“Given the climate change challenge at hand, it’s hardly surprising that a group of international bodies, including the OECD and the International Energy Agency, came together at COP21 to state that a “transformation of the world’s entire economic system is essential to achieving our common climate change, development, economic, and energy security goals.”

As the world has become more connected via the internet, entire industries have stumbled, reinvented themselves, and risen up with a renewed focus on allowing early adopters and customers to play a bigger role. These user-driven companies have already successfully taken on the hotel and taxi industries, and, with the help of crowdfunding, they can lead the sort of economic transformation that the OECD is calling for in the energy industry.

Crowdfunding fits well within the current global rethinking of energy investment. The fossil fuel divestment movement, for example, has brought to the fore the question of how much individuals (through their pension plans, for example), as well as large funds, are invested in dirty fossil fuel sources, and whether there is an opportunity to move at least a part of their money into cleaner investments.”

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