energy Cities, all committed to working together on the basis of the IMAGINE memorandum over the coming years.

• Download the IMAGINE memorandum in EN and in FR.

We need to imagine a future energy model that is compatible with what the planet can cope with and reduce the energy vulnerability of the territories and their habitants.

The document below will provide you with a complete description of the IMAGINE concept and strategy (available in en or fr).

• Who is it?

The actors influencing – directly and indirectly – energy consumption and supply within a territory are numerous and varied : technological and industrial actors; those from the energy and service industry; consumers ; local communities, politicians and trade unions ; the academic, cultural and media sectors; public actors.

All of these stakeholders participating in the IMAGINE initiative act directly and indirectly at different territory levels and shape local markets and the availability of products and services.

The “territory”, as well as the vital issue of energy systems for territories, offers the focal point for overcoming this “reductionism” induced by sector-based approaches and for optimising pathways towards sustainable urban (energy) systems.

• The IMAGINE Label

IMAGINE is intended to spread. All stakeholders wishing to get involved and contribute through events are welcome. These events can take many kind of forms, be it a seminar organized by a local authority with the elected bodies, the administration, local stakeholders; be it a citizen forum; an enterprise or an NGO seminar; be it a session during a conference; a meeting between organisations; be it an academic conference, etc.

Aim of IMAGINE is to be able to decline the concept as a label. To be labeled IMAGINE, an event must meet several criteria. In general, the event will be inspired by the IMAGINE memorandum which is our reference.

Download the label description in French or in English.

• IMAGINE Blog

Designed as an on-going seminar, the IMAGINE blog aims at offering a continual enrichment of the ideas and thoughts exchanged and developed during the IMAGINE annual foresight seminars, which take place every year in November at the Royal Salt work of Arc-et-Senans, France.

We publish here articles linked to activities and visions taking place in various fields and carried on by diverse stakeholders, which directly or indirectly relate to sustainable energy coming from or applied at the territorial level. Our objective is to make visible a vision for local sustainable energy emerging from a priori unconnected ‘weak signals’.

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