Principles for community engagement

Donna Luckman • 21 May 2020
Author: Taryn Lane & Jarra Hicks

Seeking a social license to operate means asking the community to accept changes in their local area (to which they likely have long lasting and deep connections) because they understand the importance of the project and can see the benefits for their community. The bedrock of this is developing trust and relationships based on mutual benefit, mutual respect, on-going engagement and transparency.

Mutual benefit

Project lifecycles are decades long and it is of vital importance that consideration is given to creating conditions that seek shared outcomes of mutual benefit for the local host community, landholders and wind farm developer. Long term social acceptance has financial implications as it reduces development timelines and complaint mitigation processes.

Mutual Respect

Local communities know their community the best and will likely have good solutions for overcoming issues. Providing a space for genuine dialogue where people can participate in respectful discussions is how mutually agreeable solutions can be identified. Respectful and persistent community engagement is an effective counter to local wind farm opposition as is a continued openness to engage with opposition to seek shared understanding.

Relationship-building

The key to genuine and effective community engagement lies in building local relationships and enabling many avenues for interaction. Building networks and relationships leads to trust and key people can become embedded advocates and feedback loops to the project . It is vital to make links with key local leaders and organisations to do negotiation and relationship building with.

Authenticity

Having a local communications / community relations staff person, even if only part time, shows commitment and care for the local community. Staff on the ground can act as community ‘translators’ of technical knowledge to explain information to the local community in a simple yet accurate way, allowing for misinformation to be addressed. Having locals working within the community means there are people caring for the maintenance and improvement of the relationships in their community and provides genuine opportunities for people to be heard and mutual opportunities to be harnessed. A strong authentic local presence can also be sourced through having a local purchasing policy for contractors and services pre and post construction.

Appropriateness

Appropriate development for a local context involves thinking about how the project is integrated into the local area and how it is scaled appropriately for the local environment and needs. How it is modeled in a holistic way that encourages the right scale of benefit in accordance with the scale of project is a good indicator for high community engagement.

On-going Engagement

On-going processes that involve local people in meaningful and substantial ways is key to good community engagement. This might mean community ownership of wind power, but it could also mean partial ownership of a bigger, developer-led project, or simply conventional developer projects engaging in deeper, more beneficial ways with the community through benefit sharing models like cheaper electricity or a gift of equity in the development.

Transparency

Demystifying the development process to local stakeholders can be managed through making planning permit documentation available on request and online. Providing transparency about how and why decisions are made is also good practice. Even though community members might not agree with a decision, if they can understand it, they will usually still respect and trust you.

Responsiveness

The ability to communicate well and being responsive to emerging issues, concerns and ideas is essential to building trust and acceptance, as is starting engagement early. Being willing and open to negotiate on aspects of project such as benefit distribution, ownership of wind farm, placement of turbines, number of turbines as well as lights and height are aspects of responsiveness.