Kathryn Milun
Energy democracy; climate justice; community economies; community benefit agreements
Background & Expertise
Kathryn Milun is an associate professor in the Department of Studies in Justice, Culture and Social Change and an affiliated faculty with the University of Minnesota Law School. Milun is a legal and economic anthropologist building and testing a new community ownership model for solar energy. Her Solar Commons Project is located at the MN Design Center. The project has living lab prototypes in Minnesota and Arizona. In 2023, Solar Commons received a U.S. Department of Energy Sunny Award for equitable community solar. Solar commoning uses community trust ownership, public art, and a unique digital peer governance dashboard to empower communities to claim and locally govern a share of the financial benefits of the sun’s energy for community wealth building. Current Minnesota and Arizona Solar Commons projects support food sovereignty work on 1854 Treaty lands and school participatory budgeting initiatives in an underserved Arizona neighborhood.
Fall 2023 IonE Mini Grants Support Many Environmental Justice-Focused Projects
Institute on the Environment Mini Grants are designed to support and spark interdisciplinary projects across the University of Minnesota system. IonE seeks to prioritize projects that include community partner collaboration to address environmental and sustainability issues throughout Minnesota and beyond.