Mapping fuel poverty around the world (Royal Geographical Society)


Participants at the Melbourne Hub


28th September 2024
London, Melbourne and Online

Nicola Willand, Bhavna Middha, Sara Robertson, Sara Vahaji report on our international event as part of the Royal Geographical Society annual conference.

Recognising the causes and consequences of fuel poverty on individuals and communities around the world is key for understanding the distribution of this social inequality and addressing it in a globally connected fashion. While the work of the FPRN promotes work on fuel and energy poverty internationally, there is still limited awareness of the varied manifestations of this issue among the broader research community.  

To address this short-coming, we organised an FPRN panel session at the international Royal Geographer Society conference in London in August 2024. The session aimed to create awareness of the varied manifestations of fuel poverty internationally and help to cross-fertilise interventions. The session was conducted in a hybrid format with the main event in London, a live link to an in-person networking event in Melbourne (Australia) and online presentations by some of our panel members.

Participants at the Melbourne Hub watching a presentation on the screen

Participants at the Melbourne Hub

The session showcased the outcomes of seven Engaging in Energy Poverty in Early Career (EPEC) grant recipients. EPEC fellows gave brief presentation (5 min) summarising their work, followed by questions to the panel and the international audience.

  • Bhavna Middha (in London)  RMIT University (Australia): Multiple vulnerabilities – Examining the fuel and food poverty nexus
  • Sarah Robertson (in Melbourne) , RMIT University (Australia): What happened to the outside? Exploring the role of ‘nature’ in household retrofits
  • Daniel Torrego (online) , Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (Spain): Mapping summer energy poverty: The lived experience of older adults in Madrid, Spain
  • Alejandra Cortes (online) , Universidad de Chile (Chile): Energy culture in energy poverty settings in south Chile
  • Antonella Mazzone (online), University of Oxford (UK): Understanding cooling poverty and thermal comfort in disadvantaged communities of Rio de Janeiro
  • Irene González Pijuan (online), Sheffield Hallam University (UK): Children’s fight against energy poverty
  • Nino Antadze (online), University of Prince Edward Island (Canada): The lived experience of energy poverty in Georgia.

The networking event ‘Putting energy justice on the map’ at RMIT University in Melbourne was an attempt to start building a community of praxis on energy justice in Australia.  The event brought together researchers, consumer advocates and civil society organisations working towards energy injustice. Informal discussions over refreshments were framed by the launch of a comic book before culminating in the live link to the FPRN panel session.

The comic book ‘When Vic learnt about healthy, comfortable and energy-efficient homes’ aims to raise awareness about energy vulnerability and the ways it can be tackled in a gentle way. It has been written by Nicola Willand (RMIT University), Lucie Middlemiss (University of Leeds) and illustrated by the RMIT University PhD student Suxuan Tian. The development of the comic has been funded by the British Academy and RMIT University and supported by the European WELLBASED study. The comic is free to use, there is a low resolution version (4.25mb) and the additonal files can be downloaded for free (205mb).

Cover of comic showing a child being carried over a city. Text reads: 'When Vic learnt about healthy, comfortable and energy-efficient homes'.

Title page of the comic book

The hybrid RGS conference panel session was a success, reaching a wide audience across different disciplines, sectors and borders. It highlighted the work of our EPEC fellows and Network internationally and provided valuable opportunities for networking with other researchers and potential future collaborators. We look forward to more activities that will strengthen the relationships within our network and beyond.