ABSTRACT
The Stories of Change: Future Works research project was sparked by widespread concern about the future resilience of energy, work and making in the English Midlands. The project gathered communities at factory sites to develop collaborative accounts of past, present and future energy system changes as they affect the workplace. In the context of the UK Climate Change Act’s cross-party commitments to the reduction of carbon emissions, the project explored changing relations with energy in industry, and the role of co-production in these transformations. This chapter draws together some of the insights from the project. It argues that energy transitions in industry are necessarily co-produced through connections to other times, places and practices. In other words, energy systems changes are understood, enabled and made through stories. These stories are informed by diverse understandings and experiences of resilience and resourcefulness that stretch from the distant past, through shared practices in the present, to anticipations of future challenges.
