COMON
Engaging Communities in the Green Fuels Transition
Background
Over the past years, companies and municipalities have experienced substantial skepticism and widespread concern from local citizens and interest groups towards the establishment of technologies and infrastructures that produce renewable energy.
This skepticism and concern often turn into local resistance and time-consuming conflicts, which risk decelerating the green transition towards decarbonized societies, including the development and implementation of green fuels.
Results
The COMON project under MissionGreenFuels set out to change this.
The objective of the project was clear: to mitigate time-consuming and costly conflicts and instead open a public dialogue. This dialogue aimed to develop constructive collaboration across the value chain and promote engaged and democratic citizenship within the green fuels transition.
The COMON project has unveiled key strategies for successful green energy transitions by fostering collaboration with local communities.
One of the most important outcomes is the shift from viewing citizens as risks to seeing them as valuable partners. This shift can be facilitated through early and ongoing community involvement in energy projects.
The project demonstrates that long-term engagement strategies that build trust and collaboration are essential for success.
Furthermore, the project highlights the importance of moving beyond mere compensation for affected citizens. Instead, it calls for genuine partnerships and the co-design of projects. This includes integrating community suggestions into the design of sustainable energy parks.
Thereby, the COMON project has not only shown that it is possible to avoid conflicts but also to create value for all parties through collaboration and involvement.
Partners
Short video (in Danish) about the COMON project.
The video has been created by Dansk Center for Energy Storage (link) for their annual meeting in 2023.
Contact
Simon Lex
Associate Professor
