New Research, Same Findings: Clean Energy Needs Community Engagement

If we want to fight climate change we need to deploy clean energy to meet increasing energy demands while decreasing the rate of carbon emissions. But how can we do this in a way that does not repeat the mistakes of the past? Mistakes that include: putting polluting industries in communities who had little say in how and where those projects were built. 

New research from the Institute for Rural Collaboration, Clean Grid Alliance, Localyst, and a group of universities has reaffirmed what community groups have been saying all along: Collaborative and community-centered engagement is crucial to engender community support for renewable energy projects and support a just energy transition. 

Communities are not monoliths—every member of a community will have a different opinion when a clean energy project is proposed in their neighborhood. The Institute for Rural Collaboration found that community concerns around clean energy projects tended to center around the balance of risks and benefits, economic impacts, and aesthetics. 

Local opposition tended to grow when these concerns were not addressed adequately, but can also emerge organically from opposition based on ideological differences and lasting impacts from past harms. 

Applying community engagement tactics

How can we take this knowledge and transform it to a more informed and community-centered engagement style? According to the Clean Grid Alliance and Localyst, catering your engagement style to your audience is important. Tailoring engagement strategies to supporters, persuadables, and the opposition will make engagement more impactful and successful. Each of these audiences needs something different from engagement activities. 

For example, supporters may need help in mobilizing to grow support for the project. Persuadables may need additional information to help them come to a final decision. And project developers should listen to their opposition and limit agitation where possible.  

Quality engagement looks different in each community and there are a variety of tradeoffs to consider in each engagement strategy. Trade-offs include in-person versus hybrid meeting formats, small group exercises versus large group discussions, perceptions of incentives to participate, and the different types of speakers to include in community events. 

However, all effective and community-centered engagement includes opportunities for community participation and developer transparency. Participatory engagement practices such as interactive learning sessions should be used in tandem with deliberative processes. Deliberative processes allow for a variety of stakeholders to participate in the creation of recommendations or consensus around the project, potential project benefits, or community conditions for the project. 

Communities sense when the engagement is more than just a box to check for a developer. Setting aside time and space for communities to share their goals and understand project tradeoffs is a vital step in limiting project opposition and building a positive and trusting relationship with host communities. 

This suite of new research reinforces the fact that meaningful engagement matters, both for practical project related reasons (like limiting project delays) but also because it builds procedural fairness. It creates space for a community to share their hopes for the project and think beyond the binary of project approval or rejection. 

This sense of transparency and inclusion helps to build community trust and supports a more just and community centered energy transition. This research helps show why robust community engagement should be part of responsible clean energy development now and moving forward.