Wind energy and justice for disadvantaged communities: the role of community benefits
Introduction
This is a seventh month piece of work commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation under its programme A Socially Just Transition to a Low Carbon Society and Economy. The aim is to produce a think-piece essay which (i) establishes the justice-based arguments for communities to receive benefit flows from major commercial wind energy schemes, and (ii) seeks to understand the scope for increasing the level of community benefit provisions from wind farms, and for investing these benefits in the long-term sustainability of the areas affected. The research is being conducted by Dr Richard Cowell, with Dr Gillian Bristow and Professor Max Munday, and involves case studies looking at the Forestry Commission Wales preferred tender programme for wind energy development, the strategies for community benefits adopted by Argyll and Bute Council, Scotland, and the provision of community benefits from offshore wind farms along the East Anglian coast of England. The study is due to be complete in July 2011.