Energ’Ethic - Climate Justice and Energy Transition

The Modernisation Fund is often treated as a technical financing tool. In reality, it is one of the most structural instruments in EU climate policy.
In this episode, Marine Cornelis speaks with Morgan Henley, campaigner at CEE Bankwatch, about how the Modernisation Fund shapes energy systems in Central and Eastern Europe. Drawing on concrete examples from district heating, the conversation shows how funding design and governance choices lock in infrastructure pathways for decades.

The episode examines why the Fund’s low political visibility enables priority drift, how limited scrutiny reinforces incumbent interests, and why these dynamics matter most in countries with constrained fiscal space. Rather than focusing on technologies, the discussion centres on power, accountability, and the long-term consequences of how climate money flows.

This is a conversation about why climate credibility is built through governance, not announcements.

Topics covered
The Modernisation Fund as a structural EU instrument

Governance gaps and low political visibility

Priority drift and incumbent advantage

District heating as a long-term system choice

Why funding design determines transition outcomes

CEE Bankwatch report on the Modernisation Fund (2026)

Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.

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Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedIn
Music: I Need You Here - Kamarius
Edition: Podcast Media Factory 

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© Next Energy Consumer, 2026

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Europe has set ambitious targets for clean heating. Heat pumps are central to that strategy. Yet deployment continues to slow, especially in multi-apartment buildings and social housing.
In this episode, Marine Cornelis explores why.
Joined by Vladimir Gjorgievski and Louise Meister, the conversation moves beyond technology to examine how clean heating actually works in real buildings.
Drawing on experiences from North Macedonia and Austria, the episode looks at:
why heating and cooling must be planned together,

how sector coupling translates into comfort, resilience, and bill stability,

why upfront costs and risk allocation remain major barriers,

and how business models and coordination determine success in collective housing.

The discussion also reflects on lessons from contexts with limited gas infrastructure, the role of energy communities and flexibility, and what alignment means for EU and national policy frameworks.
A grounded, systems-level conversation on scaling clean heating without shifting cost and risk onto residents.

Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.

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Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedIn
Music: I Need You Here - Kamarius
Edition: Podcast Media Factory 

Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon

© Next Energy Consumer, 2026

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Why does the energy sector keep trying to explain, rather than designing better?

In this episode of Energ’Ethic, Marine Cornelis speaks with Sean Layerle, Managing Partner at Baalbek Insights, about a stubborn reflex in the energy transition: the belief that low adoption can be fixed by better explanations.

With 14 years in Silicon Valley and experience across five continents, Sean has worked at the forefront of digital energy products, demand-side management, and behavioural science, including roles at Opower and EnerNOC. Today, he supports energy and tech companies as electrification, flexibility and distributed energy resources accelerate.

Together, they unpack why tech-first thinking persists, how behavioural biases quietly shape energy decisions, and why collecting more data rarely leads to better customer understanding.

The conversation moves from early lessons in demand response to today’s challenge: designing digital products that align with real human motivations, not expert assumptions.

Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.

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Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedIn
Music: I Need You Here - Kamarius
Edition: Podcast Media Factory 

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© Next Energy Consumer, 2026

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Cities are on the front line of the energy transition. They are also where energy poverty is most visible.

In this episode of Energ’Ethic, Marine Cornelis talks with Dr Eduardo Blanco from Energy Cities, coordinator of the POWER UP project.

The episode covers:
Social energy players and new local business models

Municipal leadership and public risk-taking

Neighbourhood-scale solutions

Concrete lessons from European pilot cities

Eduardo explains why building fair energy systems looks less like engineering and more like embroidery. Slow, precise and deeply human.

Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.

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Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedIn
Music: I Need You Here - Kamarius
Edition: Podcast Media Factory 

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© Next Energy Consumer, 2025

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

This episode is a departure — in the best possible way.
Instead of an interview, Energ' Ethic host Marine Cornelis takes listeners inside the speech she delivered in Besançon for the French Day against Energy Poverty. A space filled with people who meet energy vulnerability every day: social workers, housing professionals, energy advisers, local officials. People who understand the transition not as a strategy, but as the temperature inside a room, the state of a wall, the anxiety behind an energy bill.
The speech is in French, Marine’s mother tongue, because some truths land differently when spoken in the language where they were first felt.
In this reflection, Marine revisits ten years of European policy through the lens of the people these laws are meant to protect. She digs into what happens when efficiency outruns dignity, why energy vulnerability has nothing to do with a simplistic income line, and how equity reshapes the right to energy in a continent living through rising bills and increasingly hostile summers.
You will hear stories from homes across Europe, observations from the frontlines, and a clear-eyed look at what rebuilding trust actually requires: proximity, responsibility, and the ability to confront vulnerability without looking away.
This episode invites you to slow down.
To feel the spaces where policy becomes life.
To remember that energy justice is not decorative language — it is the condition for a society that holds.
A different format for Energ’Ethic.
And a necessary one.
Listen to the full speech.

Energ' Ethic goes out every other week.

Keep up to date with new episodes straight from your inbox

Reach out to Marine Cornelis via BlueSky or LinkedIn
Music: I Need You Here - Kamarius
Edition: Podcast Media Factory 

Support Energ'Ethic on Patreon

© Next Energy Consumer, 2025

Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.