Episode with Amsterdam's commons manager Nathalie van Loon

City Stories by Energy Cities

Today we take a look at the democratic potential of the urban commons. The commons are those resources we all share and use like water, energy, food or public space. I’ve talked to someone who deals with this in her everyday work: I’ve interviewed Nathalie van Loon who is the commons coordinator at the city council of Amsterdam. Nathalie talks about her quite unique job and the societal agreement that officially recognises the vital role commons play in the city strategy. Wonder why she connects this to a doughnut? The Dutch “do democracy” gets very concrete when you listen to Nathalie and her love with the various local initiatives where energy, heat or food are managed and shared by committed citizens. And as Nathalie and her team wanted to make Amsterdam’s commons better known, she asked an artist to produce the city’s very first commons catalogue. You can check it out here: http://heeldeaarde.net/. This episode was recorded via internet. It is part of “City Stories” is brought to you by the EU project. mPower explores how cities and citizens can manage the energy transition together – in a fair, clean and democratic way. Participation can happen at various stages: from involving citizens, local NGOs or businesses in the policy design to any stage of the energy value chain: for example as shareholders or even prosumers. The mPower project gets funding from the European Horizon 2020 programme.