To combat climate change, they bet on their savings

"Everyone can do their part to change the economy. We are not helpless." At 26, the Drômois Manuel Chatain has already made a long way in terms of sustainable finance. "I started by changing the bank for another, more virtuous," he says. Then the young man explores a new path: the financing of projects promoting the energy transition, via a citizen platform, shared energy.

founded in 2010, it has for "To associate citizens and actors of the territories with the transition, so that it is done in good conditions," explains Marc Mossalgue, communications officer for the movement. Unlike crowdfunding - where citizens directly choose the projects to be financed - participants buy actions that will then allow funds to advance for renewable energy projects [solar panels, hydroelectricity, biomass, wind, methanization].

invest "in the long term"

"I knew the movement by word of mouth", continues the young investor Drômois. "Then, in 2016, when I was an apprentice and started to enter working life, I started." The young man invests step by step, "€ 500 at the start". Now, its portfolio amounts to € 3,500. "It is not to recover them quickly or make a profit," he specifies, but to invest "in the long term".

multiple motivations < /H2>

"The motivations of investors are multiple but the first is to act very concretely for the energy transition", supports Marc Mossalgue. "Citizens also realize that their money can support projects that are not virtuous. There is such opacity in the banking system, that they are more and more numerous to go towards common sense of common sense." Founder of the NGO Reclaim Finance, and winner of the Goldmann Prize for the Environment, Lucie Pinson explains it in a publication: "By investing in citizen renewable energies, you withdraw your savings from any predatory activity and you finance citizen projects beneficial. "

a shared energy, shareholders invest on average 3,000 €. Their profiles are varied. "Most are between 50 and 70 years old but the youngest, from 20 years old are more and more numerous." In total, for 10 years, 6,700 shareholders have invested in a hundred projects for 27 million euros in the energy transition. This represents 813 gigawattheures per year in terms of electricity, "the equivalent of 700,000 people covered in electricity excluding heating and hot water", specifies Marc Mossalgue.

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- Lola Sun Mar 22:06:24 +0000 2020

Since 2017, the actions have been valued. From € 100, they gradually increased to 102, then to 104 to reach € 114. They reached a profitability of 4 % per year. "It was clear for the founders that we had to go through a profitability to massify this energy and civic transition. Otherwise we would have quickly capped with convinced people. We also had to touch more classic investors and savers to support them in our model of Transition. "

This article is extracted from our special file:" Climate: understand everything about the challenges and citizen mobilization ". To discover here!

crowdfunding in full boom

Beyond the 4.9 million euros invested by the Citizen Energy Movement shared, 102 million euros were collected in France in 2020 by crowdfunding platforms * - also called Crowdfunding - dedicated to renewables, according to the 2020 barometer of crowdfunding renewable energies. This represents 194 renewable projects, mainly solar (83%), biogas (6.5%), wind turbines (4%). A sign of craze, growth is included each year between 50% and almost 100%. The Occitanie, New Aquitaine and Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur regions are particularly active.

"I was looking for what was new, which was part of sustainable, socially just projects", explains his On the Karol Sachs side, an investor who has long been interested in sustainable finance. Passed by the Ministry of the Environment, Bank Crédit Coopératif, creator and former president of the European Federation of Ethical and Alternative Banks, he explains having fallen into very small sustainable development. For him, crowdfunding is full of advantages: "incredible ease", lower management fees, time savings or the possibility of following the project and its development. In six years, Karol Sachs explains that it has invested € 24,000 in around fifty projects, with sometimes "very small sums", in a logic of diversification.

citizens are motivated by "the profitability proposed, The geographic proximity to the project, the transparency and the meaning we want to give to his savings, "confirms Laure Verhaeghe, co-founder of Lendosphere, a platform that was born in 2014 following a new framework regulatory. "As a citizen, we can have an extremely effective lever. In addition it is a very strong signal to these actors on the need and the desire to invest in renewable energies."

"" crowdfunding platforms have really contributed, in recent years, to democratize the subject of renewable energies. It is a real educational tool to involve citizens in projects in the territory ", explains Florence de Maupeou, director of the Association Funding France. "This also promotes the acceptance of certain projects, in particular wind projects, and it makes it possible to defuse certain subjects during information meetings organized during the crowdfunding campaign." Some projects, because of their citizen funding, "will have more legitimacy", she notes.

*Lendosphere, Lumo, Enerfip, Akuo Coop, Kiwai, Lendopolis, Wiseed, etc. p>

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