Platform One has developed through many years of research, community work, experimentation, reflection and practical experience.
That learning continues today through WE Share Community Power, Project Circles, community organisations and the partners working alongside them.
We are interested in what helps communities participate meaningfully, create greater value by working together, contribute to the wider systems they are part of, and retain a fairer share locally — while strengthening resilience and remaining independent.
What we learn is used first to improve the work and strengthen the outcomes communities are trying to achieve. Where that experience is useful more widely, it can also help other communities build on what has already been learned.
What We Are Learning From
Platform One’s learning comes from both long-term research and practical experience.
Over nearly three decades, that work has included studying intentional communities and different approaches to participation, governance, cooperation and shared purpose; examining community energy initiatives and energy cooperatives in New Zealand and internationally; and looking closely at what has worked, what has failed, and why.
That accumulated learning is now being tested and extended through practical work, including:
- people participating in real community projects
- the experience of Project Circles
- working with community organisations, researchers and industry partners
- developing new approaches to community energy and resilience
- understanding how independent people and organisations can align around shared community outcomes
- exploring how coordinated community resources can create greater value for participants, communities and the wider electricity system
- finding practical ways for community contribution and value to be recognised and shared fairly
- learning from both successful approaches and things that do not work
The purpose is not simply to collect knowledge, but to carry it forward — using what has already been learned to strengthen each new project and create greater community value.
Where Some of This Learning Began
Some of Platform One’s earliest foundational learning came through the development of E.V.E. — Evolutionary Village Enterprise, an intentional community model developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
That work was supported by extensive research into intentional communities and different ways people organise around shared values and common purpose. Over time, we interviewed almost every intentional community in New Zealand we could identify, as well as many communities overseas, looking closely at how they worked, where they struggled, what endured and what did not.
E.V.E. brought much of that learning together into a model for how people might live and work together around shared values while still recognising individual needs, differences and responsibilities.
That work helped shape thinking around participation, consent, stewardship, independence, shared purpose and how people can work together without needing to agree on everything.
It became part of a much longer process of research, reflection and practical experimentation that continues to inform Platform One’s approach today.
How Learning Carries Forward
Useful learning does not need to stay inside the project or organisation where it began.
Experience from earlier research, community models, current projects and new partnerships can help strengthen what comes next — improving how people participate, how projects develop, how alignment is built and how community value is protected.
Platform One helps carry that accumulated learning forward so communities, Project Circles and other independent initiatives can draw on it where it is useful, adapt it to their own circumstances, and avoid having to start from scratch each time.
The aim is to turn accumulated learning into stronger community capability, better decisions and greater community value — and make what proves useful available so other communities can develop their own approaches.