The construction of a cooperative ecosystem for renewable energy : alternative economy and transversality

This research focuses on how a cooperative ecosystem is built around an alternative organization, a French multi-stakeholder social cooperative, which is a 100% renewable energy supplier. It proposes to analyze a system of inter-organizational collaborations supporting an economic, ecological and social transition. On the one hand, the aim of the paper is to understand how an ecosystem is set up, through the creation of tools, new organizations and new inter-organizational links. On the other hand, we propose to characterize its alternative dimensions. Based on the case study of the cooperative Enercoop Languedoc Roussillon (LR), the research also allows to deepen our knowledge of alternative organizations, by focusing on the modalities of diffusion and spinning-off of their project at a local level. This research is part of the ESADICAS research project. The project "aims to analyse to what extent innovative devices of sobriety acculturation collectives could support the participation of the greatest number of consumers in the ecological, economic and social transition, thus participating in its massification" (ESADICAS scientific report, to be published). It is based on a comprehensive and inductive methodological approach. From 2017 to 2019, the research team conducted a series of interviews (29) and observations with Enercoop Languedoc-Roussillon (ELR) and its partners in the region Occitanie (South-West of France). The construction of the research and its first results were discussed with the interviewees through oral feedbacks and workshops. We start by presenting the case of the cooperative Enercoop Languedoc-Roussillon. Then, we introduce the theoretical frame, based on the notion of cooperative ecosystems. Finally, the emerging results present the characteristics of an alternative ecosystem, based on citizen groups, alternative economy, and transversality.