Social Entrepreneurship as a Network Bridge to Tackle Energy Poverty

This chapter focuses on the territory of social entrepreneurship in Europe’s energy poverty context. There is increasing interest in social entrepreneurship within the domain of energy social sciences to provide partial solutions to address energy poverty. The institution of social entrepreneurship, with its diverse forms and specific purposes, integrates multiple logics. This hybrid nature makes it a productive space for developing responses to energy vulnerability from the necessary multiplicity of perspectives required by the complexity of the problem. This complex nature of the energy poverty network invites us to focus on the collective dimension of social entrepreneurship. This work aims to enrich our understanding of the mechanisms at play in the energy poverty network through social entrepreneurship. For this purpose, a qualitative analysis from a phenomenology approach captures the experiences gained by European social entrepreneurs within the network of energy poverty actors. Our results show the diversity of hybrid experiences in social entrepreneurship, emphasising the “bridging” focus on connection and the relevant implications for facilitating a synergistic activity of all actors in the network that contributes to accelerating the just energy transition. The discussion contributes to the more consolidated literature on social entrepreneurship through their experience building cohesion in significant social challenges, for which the multi-actor perspective is fundamental. We also present policy recommendations to facilitate venues for raising new voices to gain network cohesion through the coordination of social entrepreneurs.