12 Steps: Step 5 - Form Sub Groups

Part of the process of developing an Energy Descent Action Plan is tapping into the collective genius of the community. Crucial for this is to set up a number of smaller groups to focus on specific aspects of the process. Each of these groups will develop their own ways of working and their own activities, but will all fall under the umbrella of the project as a whole.

Ideally, sub groups are needed for all aspects of life that are required by your community to sustain itself and thrive. Examples of these are: food, waste, energy, education, youth, economics, transport, water, local government.

Each of these sub groups is looking at their area and trying to determine the best ways of building community resilience and reducing the carbon footprint. Their solutions will form the backbone of the Energy Descent Action Plan.

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You may find that people quickly want to form into groups and engage in actions and initiatives, and this is all good. As time goes on you will want to bring some of them together to network and take advantage of their complementary efforts. So a number of groups who are involved in food related activities would come together, probably using the Open Space tools (Step 6) and out of this will come your Sub Group on food. The people who step up to be this group, will be the ones who take it on to gather the information needed to write the Energy Descent Action Plan (Step 12).