Renewable Dreams vs Local Realities with Adele Tharani
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Summary
In this episode of the Non-Nonsense Sustainability Podcast, host Ildiko Almasi Simsic welcomes Adele Tharani, Social Sustainability Manager at Ørsted. They delve into the complexities of making renewable energy projects socially positive and discuss the concept of a "Just Transition."
Adele shares her insights on the challenges and responsibilities developers face in ensuring that renewable energy projects benefit local communities. The conversation covers the importance of balancing economic benefits with social impacts and the need for rigorous impact assessments.
The episode concludes with a discussion on the opportunities and challenges in achieving a just transition. Adele emphasizes the importance of collaboration among stakeholders and the potential for renewable energy projects to positively impact communities if approached with a focus on social sustainability.
Highlights
Adele Tharani discusses the importance of social sustainability in renewable energy.
The concept of 'Just Transition' is explored beyond buzzwords and jargon.
Challenges in balancing economic benefits with social impacts are highlighted.
The role of developers in ensuring long-term community benefits is examined.
Adele emphasizes the need for rigorous impact assessments in project planning.
The episode discusses opportunities for community co-ownership in renewable projects.
Collaboration among stakeholders is crucial for achieving a just transition.
Key takeaways
1. Social sustainability is crucial for the success of renewable energy projects.
2. A 'Just Transition' requires balancing economic benefits with social impacts.
3. Developers must engage with local communities to ensure long-term benefits.
4. Rigorous impact assessments are necessary to manage social and environmental impacts.
5. Collaboration among stakeholders is essential for a successful transition.
Timestamped breakdown
[0:21] — Introduction to Adele Tharani: Adele Tharani's background in social sustainability and her role at Ørsted are introduced.
[1:05] — Realization of Social Impact: Adele shares her early realization of the social aspects of renewable energy.
[2:29] — Defining 'Just Transition': The concept of 'Just Transition' is explained beyond industry jargon.
[3:52] — Challenges in Renewable Transition: Discussion on the challenges of transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables.
[5:39] — Developer's Role and Responsibility: The long-term responsibilities of developers in community engagement are discussed.
[8:04] — Community Impact and Job Creation: The expectations and realities of job creation in renewable projects are explored.
[10:30] — Balancing Costs and Benefits: Adele discusses how to balance costs and benefits for communities.
[12:58] — Selling Social Strategies to Management: Adele talks about the ease of selling social strategies to senior management.
[17:11] — Hidden Costs of Ignoring Social Impact: The hidden costs of not addressing social impacts are highlighted.
[22:47] — Community Co-Ownership Models: Examples of community co-ownership in renewable projects are discussed.
[27:20] — Standard Practices and Niche Examples: Standard and niche practices in community benefits are outlined.
[40:08] — Opportunities for a Just Transition: Adele discusses the opportunities and challenges in achieving a just transition.
Edited transcript
Welcome back to the non-nonsense sustainability podcast. I'm your host Ili Kalamashi Simsik and today we're talking about social impacts in the context of renewable energy. Today I'm joined by Adel Tani, the commercial sustainability manager and global community impact lead at Ørsted. She brings 15 years of experience in operationalizing holistic strategies that bridge the gap between social impact and renewables. She's also at the forefront of the new era of impact accounting. Welcome to the show, Adele.
Adele: Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to have the conversation. So, before you dive in, what was the moment that made you realize that renewables are more than just turbines and wind?
Adele: I think that realization came very early on. By training, I'm a sociologist. So I went into my professional life with a passion and a commitment to work on things that will make people's lives better. And somehow early in my career, I got into corporate social responsibility. Back in the days, it was corporate social responsibility. Now it's corporate sustainability only. And my first in-house role was actually in oil and gas. So I was leading social performance for an oil and gas company and that, you know, in oil and gas, this topic of community engagement, community development, community relations, it has a very long history. There have been lots of bad stories. I think that also gave rise to that practice emerging in renewables. I think that is still a little bit more of a nascent topic. But I think as a sociologist who also had that oil and gas experience, I know that we don't build renewable energy assets in an area that has no people passing by or living there. Even in deserts and oil and gas, you have people. And you know, renewable transition is not just a technological transition that we're going through. It is a societal transition. It affects people on the ground. It affects people in countries. It affects people globally. It is a societal transition. We cannot transition if we don't understand the fact that it is going to be a people transition. It's a societal transition and we have to bring the people along.
And that leads us to the buzzword battle because this societal transition is now branded as the just transition where we're trying to leave no one behind. So you've got 60 seconds. What is the just transition without buzzwords and jargon?
Adele: I think this is the most difficult jargon to explain because every single organization has a different definition. It started from a workers transition kind of transitioning the workforce from oil and gas to renewables leaving no workers behind. It went all the way to talking about how do we balance the cost and benefits of a transition at a local level even at supply chain and value chain level which also includes mining. It's effectively, you know, how do we transition in a way that creates more benefits than it creates costs.
But this transition has very different aspects. It's about the people. It's about the energy supply. It's about the management systems for supply chains as you mentioned. In your experience, how does it differ for an oil and gas fossil fuel-based company and renewables?
Adele: It's interesting. I don't think just transition was ever a question in oil and gas or mining, right? It was an industry that just emerged. I think just transition in renewables, in my opinion, comes from two roots. One is that we have seen that resource industries can be harmful to people and there's due diligence required. They obviously can bring lots of economic benefits to the areas where they are, but those costs and kind of negative impacts and positive impacts need to be balanced. So I think there's a bit of a learning from the previous resource industries and previous energy sources that renewables inherited and it led to this definition of a just transition. And the second aspect of it is that the speed and scale of this transition is unprecedented. We have not had that with oil and gas. We have not had that with mining. The speed and scale demand that we need to be a bit more mindful on how that transition will be managed with regards to its societal impact. It's also not only the negatives that are giving rise to it but also the understanding that renewables, if done right, can bring a lot of benefit and I think that's a key word, if done right.
Because a lot of the traditional oil and gas industries get so much scrutiny from local communities, from NGOs, and they just have to set up systems to cohabit with these local people and also they're in it for the long haul. Like a construction phase can last for five, seven, 10 years and then usually those companies operate the assets. If you compare that to a renewable project where construction is a year, year and a half and then very often you just develop but you don't operate and maintain the asset. Do you think that mindset contributes to the lagging of social impact consideration for renewables?
Adele: I think it very much depends on the different business model. So for example with Ørsted, we are the developer and operator. We're developer and operator and we are primarily in offshore wind where also the construction has a much longer time frame. The development of that asset has a much longer time frame than onshore. So my experience in renewables comes from a little bit of a kind of unprecedented background. It also has something to do with the geographies we're in. We're primarily in the global north, which has a bit of a different legal setup than what you might find in Latin America or sub-Saharan Africa, right? I think even in oil and gas, it depends, you know, whether you're operating, whether you're developing, what is your DNA as a developer? What is your driving force as a developer? Are you a developer that just goes in there, develops as cheaply and as quickly as possible or are you a developer that actually strives to be a trusted partner to the local community, to the local authority, to the actual country? Do you have that longer-term plan for the development of your own pipeline, which would require building that trust not just for that one project, but for the next one and the next one. And are you also a developer that is conscious of the fact that not messing up a project also gives rise to the industry as such.
Yeah, I think that's the whole other thing you know what we are seeing is that the socialized operate of the industry as such is not dependent on one single developer. It is dependent on the industry to understand that this has to be done in a responsible way. If we have a different risk tolerance doesn't mean that everybody does. So it's in a way also bringing the industry along on this path of responsible renewables and also in that sense of responsible renewables that doesn't only look at say the job creation, supply chain development, community benefit funds but that also includes for example accounting for biodiversity impacts, environmental impacts. They are equally as much impacting people's lives as jobs or community engagement might be.
And it's interesting you bring this up because that's how we met through an event where we were talking about impact assessments, environmental and social, specific to a project, specific to a site, whether that's operational or construction. But what does it mean in the long term when you're thinking about proactive positive impact creation? There's obviously a lot of expectation of employment creation in renewables, but the reality is you often need less people to build the asset, even less people to operate when you compare to traditional industry. And there's also the skills gap, right? Not everyone can build a wind turbine.
Adele: Yeah, exactly. There's obviously the expectation of job creation and that varies from project to project, right? It varies whether you're building in hubs, whether it's a single project, it varies on the size, the scale, the complexity of that project. Obviously, the peak is in construction. Operational assets equally as much need some labor force that is usually local. It depends, right? The expectations are there but I think what is also important to know is that the social impact that renewables can create is not limited to jobs and supply chain. It's also a need to pivot from that thinking that is only local content because what we are seeing in terms of community expectations and in terms of what comes in through the consultations, even if it's a 100 FTEs, right? If you are in a community of 30 people, what is the good one that's a good full-time equivalent?
Yes [laughter] thank you. So if it's say 100 construction jobs, if it's a community of 20,000 people, of course, the 100 people who are employed will have the immediate feeling of a benefit, right? Their families maybe as much, right? They will be spending locally. So there will be some economic input into the area. But the majority of the community doesn't feel that benefit.
Exactly. It really doesn't. And even if you talk about economic growth of an area through a local supply chain development, yes, you can prove it in numbers in terms of economic input and the spending you have allocated locally. But what we are saying is that benefit offering has to expand to make it much more tangible for an individual community member in order for them to support and feel that that transition is net beneficial to them. What is the net good, the net beneficial? In the way that I understand just transition and knowing that it has so many different definitions, in essence, it is about balancing the cost and benefit in a way that would create more benefits that would potentially outweigh the temporary or more longer-term cost to the people in the community. Right? But here when we talk about a cost is that the construction nuances or disturbances is that the loss of land how do you define that cost for the community?
Adele: Yeah, it's effectively a potential negative impact right and depending on the area that can vary from visual and kind of nuisance disturbances. It does depending on the area it can mean temporary closure of fishing grounds or whatever that might be. With regards to land that's not something in my experience that's typically private landowners and they do have that kind of relationship with us as we would lease land as way the way that we lease office buildings. They can also go I think with renewables that negative impact aspect is quite an interesting one. I think there's a lot of I don't think there's been so much hotspot studies done in terms of what is the actual impact on a larger scale rather than just individual project social and human rights impact assessments right what is the actual hotspots where the impact is apart from obviously livelihood issues if you have if you have to close off the area with wind typically we don't have such huge land impact at sea. In most places it is possible to even fish within the wind farm. It though it depends on the regulatory environments. In some countries they are by policy closed off to fishing. But it's possible to coexist and it's possible to kind of not have that very large physical impact that would actually have a long-term livelihood impact, right? So that's kind of on the negative side. And obviously you have some construction issues. You have certain times when we have a cultural rights question as well.
Yes. Exactly. So that happens. You don't have to go to the developing world to come across indigenous people and indigenous people's land being impacted by renewable projects. There have been examples from the global north as well. I guess turning back to your role as an in-house sustainability impact, community benefit type of person, is it an easy sell? When you come up with a strategy that could really benefit people, there are obviously resource implications. Is it an easy sell to a board or senior management?
Adele: That's a very good question. And I was actually I'm quite surprised that it is not a very difficult sell. I think people who have been in this business for a while and they've developed projects they know that these projects the success of the projects depends on community support whether it's via permitting and sometimes it's regulated and sometimes it affects in a soft way you know whether you're actually going to receive the permit in time on when you would actually expect it or whether you know if you have certain conflicts with the community it might be delayed I think it also depends on you know in people people don't want to they don't want to harm that one. Yeah, that's obvious right it's obvious you know people the people who develop these products are people it's just a question you know on to what extent they have the necessary technical understanding of what is social impact.
Exactly so that comes back to okay I don't want to harm them but how do I do that who's the right person to hire to tell me how I do that and then am I willing to wait for studies and then pay the price.
Adele: Yeah exactly um and in that sense you know this is kind of where where where we come in from from a central function. You know, my job is not to go out and talk to communities. We have local stakeholder engagement managers. We have community liaison officers. Sometimes it's the actual project development director himself or your land and property people. It really depends on the market or the comms people or the market development people who are on the ground going and talking to stakeholders understanding what their concerns are. Sometimes it's just an information lack. Sometimes it's actual expectation for a specific benefit or a specific funding or whatever that might be. But you know the specialist knowledge comes in centrally where we know what the best practice is. Not only we know what the best practice is, we also know what is above the best practice currently.
Yes. Where is the longer-term potential aspiration, the longer-term potential development and where we might want to go. And this you know a project development director or you have how many people maybe 400 people working on a project you know you cannot expect all of them to be social performance experts and they don't have to be I'm not a technical expert I'm not a carbon expert right but making sure that you know the right people are involved in the right time to provide the right lens is key and that it really comes down to the management systems it comes down to how it is integrated and how the projects move through different stages who is getting involved with what kind of a quality standard if you will and you know those quality standards are you know that very well you know social performance is as much an art as it is a science.
Yes it so depends you know you can this is not a checkbox thing it so depends on a specific situation on a specific conversation on a specific community on specific context you name it time and it can still change right um so this this is kind of you know how we approach it. The second angle through which we approach it as well is also to showcase you know what is the what is the actual business value from doing community impact right and there's a lot of work going into this you know there's been work in oil and gas who actually you know that actually showcased that an investment in community relations early in the project because it actually cost cheaper earlier in the project than is an investment that has a return of course you know you can buy into that from a conceptual perspective there's some work being done also in looking at the at quantifying it.
Yeah, that's very very interesting for me. So tell me more about it.
Adele: There's actually a very good a very interesting project by Institute for Human Rights and Business called the cost of green conflict. They've been working on it for a couple of years now with numerous renewable energy companies looking at what they call the hidden bill because if you have you can say that you know it's it's a cost to actually invest in a social risk assessment or a social human rights risk assessment even if you don't have a lender in a project you would say that it's a cost. If you don't invest in that, you will still see a certain legal cost, permitting delay cost, you name it, increase in, you know, requirements to actually go out and, you know, engage the community later in the project, maybe physical damage to the project. You will see the cost coming in somewhere else.
Yeah, it's just that that is not necessarily so visible. It doesn't appear on a balance sheet and they call it a hidden bill. And in essence, you know, the way that we are thinking about it as well is to think, you know, what can we what can we it's kind of a risk-management perspective, right? You know what can we preempt what do we need to do to make sure that that hidden bill doesn't appear somewhere because it is somewhere.
Yeah. You know it's social a social social a good social performance or or you know good community relations is not is it's not a cost. It's an investment. It's an investment for one project. It's an investment for from that one project to the next adjacent project to the next project in a different market that will be part of your brand and is also an investment for this renewal for this industry as such to maintain a social contract and social mandate to proceed because you know communities are are voters communities are constituents. Yes. Then you see that you know happening in a few other geographies where you if if communities don't feel that this transition is beneficial and it's maybe more costly to them personally they will vote differently than we might have wanted to them to. Right? So we can't afford to mess this one up.
Yeah. And in a way this is kind of like a insurance policy. Like that's how we explain it to people. And that's that's the second point I want to talk to you about is how do you set up your standards and management systems because obviously you have to operate within the country's legal frameworks but their environmental assessment regulation is usually below international best practice especially when we're looking at social and especially when we're looking at the social benefit system. So how do you balance meeting these minimum requirements and going beyond for each one of your projects?
For example on baseline data. So later on you have that insurance policy if claims come in you can say that you came in early you gather the evidence this was the situation before we started operations and and then work with the community based on that.
Adele: Exactly. You know the permitting regimes and kind of you know the tender regimes in different countries differ greatly in some you know you're not as a developer you're actually not required to do any community consultation there's also not any kind of you know social content requirements sometimes it's purely price in other places you know it's it's way more advanced and it's really kind of moving in in in a very you know professionalized manner in terms of what social performance and monitoring and management is expected.
What country for?
Adele: I'm following actually Australia quite a lot. I think they're doing some very they haven't decided exactly especially for offshore wind you know what the framework will be but some of the debates over there are really kind of moving in that direction of you know making sure that we have you know social baselines we do have you know community benefit funds that actually are based on social baselines you know they're they're thinking about the IEP2 standard I buzzing now myself for the depth of community engagement which is basically thinking you know about maybe even scoring you know scoring tenders in terms of the depth of community engagement.
How would we measure that?
Adele: The standard that I mentioned actually talks about the different levels of kind of the depth of engagement starting from community information.
Yes, that's everyone does that. Everybody does that. Community information, right? I told the community that this is what's going to happen like hap you know most likely I told hopefully I told early enough.
Yeah. Not too early not to create an expectations. It's a balancing act and you know it has a five-step approach. Which I'm not an expert on it but that's from from my understanding has a five-step approach and the fifth one is actually community empowerment in making decisions.
How what is when is a community empowered?
Adele: It might be an obvious question but how do we measure that?
Adele: I don't it's qualitative according to that it's qualitative right it's you know there are certain tools that you can use and kind of to showcase and where they're integrated in decision-making you can show you know what kind of decisions have they influenced that's the only way you could actually work with that right but I think you know the these are some of the very interesting developments I think there are other countries who are talking about community co-ownership.
Yes part of I've heard that I've heard that which is which is you know which is again kind of going back to that part of the of our conversation when I said that it's not just the jobs it's not just the environment. It's not just a supply chain that with renewables we have a chance to kind of revisit on what social or what community benefits mean. And one of those things is for example you know looking into different tools for example community co-ownership really bringing the community along with you as a partner.
What does it what does it mean?
Adele: It can mean it again it's one one aspect that is not clearly defined. There's different geographies that define it differently. There's, you know, South Africa is working on this. There's great examples in Scotland, great examples with the indigenous ownership in Canada. Typically, it means a some sort of a financial and some sort of governance participation of a community entity or a community group or a cooperative whatever in the actual renewable energy asset.
So, it's asset specific.
Adele: It's asset specific. So they're basically invested in the asset and with that investment obviously comes in governance participation right depending on the size of that investment and whatnot but that kind of shifts that conversation of you know the relationship between renewables and community to a different to a different paradigm it's no longer compensatory relationship where I've developed the project I told you about it you have these impacts and I'm going to compensate you and add something on top to actually like look we are in this together. We have to do it in partnership and we both benefit from it over time depending on the project success. It doesn't work for every community. It doesn't work for every project. But this is some of those kind of ways of reinventing on what social performance and in renewables can be.
No, it's quite refreshing for me to hear this take because that's you know my experience is similar but often very different. So they don't they think about community as someone they need to engage with or need to establish some sort of a relationship so that they don't cause too much trouble, but they don't think of like, okay, what is the legacy we're leaving behind? Are we really helping these people take ownership of their assets and their local energy and work really together on that?
Adele: Yeah, exactly. And for me you know these kind of things are quite quite exciting because you can you know it it it creates a certain know systemic shift in how we think about you know resource industries and community relations right it it really changes that conversation um but I you know I also having worked with this I know that it doesn't work for every single situation it's also not in the interest of every single community in some communities they just want to know the compensation and they don't want to be part of that project. But having that opportunity and having a model, so to say, on how this could work, it just expands that toolbox on how many people might feel that they're benefiting and might actually benefit from from renewable energy expansion. And with community ownership, there's two benefits to it. One is actual financial return.
Yeah.
Adele: Which is obviously a tangible, you know, benefit in my pocket. Everybody can feel it. It's not just a job. It's actually, you know, an equity stake or a royalty or whatever that is. But it's also a feeling of engagement that it also has that you know it's a very intangible benefit of you know and there's been some great examples of you know community co-crowdsourced renewables that really create that to know pride in that we are part of this transition. We're tackling climate change together. We are part of the solution and you know there's also some interesting interesting work happening with regards to say indigenous people's engagement in renewable energy expansion tool.
Yeah, it will happen so that you know there will be some of the most fertile renewable energy spaces in the world do have a cultural significance to indigenous peoples. That's a fact. There's been some interesting, you know, movements with some of the indigenous people's organizations to say we understand that we want to be part of the solution and we want to actually actively engage in this because we understand that there's a clear importance to tackle climate change. There's a clear importance to build renewable energy assets. We have to come together on this and find a way on how can these two things coexist.
Yeah, I think that indigenous people's aspect is very very interesting. I know in some countries the legislation and the culture around involving indigenous people in whatever project development as like a partner that owns part of the asset or can veto decisions around a project is more refined but not in others.
I know you work across countries and in different cultural settings. What are sort of the basic social impact community benefits that you routinely implement on the projects and what are some of the more niche examples of this.
Adele: So what we what we will typically do you know there will obviously always be sort of elements of local content and local content in the sense of you know local hiring or apprenticeship programs because as you rightfully said a lot of the skills that renewables need are not available in the markets you know sometimes we invest in certification schemes. So you train someone to be able to build to be a wind turbine technician for example, right?
That's really cool.
Adele: So that we have across most of our geographies if not all to a varying kind of scale. It depends on the project scale, right? Obviously, you will have local supply chain development. Again, you know the local supply chains are not necessarily available even to supply you know the components or materials that would be required for wind energy. And there's been you know the industry has actually suffered from these supply chain bottlenecks simply because the supply chain local supply chain can't keep up with the demand and can't develop fast enough to be able to supply. So the demand is there and there's a lot of work ongoing with our supply chain developers to just bring you know the local supply chains along and making sure that they actually have the capabilities and they have the technical capacities to supply the components that you will find almost everywhere. Community benefit funds is also something that is quite prevalent. Which basically ensures that you open up an access to a fund or kind of a funding stream for community priorities but through what vehicle or what mechanism?
Typically, you would have it kind of third party managed so a third you know a community group or kind of sort of it's not like a civil society organization and they make their own decisions how.
Adele: Exactly so for example in the UK we're partnering with an organization called grandscape they administer our community benefit funds they are managed through an advisory council of different community organizations they're set up by a community consultations on you know what is the area that should be should this fund be open to what are the priority topics that this should fund. We've done some interesting work in Poland where actually the community benefit fund a pre-commencement one a very very early early start of a community benefit fund was developed you know a part of its development was just taking a walk with a community and asking them you know what would you want to change and it's a very small community I think it's a couple of thousand people only and it has a gigawatt more than what being developed in that area. Right? So there's you know that you will also have because that also gives you that flexibility to for community itself to decide what they want to invest in to also take ownership of that funding and to expand that benefit offering so to say and that that is something you know even in countries that don't require necessarily such high levels of engagement or high levels of community benefit sharing they will still have kind of maybe a potential community benefit and attached to it. The niche stuff is for example community ownership which can complement a community benefit fund. So that's you know that that does exist in some places. We have some examples in Germany onore. Where wind farms are community co-owned with different sort of community organizations and setups. You have some examples of community energy discounts. We also have an onore wind farm that basically you know the whole community receives an energy discount.
Wow. How do you determine who's in the community then?
Adele: With that specific example I could not tell right now but that it basically is a town.
It's like yeah so it's around.
Adele: Yeah surrounding areas right and it's wind energy so you don't have you know that massive kind of you know land aspect. You don't have a substation that would have you know the impact is quite localized right so you could quite easily determine you know what is around and you know we can talk about visual impact in some we determine it by who sees the who sees the wind the tip of the wind turbine you know far away in the sea in sometimes is that right.
Okay and now you know I cannot help but have to ask about the skeptics's perspective on some of these community investment funds because the criticism that was raised by many civil society organizations is that you're just throwing money at a problem. You're outsourcing the solution. You say, "Okay, here's this money. You guys decide what you need, what you want to do. Just be happy and don't bother us."
Adele: And I think you know when I came when I came also in into Ørsted and into this field you know and that's that goes back to this question of you know balancing the cost and benefit the you know the way that we have to approach community benefits is through both angles. You have to work on the negative impacts and only then you add the positives on top. So the first is the community engagement, the actual planning and development of these projects in a way that will be the least disruptive to the community. You have to do that first. That's the biggest chunk of the pie. Everything else you add on top community benefit funds even you know the best practice in the UK is is they're not compensatory mechanisms. They are on top.
Okay.
Adele: Community co-ownership is even on top of a community benefit fund. But everything below has to happen first. Otherwise, you know, it's the typical philanthropic engagement. It shouldn't be. Yeah. Have to first work with community engagement. You know, figuring out how you're going to build this project and only then you think about, you know, the added benefits on top. And I think that's the risk of the other like sort of like criticism of the industry is that the land rights if you have an international financial institution backing a project they apply their own standard for land acquisition and livelihood related impact assessments. When you're a private developer working with the country's legal framework there is a gap between that and I had to do a lot of these willing buyer willing uh lei assessment where we checked whether those local communities were really willing to lease this land for the project could they say don't put it on my land put it someone else's land we can talk about the land acquisition but I think it's also with with uh with you know wind since primarily our portfolio is in wind.
Yes.
Adele: So the land that we need, we don't need to acquire land. Typically, you lease long. We lease the seabed. We lease the we lease the land with private landowners primarily. We need access to put say the cable routes in which is a kind of minimal disruption but you don't you it doesn't affect the land at all. It basically doesn't and what doesn't have such a massive land impact. And what about fishing rights and access to that area of the sea? So what happens usually with the onshore wind is there is the countrywide master plan. They designate areas for renewable development and then we go into the detail of what land boats to take, where to put the turbines. Is that the same mechanism for offshore wind?
Adele: Offshore wind is way more regulated than onshore. In onore in a lot of the places it is really a local municipality decision and a private land owner decision you know in the US we have a whole land team which travels around the country there specific areas we know are just more you know better for solar better for wind and it's really a question and a negotiation of land owners we've had only positive feedback from the land owners say in Texas quite happy especially with the current droughts and with current fluctuations in their farming income to have an additional income from hosting a wind turbine and even a road that is going to make life a little bit easier that we need to build to get to the wind tur right and then they use it to access their crops, right?
So there's, you know, there's positive stories from that.
Yeah. I think it's important to pose here and say that a lot of these wind farms are welcome in rural communities because you also build a road.
Adele: Yeah, exactly. It is different to solar. Of course it's different to solar and there's you know some work being done in terms of seeing how can in agri-solar how can you make sure that you know there's a dual usage of that land that would be feasible and possible. There's you know innovations to make sure that that coexistence is there that you because solar takes you know quite a bit of land space much more than wind with wind the impact is much much less right with regards to offshore that is much heavier regulated. It is public land. It is seabed leases. It is designated spaces in pretty much every geography and it is also part of the regulatory framework on whether fishing is allowed within a wind farm or not. That you know in most geographies where we are in it is allowed. So we have relationships with the fisheries both in terms of figuring out you know how it should be how it should be developed how it should look like what are the most fertile fishing grounds we have relationships with them and just you know even making sure that they have the right equipment to they help us with monitoring of the ecosystems for example in some geographies it is closed off for example Germany and that you know compensatory discussion is at a national level with the fishery organizations.
Okay. So, it really depends on kind of also the agency. We as a developer have or kind of the not even the expectation. I think it's really more about kind of what what kind of negotiations can we be part of and what kind of negotiations we're not part of. The only other thing we can do is you know again work on an industry level on what we might think is a more effective feasible solution for coexistence to minimize any potential negative impacts on fishery livelihoods in making sure that we can still develop the develop the industry. And I know you work mainly in the global north but what about other uses of the sea like tourism, boating, yachting? I know that was a conversation of how do we even do like a baseline assessment?
Adele: Yeah, it's a the sea is a very busy space. I know [laughter] surprisingly busy, right? You have commercial fishing, you have recreational fishing, you have oil and gas, you have shipping, you have tourism, you have defense.
Yes.
Adele: So it's it's a busy space. It's a busy space. And we have we have actually specialist fishery engagement managers typically also defense and commercial fishery engagement managers. Some of them actually come from the fishing community themselves. And it really it really depends you know commercial also you know kind of recreational fishing in the US will be very different to Taiwan.
Yeah I can imagine. So when you talk about global frameworks, I think the key learning we have is, you know, we can set global frameworks on what are the principles we want to follow, but they're so localized and that is constantly the discussion we're having with our global markets that you have to it's not just even localized in the market. You have to go to the exact area to speak that to that exact fishing organization or that exact fisher and figuring out what works. It's that's how it goes. If you ask me about global frameworks, I don't believe that they can exist. I think there's you can have a global framework of the minimum threshold. You don't want to fall below and that I would say sometimes has to go a little bit above the lender requirements in my experience.
Okay. And then you can have you know certain aspirational frameworks of if the if the certain if say the the the project is in a in an area that can benefit and can and and is conducive to going a little bit above that you can still you know think about for example if you think about job creation you can create jobs but you can create jobs for Axbridge graduates. How do you make sure that the jobs go actually to those communities and those demographics that are at most of the in most need of an economic opportunity?
Yeah, it comes back nicely to our like the start of the discussion on the just transition. So concluding our conversation and looking forward, what do you see as the main bottlenecks and the main opportunities to get this just transition right from a renewable developers perspective?
Adele: I think it requires a collaboration of lenders, governments, different renewable energy actors to agree that we want a just transition that we all have a role to play and as I mentioned you know sometimes it's the lenders that have a role to play sometimes it's other developers who we are in JVS with or we have an adjacent project to sometimes is the is the policy makers and the governments we all have a role to play to move together towards a just transition it's not enough for one Ørsted or one me to do that and the opportunity opportunity is there. I think the opportunity is there to advance the social performance function with renewables expansion. Renewable energy companies are only now developing the standards. They're only now developing the practices. We can base those practices on the oil and gas and mining experience or we can take this opportunity with an emergence of a new industry to rethink and to think for example you know do we want to just work on minimum standard minimum safeguards of do no harm and compensation for potential negative impacts or do we want to go all the way back to the design phase and figuring out you know can we find the most speciting questions you know can we find places that are going to be not only the least disruptive but in some ways you know and we've we've done some of that some of that work as well figuring out which areas are in need of the biggest economic uplift. How can we leverage the opportunity the investment that is going to go into this the jobs that will be created in this to actually have a positive contribution for people's well-being where it is needed. How can we open up the jobs for socioeconomically deprived communities? There's been, you know, we had some examples of apprenticeship programs for environmental justice communities in the US. You know, people who don't have a CV, for example. How do you how do you lift how do you create a platform for them to even be thinking about potentially applying for an apprenticeship to become a winter technician? It is a huge opportunity to do so, right? But it will that opportunity will not materialize if we continue thinking about only do no harm and only due diligence. That opportunity will only come if we start thinking there is an opportunity. We can get there but we do need to work in the ecosystem to make sure that that is actually our new standard and it is part of how we develop that electron. It's not a cost, it's an investment.
Yeah, I think that's a very uplifting ending to this episode. I'm very grateful that you came. I've always wanted to give platform to the actual developers because I know some of you are doing an amazing job and are quite forward thinking in terms of community benefits and social impact. So, thank you for being here with me today.
Adele: Well, thank you. Thank you for buzzing on every single buzz word I use. I didn't hear it so often. So, that's well done me. [laughter] No, I think it's absolutely great. And I think especially you know this community of of environmental and social performance practitioners and you know some some of what I'm going to be talking about is it resonates with them. Some of it is a little bit, you know, maybe might be they might somebody might call it naive, right? But I do see the chance to think about it and I think I also take it as my own personal mission a little bit of coming, you know, from oil and gas to to say that, you know, we have a chance to rethink and there's some partners in this renewable energy space that are willing to think together on what could be next, what could be the next paradigm, what could be the next practice.
So, thank you. Thank you for being here with us today. I hope you learned a lot more about just transition than what you hoped for and you also have an optimistic outlook on renewable developments. We'll be back with some more next time.
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