Stakeholder engagement: A critical path for onshore wind success (part one)

As we continue to support the transition from fossil fuel-based energy sources to renewable energy, onshore wind continues to play a pivotal role in achieving net zero targets. However, despite clear policy support and an increasingly mature technology base, projects can still face significant delays, or even fail to progress through the approvals process, due to organised stakeholder resistance and objection.

Onshore wind projects are highly visible and are often situated in close proximity to local communities. This visibility can mean that concerns around visual impact, biodiversity, noise, cultural heritage, land use application, bush fire (in particular in some regions experience crop fires) and the perceived effects this new infrastructure may have on property values, can quickly escalate to become key focal points for opposition. Local sentiment can be decisive in the planning approvals outcomes, making stakeholder engagement a fundamental and critical component of project success.

Key considerations

Poor, ineffective, and non-proportional engagement can create delays in planning approvals, increase costs, and damage a developer’s reputation, both for the project at hand and for future opportunities for that proponent and notably for other proponents in the locality. Whether impacts are perceived or actual, community concerns are real and have tangible consequences for trust, project reputation, and social licence. Successful proponents recognise that addressing community sentiment is not about correcting or dismissing concerns, but understanding their origins and working collaboratively to identify appropriate mitigation measures and pathways forward.

Engage early

A common mistake is that engagement begins too late in the development process. Developers may focus on site identification, feasibility studies, and technical design, only to then encounter community resistance and objections once developers’ plans are already well advanced. At this stage, project parameters are often less flexible, making it harder to respond genuinely and meaningfully to the concerns raised and therefore increasing the risk of mistrust and a transaction relationship between community, stakeholders, and the proponent.

In addition, there is a growing expectation and requirement from various levels and agencies of governments globally for better transparency and stronger participation. Stakeholders, including near neighbours, local residents, landowners, regulators, NGOs, and local authorities, expect to be informed early, consulted genuinely, and involved in informing the outcomes of a project.Where engagement is perceived as a ‘tick-box’ exercise rather than a genuine collaborative dialogue, mistrust and amplified opposition is prevalent.

Engage often

Whilst it is important to engage early, it is equally important to engage often. This is because communities are much broader and more dynamic than are often defined. They include not only neighbouring residents, Indigenous Peoples, local businesses, councils, community organisations, environmental groups, recreational users, and schools, but also future residents who may not yet be part of the area. Onshore wind projects have a long lifespan, meaning the community that exists when a project is first proposed is rarely the same community that will exist 20 or 30 years down the line.Understanding ‘the community’ therefore cannot be treated as a one-off exercise undertaken only during approvals. It requires pulse checking sentiment analysis and an ongoing effort to understand who is impacted and affected, who has a stake in the future of that particular region, and whose voices may be emerging.

Projects that recognise their full social footprint are therefore better positioned to build enduring relationships, engage meaningfully, and ensure that both current and future generations have a voice in shaping outcomes. Successful social performance is not simply about understanding today's community, it is also about continually redefining and reconnecting with the communities that will exist tomorrow.

How can SLR help?

Social performance refers to an organisation or project’s ability to avoid, mitigate and manage the adverse impacts they may impose on communities and enhance and optimise positive social outcomes through project delivery.

SLR’s engagement practice employs a social research approach, drawing on the principles of Social Impact Assessment to conduct social risk and community sentiment analysis at the outset of our engagement planning. This process informs an engagement approach that meets regulatory requirements and expectations and is designed to suit the maturity of proponents and their communities, providing a foundation for comparative assessment of changing sentiment and trust over time.

Reach out to our team for further information, or to discuss how we can help on your onshore wind project.