DCCEEW partnered with the CSIRO to develop a novel approach to track social licence for the energy transition. A valid and reliable survey instrument was designed and deployed to measure Australian attitudes and behavioural intentions towards the energy transition. As the energy transition has been met with concern from communities, results from this survey are key to developing evidence-base policy, and to bassline and track social licence to ensure a speedy and just energy transition.
Innovation Summary
Innovation Overview
Energy generation is the largest contributor to Australia’s carbon footprint and a priority target for emissions reduction. The energy transition requires new generation infrastructure to be built and over 10,000km of transmission lines to connect them into the electricity grid. Stakeholder pressure and community opposition is causing project delays and investment uncertainty. Gaining social licence from communities who are most impacted by new renewable infrastructure is a key challenge for Australia’s energy transition goals.
To mitigate the risk of project disruption, understanding citizen sentiment relevant to the key factors underpinning social acceptance is vital. An innovative and comprehensive research project to assess Australian attitudes and behavioural intentions was undertaken on selected renewable infrastructure. This involved developing a robust survey, which can track public sentiment continuously as the transition progresses.
Key objectives for this research include:
• understanding Australian attitudes and behavioural intentions of living near renewable energy infrastructure including solar farms, onshore and offshore windfarms, and transmission lines
• using and updating a validated model to identify factors influencing social licence and the relative importance of each in driving acceptance for renewable energy infrastructure
• capturing current Australian views on climate change, the environment, national approaches to mitigate climate change, interest in the renewable energy transition, and trusted and influential information sources
The research utilises a well-founded model of social licence associated with energy technologies and other extractive industries (see section 7. Materials).
Factors examined in the research were:
• Procedural fairness and trust in industry – relations between community and the industry operator
• Perceived impacts and benefits – perceived effects of the industry on social, economic, and environmental wellbeing of the local and wider community
• Distributional fairness – expectations on how equitably benefits are shared and costs are borne by communities
• Governance of the industry – perceived effectiveness of compliance activities, regulations, planning and trust in governing bodies
• Narrative – perceptions of the rationale for energy projects in the renewable energy transition to reduce carbon emissions and meet Australia’s Net Zero target
Establishing a solid foundation for social acceptance using reliable and valid metrics is key to tracking social licence and policy needs as the energy transition progresses and projects move from planning to operational phases, and as new technologies emerge. Due to Australia’s dispersed population, innovative sampling methodologies were adopted to ensure national representativeness. Our innovation has provided a tool for measuring social licence for the energy transition at a national level.
Innovation Description
What Makes Your Project Innovative?
The research is innovative because:
•Developed Australia’s largest nationally representative survey, baselining sentiment towards the energy transition. This is the first survey to test validated constructs comparing social acceptability of key renewable and transmission technologies.
•The innovation can be adapted for multiple industries and enable a long-term tracking of changes in attitudes and behavioural intentions as Australia’s energy transition matures. The model for social acceptability is one of the most complete in the world and is continually refined.
•Novel survey design encompasses quantitative and qualitative data, has in-built pre/post-tests, and measures behavioural intentions across a range of scenarios.
•The research has been elevated via partnership between government and a highly trusted national research agency. Findings are important in the Australian context given the spectrum of attitudes on climate change and the energy transition.
What is the current status of your innovation?
•Report findings will be publicly available in March 2024.
•Government will use the findings to build social acceptability, ensuring Australia meets emission reduction targets and modernises our electricity grid. Importantly, results will shape and refine the national narrative on why the energy transition is needed and how emission targets will be met.
•Significant independent research and insight have been gathered, enabling the many government agencies, community and industry organisations, and developers that are currently playing a part in the energy transition access to results that may inform their own projects to build social acceptability.
•The government and CSIRO will look for opportunities to extend and leverage the survey as a robust tool to track and validate Australian sentiments and to extend the knowledge of social licence for renewable industries. This will be a key evaluation metric for the government and help it to connect its policies to Australian communities.
Innovation Development
Collaborations & Partnerships
DCCEEW is responsible for developing and implementing policies in the energy and climate change portfolio. CSIRO is Australia’s national science agency. It is one of Australia’s most trusted research institutions and works with government, the research sector, Australian businesses, and communities. This partnership is the coming together of relevant policy makers and research expertise that is vital to ensure the delivery of an ambitious policy agenda.
Users, Stakeholders & Beneficiaries
Benefits from this research will flow to state governments, planning authorities and community advocates seeking to better understand community attitudes. The research will also be beneficial to:
•Australian public who can explore the data on the CSIRO website
•DCCEEW policymakers will utilise findings to build an evidence base for future policy
•Developers will be able to access the data to reflect on engagement activities, and benefits sharing arrangements across communities.
Innovation Reflections
Results, Outcomes & Impacts
While the research has not been released at this stage, as part of the collaboration with CSIRO, DCCEEW has been able to leverage pre-release findings to develop and inform timely evidence-based policy and targeted communications campaigns. With this baseline, differences in attitudes and behavioural intentions of Australians towards renewable energy infrastructure can be tracked over time to ensure Australia can meet its emissions reduction target of 43% by 2030.
This project highlights further research is needed to understand how attitudes shift from simply tolerating to either rejecting or being more accepting of renewable energy developments. These will be explored in the next phase of this on-going partnership between CSIRO and DCCEE
Challenges and Failures
•Avoiding duplication as consultation with communities, industry and government increased with investment and policy implementation.
•Collaborating between organisations to ensure communication to external agencies and state governments was consistent.
•Ensuring sufficient sample in smaller regions of policy interest by using multi-method sampling methods.
•Reputational damage to the government or CSIRO if research is not transparently communicated.
•Ensuring results are communicated in a way that is politically sensitive and does not increase the likelihood of misinformation.
•The cost of undertaking research has increased since COVID-19, and budgets across government have tightened. Costs were shared between DCCEEW and CSIRO.
Conditions for Success
•To ensure success it is vital that the research is designed in a way that will generate evidence-based, actionable insights, and increase scientific capacity in an applied way. For DCCEEW, identifying where the research can be used to develop evidence-based policy and communications is vital in efforts to secure a just and swift energy transition.
•Strong executive support (from both organisations) is required – by tying the research to the development of evidence-based policy on a topic of national priority, the continued value was demonstrated.
•A partnership built on trust has ensured the successful building, delivery, and implementation of the innovation, from both a research perspective and a policy perspective.
Replication
•The innovation builds upon CSIRO's 2020 research on social acceptance of living near solar farms and extends its scope to include onshore and offshore wind farms and the associated transmission infrastructure.
•This innovation will be repeated every two years to track changes in attitudes and behavioural intentions as projects progress throughout their lifecycle (from planning to development to operation) and as new technologies emerge. Detailed methodology will also be included in the final report for transparency, allowing other organisations or research institutions to utilise the innovative survey design.
Lessons Learned
•Inclusion of policy experts to ensure research is targeted, robust and generates actionable findings.
•Using behavioural science to synthesise findings into a handful of key findings that are easily communicated to a wider audience.
•Project team continuity and trust is important for mutual understanding and the sustained and continued success of the project.
•It is important for government to leverage research organisation given their role as trusted messenger.
•Technical staff need to ensure communications materials prepared are reviewed to guarantee findings are being reflected accurately.
•Dissemination of information is vital to ensuring the risk of duplication.
•Strong executive support for evidence-based policy development.
Anything Else?
The successful partnership between DCCEEW’s Behavioural Science Unit and CSIRO’s Resources, Energy and Communities Team extended into successful collaborations between DCCEEW and CSIRO communications areas in the strategic and coordinated planning of communication activities for the release of survey findings.
The innovation owners:
- Sharon Rosenrauch - Sharon.rosenrauch@dcceew.gov.au
- Rod McCrea - Rod.mccrea@csiro.au
- Lavinia Poruschi - Lavinia.poruschi@csiro.au
- Mitchell Scovell - Mitchell.scovell@csiro.au
- Andrea Walton - Andrea.walton@csiro.au
Status:
- Identifying or Discovering Problems or Opportunities - learning where and how an innovative response is needed
- Evaluation - understanding whether the innovative initiative has delivered what was needed
- Diffusing Lessons - using what was learnt to inform other projects and understanding how the innovation can be applied in other ways
Innovation provided by:
Date Published:
27 June 2024