JustWind4All Energy Reads

Compass for Just & Effective Decision Making In Wind Energy Page 2 Energy Read 5 Co-Produced Compass for Decision-Making in Wind Energy Governance Version: 1 Work package: 4 Authors: Teun Strikkers, Dr. Filipe Alves, Mikhail Kharitonov, Jonas Schröder, Prof. Dr. Julia Wittmayer Review by: Ana Miljanović Rusan (RGI) & Dr. Mariya Trifonova (ARC Fund) JustWind4All is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them (Grant Agreement 101083936). Page 3 Executive summary The JustWind4All Wind Energy Compass is a participatory methodology for just and effective decision making. Its primary aim is to aid stakeholders in navigating the synergies between justice —ensuring fair and distribution of benefits and inclusion & transparency of the development process— and effectivenessachieving practical, efficient outcomes in wind energy development. Over the course of 2 years, 6 dialogue sessions and 7 co-creation events across 4 countries, the compass was developed and validated with regional experts from industry, policy and NGOs over various regional and local levels. It proved successful in aiding decision makers in gaining understanding and actionability with regards to justice and effectiveness in wind energy development. The compass was created as a tool to address the complex challenges of wind energy development, ranging from lengthy permitting processes and strong public opposition to high investment costs. Typically, efforts to overcome these challenges focus primarily on improving effectivenesssuch as cost-cutting measures, enhanced subsidies or environmental mitigation strategies. These are important ways of improving wind energy development. However, it can be argued that without a just approach wind energy development cannot be truly effective nor beneficial to most of society. Navigating the intricacies as well as at first glance opposing objectives between just or effective wind energy development, the compass set out to help identify strategies that can be implemented to make the wind energy transition more just and effective. The compass is specifically designed to support regional decision makers and work with these complex themes and make them actionable. It leverages a visioning workshop format based on years of transition research. This method enhances co-creation, collaboration, and shared learning, making it adaptable across international, national, regional, and local contexts. Its flexibility also allows for application beyond wind energy, making it relevant across diverse countries and policy challenges. Participants consistently reported that the tool helped synthesize diverse expertise, foster shared understanding, and guide strategic action in the wind energy transition. This energy read presents the methodology and its tools, with examples and experiences from co-creation sessions. It also provides a use-guide for facilitators and additional information to host your own compass session. Page 4 Table of Content Executive summary 3 Introduction 5 The compass in action 8 Preparation 8 The compass workshop 11 References 19 Appendix 1: Use guide for facilitators 20 1. Number of participants 20 2. Duration 20 3. The compass in action – general steps and examples from the field 20 4. Preparation 22 5. The compass workshop 23 Appendix 2: Indicator library 28 Appendix 3: Iterations 40 Page 5 Introduction Wind energy development is a core component of the energy transition and considering justice in wind energy governance is essential for ensuring its long-term development (Jenkins et al. 2016). Procedural justice—establishing fair and inclusive decision-making—builds trust and reduces conflicts, while distributive justice—fairly allocating benefits and burdens— enhances legitimacy and local support. Without these dimensions, projects may face delays, opposition, or fail and are not developed further. Currently, most wind energy development optimizes for effectiveness, for example costs or energy produced – with increasing focus on their justice implications (Newell et al. 2022), see text box below for more detailed information. The compass, a method designed, tried and tested under JustWind4All, builds upon this development by exploring synergies of both justice and effectiveness in wind energy development. • To ensure the compass is well equipped to work on the just energy transition, it itself is based on transition research (e.g. Hebinck & Loorbach 2024). This research field specializes in creating actionable research outcomes to facilitate transitions, the wind energy transition being one of them. Within this field, action research, co-creation, and richness of diverse perspectives are important methods and concepts that aid transitions, no matter at what stage the transitions are in. The compass draws heavily on this research and is as such designed as a co-creative workshop tool, making it possible to work with challenges in various stages in the wind energy transition. To fully work with the concepts of justice and effectiveness it is important to recognize the regional uniqueness and similarities as well as the stages of wind energy development. For example, the country of Slovenia which has 3 installed turbines has a different context of wind energy development compared to 11.7 GW of installed capacity in the Netherlands (Balkan Green Energy News, 2023; RVO, 2024; RVO, 2025). Both countries do face similar barriers to ensuring just wind energy transitions, such as public acceptance, however due to the regional contexts, a strategy to overcome these barriers and what exactly the vision should be can differ. Furthermore, decision making often involves uncertainty and ambiguity (Scoones and Stirling 2020). The compass as a problem-solving method should therefore be able to increase the actionability of stakeholders, harness their diverse perspectives and do this in a way where stakeholders strengthen their own perspectives as well as align with their regional uniqueness. The compass was therefore tested and co-created in a wide array of different contexts. Both regionally and locally in the Page 6 Procedural Justice Procedural energy justice ensures fairness in decision-making processes related to low carbon energy issues. It emphasizes transparency, inclusivity, and meaningful participation of stakeholders in policy and project decisions. This also involves providing access to information, engaging diverse perspectives, and ensuring accountability to promote equitable processes and outcomes in energy governance. Distributive Justice Distributive energy justice concerns the fair distribution of benefits and burdens related to low-carbon energy transitions, including governance structures and ownership models over technology, land and infrastructure. It emphasises equitable access to energy resources and ensures that the advantages and disadvantages associated with low carbon energy production and consumption are fairly shared. This concept encompasses considerations of who benefits from energy development, who bears the costs or risks, and how decisions are made to promote fairness and inclusivity in energy transitions. Effectiveness Effectiveness is a broad term, relating to how wind energy development projects use resources, achieve targets and impact their surroundings. This could relate to the materials used in construction, development times, but also environmental impact of the materials used to construct the turbines. This definition is broad, so in the compass we use different indicators that each capture a part of this umbrella definition of effectiveness in wind energy development. A selection of the indicators used in this workshop are the following: • Time (does wind energy development occur timely?) • Costs (Is wind energy development not too expensive?) • Resource usage (Does wind energy use resources in a minimal way?) • Energy security (Does wind energy development improve energy security?) • Energy production (Does wind energy development improve energy production?) • Policy goals (Is wind energy development effective in realizing its goals?) • Environmental impact. (What impact does wind energy have?) • … & more Definition of justice and effectiveness (JustWind4All 2025) Page 7 Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and Slovenia. Focussing on questions around offshore/onshore division, wind energy development at both the near and far future. It honours the local and regional differences and uniqueness. And is designed in such a way that it can be adaptable to any context or region, whether a wind park in the Netherlands or a strategy for wind energy development in Slovenia. In this energy read you can read the overall steps that make up the compass, including examples and illustrations from our co-creation events. In the appendix you will find a facilitator use guide, examples of information developed we used in the compass & previous iterations. What is JustWind4All? The JustWind4All (JW4A) project, funded under Horizon Europe, explores how energy justice can guide a fair and sustainable energy transition. One of its key approaches is the Wind Forum, a network bringing together stakeholders from the local, regional, national, and the European Union (EU) levels across policy, community, markets, and third sectors to meet, collaborate, and exchange knowledge. The Wind Forum has five regional Wind Labs, which serve as testing grounds for innovative approaches and technologies in realworld contexts. Page 8 The compass in action Overview and examples from the field. The compass is designed as a 3-5 hours workshop format to be used with up to 35 decision makers in the wind energy transition. The overall aim when holding the workshop is to aid decisionmakers in working with challenges and opportunities related to justice and effectiveness in developing wind energy. The compass has five main goals: 1. To provide background information on justice and effectiveness in wind energy development 2. To form a shared understanding of the concepts of justice and effectiveness 3. To co-create a vision of wind energy development based on the present 4. To identify barriers for achieving this vision 5. Select applicable strategies to overcome these barriers. Most of the workshop is done in breakout groups such that everyone can share their opinion and vision. This chapter gives an insight into the main steps that make up the compass as well providing examples from co-creation sessions. For a detailed overall overview, see Figure 1. A more detailed explanation suited to facilitators can be found in Appendix 1. Preparation The compass is designed around the concepts of flexibility and adaptability making it usable in a wide array of different contexts. This however means that comprehensive preparation is needed for it to be a successful workshop. Page 9 Procedural justice Distributive justice Effectiveness Vision Central Question Optional extra Scenario information Recap on Present rating of justice Present future posibilities barriers Strategies Summarize Compass workshop Recap and visioning Presentation Indicators - apply justice & effectiveness Barriers Handout Central Question Information on justice Ask What is relevant to participants, what key barriers they experience Presentation on justice, setting the scene, collect barriers from participants? To inform Breakout - groups Breakout - groups Strategies Preperation Figure 1: Flowchart using and running the compass workshop Page 16 Strategies The goal of this step is to give participants strategies to overcome the barriers identified in the previous step. This is done by giving them a compass lotus developed as part of this workshop which contains a wide variety of strategies. Additionally, participants are encouraged to share useful strategies among themselves. Strategy Lotus The strategies included on the lotus are formulated on a relatively high abstraction level improving applicability in many different contexts. The lotus like its namesake opens up to show its content. It is handed to the participants folded to reduce information overload, see illustrations on the right. The lotus starts with several strategic themes and then can fold it out to reveal general strategies. The compass can eventually be folded out completely to show more specific strategies but also examples from the case studies. A more detailed selection of the strategies can be found here: https://justwind4all.eu/wind-energy-compass/ Figure 6: The strategy lotus in stages Page 17 Page 18 Plenary sharing & feedback The last step of the workshop is to share the vision, core barriers and strategies plenary of each breakout group and to shed light on similarities and differences. This is done by the main facilitator in a plenary setting. Summarizing the perspectives on procedural justice in Spain There is a recognized need for more balanced stakeholder involvement and meaningful public participation in wind energy projects. Presently, stakeholder diversity is lacking in terms of effective participation, raising concerns about power imbalances. A notable issue is that people often understand how to oppose wind projects but are unclear about how to support or co-develop them. This reflects a lack of clarity and accessibility in public participation processes. This interesting as both groups raised that the decision making process is quite transparent highlighting a potential for improved literacy amongst stakeholder groups with regard to the development process. Page 19 References Balkan Green Energy News, 2023, LEITWIND LTW42 250 kW, the third wind turbine installed in the entire state of Slovenia, LEITWIND LTW42 250 kW, the third wind turbine installed in the entire state of Slovenia Hebinck, A., & Loorbach, D. (2024). Explorative transition governance: Understanding by engaging in transitions in the making. Cambridge Open Engage. doi:10.33774/coe-2024n9blh Jenkins, K., D. McCauley, R. Heffron, H. Stephan, R. Rehner, Energy justice: a conceptual review, Energy Res, Sociol. Sci. 11 (2016) 174–182, https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.erss.2015.10.004 Newell, P.J., F.W. Geels, B.K. Sovacool, Navigating tensions between rapid and just low-carbon transitions, Environ. Res. Lett. 17 (2022) 041006, https://doi.org/ 10.1088/1748-9326/ac622a. RVO, 2024, Windparken op de Noordzee (Windparken op de Noordzee | RVO.nl laatste update Dec. 2024) RVO, 2025, Monitor windenergie op land in Nederland (Monitor windenergie op land in Nederland | RVO.nl, last update 2025) Scoones, I., Stirling, A., 2020. Uncertainty and the politics of transformation, in: The Politics of Uncertainty. Routledge, pp. 1–30. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003023845-1