As a nation we need to use less energy, to meet our climate targets, increase energy security, and save households money. How can we do this in ways that work for everyone?
Net zero has become one of the most divisive issues in public life. Using less energy to help reach net zero is not only a technical challenge, but deeply entangled in everyday lives and values. It’s exactly the kind of multi-layered and complex topic that demands new methods.
The Energy Demand Research Centre (EDRC) and Involve brought together 40 everyday people to work over two years alongside energy modellers (researchers who build the kind of tools used to inform government plans for net zero) to really think about how we could make change.
Given time, good information and space to talk, people from very different backgrounds respectfully worked through difficult trade-offs and came up with practical, considered ideas. Their message was clear: people are willing to make changes, with the right conditions in place. The result is a route to net zero that is both technically feasible and socially acceptable, and a different way of bringing the public into complicated decisions.
Read on to find out how it worked, what the panel found, and why it matters for anyone making decisions about our energy future.
Energy models are tools that work out how much energy we’d use under different scenarios: how we heat our homes, travel, eat and so on. They're also hugely influential in policy-making and can show what’s technically possible, but not what people would support and why.
Public deliberation brings together a group of people, chosen to reflect the wider population, to learn about an issue, hear from experts, weigh up different views and agree recommendations. It shows what people will support and why, but not how much energy those choices would save.
Together, each contributes to the full picture: the public tests what’s realistic and fair, and the modelling shows how their choices would add up. The two are rarely combined. This project set out to change that.
It began in 2024 when we partnered with the Energy Demand Research Centre (EDRC), and its team at Lancaster University (now at the Tyndall Centre, Manchester), around their Positive Low Energy Futures model. The Positive Low Energy Futures model showed that through a combination of technological and social changes, the UK could reduce its energy demand by 52% by 2050, but it hadn’t been tested with the public. Would people back reductions on this scale and what would need to be in place to make them fair and workable? Together, we set up the Our Energy Futures Citizens’ Panel to find out.
The panel was made up of 40 people chosen by lottery to broadly reflect the UK population, across age, gender, ethnicity, disability, occupation, political views, level of concern about climate change, and whether they lived in rural or urban areas. They heard balanced evidence from experts and took part in facilitated discussions, drawing on both the evidence and their own values and experiences. The question guiding their work was: ‘As a nation we need to use less energy, to meet our climate targets, increase energy security, and save households money. How can we do this in ways that work for everyone?
Between April 2024 and February 2026, the panel met for eight in-person days and 20 online evening sessions. They worked through daily life, one topic at a time: what we eat, the things we buy and use, homes and heating, how we get around, flying, and the places we live.
Participants did not simply give views on pre-existing policy options. Instead, their deliberations generated two kinds of output: ideas about how much we could change the way we use energy in each area of life, which the research team could feed into the model, and wider conditions that participants felt would need to be in place for a low-energy future to work.
Across the topic blocks, the modelling team translated the panel’s ideas into two versions of the future for each area of life: a ‘baseline’ scenario (showing what the panel thought was possible as things stand), and a more ambitious one showing what might be possible if the panel’s conditions were met. These were then combined into one picture for the whole country, using UK TIMES, a model used by the government that looks at the whole energy system at once. The result was a citizen-led scenario: a picture of how much energy the UK could save by 2050, based on the changes the panel would support. The hope is that researchers and policymakers would use it to test options and plan ahead.
However, the scenario only works if the right support is in place. That’s why the panel’s wider conditions matter just as much. They set out what would need to be in place for these changes to work.
In their final sessions, the panel reflected on that scenario and agreed ten principles for low-energy futures.
The panel’s message was clear: people are willing to make changes, with the right conditions in place.
Panel members backed changes across daily life, from a widespread shift to heat pumps and better, more affordable public transport, to buying fewer but longer-lasting products and gradually eating less red meat and dairy. Although complete consensus was rare, through the act of deliberation, members were able to agree on conditions that would overcome objections and barriers for a large majority in relation to most actions. Their ten principles for reducing energy use effectively and fairly include fair sharing of costs and benefits, making low-energy choices accessible and affordable, and clear, consistent government leadership.
You can read more in this infographic, or watch a video on the process itself, below.
The project has already created a range of policy-facing outputs and routes to influence. Policy briefings can be found at https://www.edrc.ac.uk/publications/ where new publications will continue to be added. Workshops with policymakers and government advisors are already underway to explore how both the findings and the approach can be used to inform future policy development and implementation.
Twenty members of the Citizens’ Panel have become Panel Ambassadors’. They are receiving training and support to advocate for the findings and approach of the panel. That will entail things from building confidence, to speaking about the process to friends and family, to sharing the panel findings and asks with decision makers.
The findings launch event in Manchester on 12th October 2026 brought together panel ambassadors with decision makers, civil society and academics to discuss the findings and what this means for those who can implement its recommendations.
The video from the launch will be uploaded here when available.
For those of us involved in this innovative work, the wider lesson is this: the public can and should be trusted with complicated decisions. When people are given the chance to engage properly, they don’t just react to policy; they help shape it.
If you’re interested in finding out more, or would like to run a process like that with us, contact Louise MacAllister. You can also subscribe to the EDRC newsletter or follow EDRC on LinkedIn or BlueSky.