Energy Ecosystems Lab – Terms of Reference
Purpose
Physical technological improvements or policy responses to energy sustainability concerns usually involve
large systems change. The Energy Ecosystems Lab (Energy ESL) aims to further develop large system change
and management science knowledge and capacity to address the challenges associated with integrating
sustainability concerns into the energy system. It advances participants’ action, knowledge, methodologies
and tools with respect to change for sustainability in the energy industry and its stakeholder ecosystem.
This activity is initiated by the GOLDEN (see Attachment 1) science platform to accelerate development of
knowledge and capacity necessary for transformation of traditional business to sustainable enterprise. The
Lab’s focus is on large system change strategies and management practice to support change associated with
application of the strategies. Like other GOLDEN Ecosystems Labs, the focus is on change in markets, policies
and communities – the enabling environment for energy businesses
and innovation – to support sustainability.
What is the “Energy Ecosystem”?
Vision
The vision is to create a self-organizing, collectively owned space to
whatever degree people want...it is NOT about "would you like to
join our initiative"...it is "can we spend some time together thinking
about what is happening in this field, to see opportunities for
advancing it through new ways of working together and growing the
energy ecosystem together" to dramatically scale and speed
transition to sustainable enterprise? And more specifically, it is
about creating a sub-set (not a subsuming set) of activities of the
evolving system activities that (1) create coherence and (2)
undertake experiments to develop the knowledge, tools,
relationships that are necessary to realize the system's success.
Strategy
The Energy ESL aims to work with existing sustainability initiatives
of corporations and stakeholders to enhance their effectiveness
through science-based experiments. (See Attachment 3 for more on
experiments.) The science is inter-disciplinary, but GOLDEN draws
in particular on large systems change and management sciences.
(For more on Strategy see Attachment 2.)
Activities
The Lab’s initial focus is on traditional utilities
and companies producing and transmitting
energy. They have a particularly rich record of
engagement with their ecosystems including
local communities, regulators,
environmentalists and investors.
What is “Large Systems Change Science”?
Large systems change science (LSCS) refers to a
newly coalescing field of inquiry and practice
regarding processes, methods and structures
that realize transformation. Transformation is
popularly associated with concepts such as
“paradigm shifts” and “tipping points”. It
describes a process of profound change that
involves individuals, organizations and social
relationships in re-visioning and re-creating
their roles, exchanges and orientations within a
system.
LSCS encompasses sciences involved with
questions about transformational change,
futures development, multi-stakeholder
partnering, social innovation, resilience and
systems dynamics.
The Energy Lab applies and develops leading management and large
systems change knowledge, tools, methodologies, and capacity by:
1) Organizing a platform that brings together managerial and
large systems change science expertise to support transformation to sustainable enterprise;
2) Analyzing the system and strategic points of action;
3) Undertaking experiments (see Attachment 3);
4) Supporting coherence amongst change initiatives in the energy arena to realize impact of effort –
ways to align and scale efforts; and
5) Providing workshops and capacity-development activities; and
6) Coordinating with other GOLDEN research activities and the GOLDEN network.
See Attachment 4 for a more detailed description of current planned activities.
Outcomes
The outcomes of the Energy ESL will include:
1. New knowledge, tools and methodologies to guide emergence of sustainable enterprise;
2. More effective actions by participating stakeholders to achieve their distinct goals;
3. Enhanced capacity of participants for successful on-going interaction;
4.
5.
Actionable strategy and policy guidance for government, civil society and business participants; and
Scientific publications for participating academics.
Organization
The Energy Lab will be led by a Stewardship Team that will:
1. Support identification of priorities and opportunities for the Energy ESL;
2. Provide advice with respect to the over all development of the Energy ESL;
3. Support development of the Energy Lab’s financial strategy; and
4. Through personal networks facilitate connections as possible.
Composition
The Team will be composed of the Ecosystems Labs (ESL) Lead (Steve Waddell) and four to six volunteers
who collectively:
1. Have significant managerial and transformational change development knowledge;
2. Have significant knowledge about the energy industry and issues of sustainability;
3. Have good connections within the energy industry;
4. Have a signed MoU with GOLDEN and/or the ESL that includes identification of the member’s
individual goals in the Energy ESL participation; and
5. Have strong interest in being a Steward.
Collectively, the Team will strive to represent diversity in terms of ethnicity, gender, experience, personal
networks and discipline perspectives. The initial Team will be identified through the ESL Lead, and the Team
will define a process for identifying future participants. The initial Team commits to continuing for one year.
Mode of Operation
The Team shall maintain collective communications through:
1. A web-based group site;
2. Virtual meetings to be held every one to two months, up to 2 hours in length; and
3. Face-to-face meetings as possible.
Attachment 1: What is a GOLDEN
GOLDEN is a network of academic (mainly business school) research centers partnering with businesses and
others to develop the knowledge, tools, methods and capacities necessary to accelerate the transformation of
business to sustainable enterprise. By early 2013, the network included over 100 researchers and 40
research organizations. It comprises three activities:
1) Growing a data-base of leading sustainability initiatives involving corporations;
2) Experiments at the (a) individual level to shift mindsets and behaviors; (b) organizational level to
change policies, practices, procedures and structures; and (c) at the ecosystems level to transform
the enabling environment of markets, policies and values.
3) Computer-based simulations that integrate data from (1) and (2) to support strategy and policy
decisions.
Attachment 2: The Ecosystem Lab Strategy
GOLDEN provides a platform, infrastructure and processes for developing the labs. GOLDEN’s
Ecosystem Lab (ESL) strategy is to partner with current
What is an “Ecosystem” for
sustainability initiatives, rather than initiate them. For
GOLDEN?
academics already working with initiatives or
corporations on issues related to sustainable enterprise, GOLDEN “ecosystem” is based on an industry
or geographic area. It includes all the
GOLDEN offers a way to gain scale, access to data and
stakeholders in an industry, or at a more
learn with others tackling similar challenges.
GOLDEN’s role includes providing stewardship for
making the initiatives’ activities scientifically useful.
This means greatly advancing the current standard of
“best practice” which usually is an historic analysis of
an activity that is greatly complicated by inadequate
documentation and biased after-the fact reports, all of
which is “retro-fit” to core questions of the best
practice case study.
local level all the stakeholders in a particular
geographic region where a business
operates. Therefore the ecosystem includes
suppliers, citizens, governments, NGOs and
customers. The focus here is on
transformation of markets, public policies
and operating environments.
GOLDEN ecosystem experiments only
involve a sub-set of a whole industry
ecosystem. Reflecting GOLDEN’s strategy to
work with companies’ current initiatives,
firms involved in an experiment would
essentially be a sub-system of the global
industry ecosystem.
Working with an initiative’s participants, GOLDEN
proposes (1) identifying core questions, (2) designing
an experiment with specific analytical methodologies
that can address the questions, (3) applying the datacollection methodologies, (4) developing the analysis.
This will be done in an on-going cycle that provides
active feed-back loops to the initiatives so they can adjust their activities as appropriate. Some
illustrative potential ESL experiment questions:
 How can the role of local food and agriculture producers in multi-nationals’ production be
enhanced for enhanced sustainability outcomes? Potential partner: Bottom of the Pyramid
Innovation Centre
 How can extractive industry corporations enhance their contribution to the MDGs? Potential
partner: UN/UNDP.
 How can sustainability auditing be combined with future-oriented change methodologies to
realize change in the finance industry? Potential partner: UN Principles for Responsible
Investment
 How can energy infrastructure be transformed to support sustainable energy production?
Potential partner: Sustainable Energy for All
A variety of stakeholders will pay for the cost of ESL experiments, following the principle that a
variety of stakeholders have resources and will benefit from the work. Of course, concerns about
conflict of interest must be addressed. In a 2013 application to the European Research Council, the
Council would provide €2.5 million, the universities about €0.6 million in in-kind contributions, and
GOLDEN anticipates raising several hundred thousand euros more from the four companies that
would participate in the project. A multi-stakeholder governing group is proposed to support the
project’s development.
For more information, contact ESL Lead Steve Waddell: [email protected]
Attachment 3: GOLDEN Experiments
In the GOLDEN program, “experiments” are one of the three core methodologies and research
activities1 to speed emergence of sustainable enterprise by
What is “Sustainable Enterprise”?
developing the necessary knowledge and capacity.
Traditional management science research methods (case
GOLDEN’s mission is to understand, explain
studies, quantitative data-base analyses, etc.) provide
and facilitate the emergence of sustainable
important understanding about what is and why.
enterprise. Sustainable enterprise is not a
Experiments provide for testing of ideas about how to
fixed, defined entity. It is a concept that
evolves over time and within many different
realize sustainable enterprise. Experiments are
cultural and institutional contexts. However,
interventions that rigorously test ideas about options.
The traditional experimental method is considered by many
experts to produce the highest quality of knowledge, since it
relies on comparisons with carefully identified and
measured alternative explanations, under controlled
laboratory conditions. As well, the experimental method
can be the most direct link to the production of usable tools
for business and public-policy makers, since they actually
get to tackle the problem, experience potential solutions
and reflect on the outcomes produced.
But in the real world outside the laboratory, it is often
difficult to replicate the exact control conditions that
produce these powerful explanations and clear choices. In
fact, the word “experiment” is used very differently by a
variety of actors. For example, business people frequently
undertake innovations that are popularly referred to as
“experiments,” even though they may not be evaluated
systematically.
the concept always envisions:

the purposes of a firm to include both
economic growth and quality of life for
its key stakeholders

both a short- and long-term time
horizon in decision-making

multi-stakeholder engagement, and

concern for triple bottom line impact.
Because these dimensions can interact in
many ways, and various stakeholders
emphasize different aspects of sustainability,
GOLDEN “experiments” must be designed as
explorations into what sustainable
enterprise can actually be. This is quite
different from testing against a predetermined model. Therefore, GOLDEN
“experiments” raise questions about “what
is possible” – questions about viable,
flourishing futures – as well as how to get
there.
GOLDEN conceives of “experiments” using a novel approach
that is distinguished by its “engaged scholarship”
methodology, associated with action research/learning/ inquiry. Traditional experiments emphasize
the difference between the object (e.g., a person, organization, or community) and the person doing
the research. GOLDEN’s approach utilizes the collaborative engagement of the people and
organizations in the experiment as co-developers. This approach aims to further ensure the value of
the experiment to the stakeholders, by building their own knowledge and capacity.
The GOLDEN experiments also promote:
 Leading knowledge as the starting point – establishing the current state of knowledge in order
to inform the research design and ensure its quality
 Rigorous design that describes the methods being applied and the interventions being
introduced with measures and milestones defined as the design is implemented. This includes
active and passive control groups, as appropriate given the question pursued and the level of
analysis.
 Clarity in the questions being asked, so participants can always work to resolve issues that
inevitably arise in design and implementation
 Disciplined documentation that generates quality data to provide optimal assurance that the
core questions will be addressed
 Impact evaluation with pre- and post-intervention measures and on-going feed-back loops to
provide guidance to make change
1
The others are (1) the Observatory, which is a data-base of historic strategic sustainability
initiatives launched by companies; and (2) multi-level simulations.

Ethical guidelines to avoid negative repercussions
to those the experiment engages and to ensure value
creation for stakeholders.
By applying this array of rigorous scientific-quality
strategies to support development of sustainability
initiatives, we can learn much more about pathways to
sustainability and which change methods and tools can
be best combined. We can determine the circumstances
under which one approach is more powerful than another.
A Multi-Level Experimentation Strategy
GOLDEN performs experiments at the individual-,
organizational- and ecosystems levels. This reflects the
understanding that transformation to sustainable
enterprise requires change in:
 the way individuals understand the roles,
responsibilities and impacts of their company and of
their own decisions and actions.
 the strategies, structures, processes and products of
businesses and their stakeholders
 the markets, public policies and operating
environments in which businesses operate.
Distinctive questions, methods and strategies arise for
each level at which change occurs. However, a GOLDEN
experiment may well take place across more than one
level. In fact, GOLDEN has proposed experiments in
geographic locations that would integrate all three levels.
The Role of Control Groups
The Value of Experiments
GOLDEN generates value for labs’
participants by:
1. Addressing important operational,
strategic and policy questions;
2. Producing usable tools for developing
sustainable enterprise;
3. Developing new managerial capacity;
4. Connecting initiatives in an industry and
experiments, to scale and accelerate
knowledge and capacity-development;
5. Providing access to the leading
knowledge of a multi-disciplinary
(management school-based) academic
knowledge network;
6. Linking three synergistic activities: the
Observatory data-base of strategic
sustainability initiatives that is key for
establishing base-line knowledge and
control data; individual- and
organizational-level experiments;
simulation models to deepen
understanding of systemic relationships
and impact of actions;
7. Stewarding development of a change
community that is applying, developing
capacity and advancing management
and large systems change tools and
methods; and
8. Facilitating opportunities for scaling and
raising resources.
To increase sustainability along environmental, economic,
and social dimensions, GOLDEN experiments aim to evaluate rigorously and ultimately determine the
best mechanisms to support development of sustainable enterprise. One common tool for doing this
evaluation involves “control groups,” where one actor (person, organization, community)
experiences an intervention and the other does not. It is highly preferable that experiments do make
use of control groups, since they significantly improve the validity of the results.2
There are many ways to create “control groups.” Within a firm, an intervention might be applied to
selective sub-groups, using one group as a control. As well, the global data-base (the Observatory)
that GOLDEN is developing will greatly enhance the potential for using control groups, and this
strategy can be supplemented with associated case studies.
The issue of control groups is particular significant for the Ecosystems Labs (ESLs) since their
questions involve many organizations and people, and seeing impact can take significant time.
Indeed, this is a topic where GOLDEN is pushing traditional boundaries to the concept of
“experiment”. However, any ESL experiment will only engage a sub-set of any ecosystem. The
Observatory and case studies can provide data on companies not participating in the experiments to
operate as a control group. This will allow for the identification of the factors enabling and hindering
the success of interventions aimed at supporting the transition towards sustainable socio-economic
systems, controlling for institutional, cultural, and industrial context conditions.
2
Without a “control group” the intervention is referred to as a “natural experiment.” This procedure would be
appropriate when the totality of an industry is participating in an experiment. However, realistically there will
be few times that this is the case.
Experiments as Interventions: GOLDEN’s Role
In developing experiments, GOLDEN aims to support application and further advancement of leading
knowledge, skills and methodologies. It envisions a collaborative process of development of the
experiments with the partner stakeholders to ensure this. GOLDEN’s academic network can provide
the leading expertise for the research design and the on-going data-gathering, such as interviews with
managers and stakeholders. As well, GOLDEN can be an active lead participant in the intervention
design, helping to identify and select the appropriate change initiatives and ensuring rigor in the preand post-intervention measurements and in the analysis of the results. However, the academic
network will not be doing the actual actions of the interventions, such as convening and facilitating
stakeholder meetings and working to implement such processes’ outcomes with the corporate staff,
NGOs and government officials – that will be done by other change experts and consultants who can
also be identified either through GOLDEN’s or the participating organization’s network.
Of course all this still raises significant questions that will have to be worked out as GOLDEN
develops with the leadership of its participants. For example, the confidentiality questions still
provide significant room for concerns about competition versus collaboration. GOLDEN believes that
its academic network, experimental focus, potential scale, and collaborative platform will help raise
the understanding that all actors need to step up their commitment to engagement and resource
support to address the sustainability challenge. Of course, whether this will happen to a sufficient
degree and magnitude to produce the expected results, insights and transformational change is in
and of itself a testable hypothesis!
Attachment 4: Current Plan of Energy Lab Activities
GOLDEN has received a €200,000 grant towards initiation of
the Energy Lab. The activities described below pertain to that
grant, and the Energy Lab anticipates developing additional
activities.
Activities
1) Gather and analyze archival data on major strategic
sustainability initiatives of at least 30 major energy
companies around the world through a structured analysis
protocol;
2) Develop a case study of Enel Group strategic sustainability
initiatives through participant observation, interviews, a
survey and stakeholder consultations;
3) Identification and analysis of three significant ecosystemlevel change initiatives, including:
a) Developing a vision of a sustainable energy ecosystem,
including identification of key large system change
initiatives to advance its development;
b) Mapping the relationships between major
organizations, roles and exchanges;
c) Initiating one experiment to develop one of the key
initiatives identified. For more on the experiments,
see Attachment 1.
4) These energy ecosystem activities will be realized by
employing these methodologies:
a) web crawls and value network analysis
b) stakeholder web-site and document analysis;
c) stakeholder interviews; and
d) stakeholder focus groups.
5) Forming an EEL stakeholder stewardship team to advise
and support on-going development of the EEL.
6) Providing workshops and reports as described in
Products below.
Outputs
Core Concept 1:
Large System Change Initiatives
Systems analyses are useful for
identifying key blockage points that
inhibit needed change. The project aims
to identify ecosystem blocks (market,
policy and values dimensions) that
require changing in order for energy
businesses to become sustainable
enterprises. These then become
objects for large systems change
strategies. The project also aims to
outline such strategies in broad terms to
support identification of “solutions” or
“pathways” to produce the change.
Further, the project aims to initiate an
experiment to address one such
solution.
The Three Change Initiatives
The initial stage of the Lab’s development
includes analysis of three large system
change initiatives in energy. These are
initiatives that:
1) Aim to address fundamental change;
2) Are of significant scale – affecting
significant populations and
organizations;
3) Involve five or more organizations;
4) Have existed for at least three years;
5) Have some notable “achievements” to
point to in terms of impact on
markets, policies and/or
values/mental models;
6) Be interested in Lab participation.
Preference will be given to initiatives of
scale, and that collectively represent
diversity in focus and strategy.
1) GOLDEN will produce the following Working Papers of
10-15 pages (unless otherwise noted):
a) A baseline assessment on the energy industry’s
strategic sustainability-externality initiatives;
b) Socio-structural description of the energy ecosystem
in terms of relationships between key organizations, roles and exchanges in terms of
sustainability-externality initiatives;
c) A 20-30 page report on the EEL’s further development that includes:
i) a conceptual framework describing factors that influence the organizational and
ecosystem evolution conceptual,
ii) the vision and priorities of the EEL
iii) how the EEL can address industry ecosystem blockages that require large system change
initiatives to advance the energy ecosystem’s development, in the context of:
iv) The experience with initiating a large system change experiment (as further explained
in Attachment 1).
d) A case study of Enel, as a reconstruction of the evolution of its sustainability practice.
e) A final synthesis report of key findings and implications for Enel Group.
2) GOLDEN will develop the following meetings and workshops, either virtually or in-person:
a) With Enel:
i) An initiating project workshop;
ii) A workshop on the energy system relationships between key organizations, roles and
exchanges;
iii) A workshop reporting the Enel case study
iv) A final workshop report.
b) A meeting of large system change experts with 3-5 energy system industry experts to
support definition of the relationships between key organizations, roles and exchanges;
c) A meeting with energy system experts to support definition of key large system change
initiatives to advance its development;
d) Meetings of the EEL Stewardship Team.
Milestones
2013
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
2014
7.
8.
2015
9.
Week of April 15 – 19 – Initiating project workshop (Zollo in Rome)
June 6-8 – Joint project presentation at GOLDEN-GRLI annual meeting (Paris)
Mid June – Systems workshop (Waddell in Rome)
July 15 - Socio-structural description of the energy ecosystem delivered
Sept. 30 – Baseline paper delivered
Dec – meeting with energy system to identify key large system change initiatives
Jan – experiment initiated
March 31 – Enel Group case delivered
March 31 – Final project report, including experiment report