How can you prioritize social sustainability in renewable energy solutions?

The “sustainability as normal” framing of social sustainability needs a quantum upgrade with regard to renewable energy projects. Currently the project intent or purpose is an unquestioned given. Inclusion of stakeholder engagement then is then conducted with a view to obtain the social license to operate. The required re-frame, in my opinion, is to question the project objectives, i.e. the project might typically be for a utility scale wind or solar farm to power a town or an industry. In both cases it could be said that “sustainable energy is being supplied to unsustainable cities or industry”. I will explore the alternatives to this situation in my responses below.

Social sustainability is about improving people's well-being, both now and in the future. It involves meeting social needs, promoting social values, and fostering social capital. For renewable energy solutions, it means involving and respecting all stakeholders, ensuring accessibility and equity, and enhancing capacity and resilience.

Things get really interesting when rather than assessing the impact of the given project (utility scale solar or wind) the assessment is made for the energy related value interactions of the intended customer/consumer (industry or city). Those familiar with the principles of Natural Capitalism, or the books, Factor 4, and Factor 5, will only be too aware of the power of cascading efficiency, least cost planning, and selling efficiency and function rather than “electrons”, and DER. Further, the say $50m to $500m for a 50MW to 500MW utility scale wind or solar project will have land and electrical grid development as a large fraction of the overall cost - such costs can be avoided when embedding the project directly into the consumer realm.

Again, this is where applying the principles of Natural Capitalism, or the ideas presented in the books Factor 4, and Factor 5, becomes critical and potentially revolutionary in terms of delivering social value. As in my previous responses we are looking at embedding the “renewable energy project” into the community or industry customer. We are looking for synergies, industrial ecology, cascading efficiencies and reversing systemic wastage currently baked into the operating system of the “designed as normal built environment”. As well as technological efficiencies we are also looking at market mechanisms such as trading negawatts (savings), revolving loans, feebates, enhanced capital allowances…all to maximize social value.

Just as an addition the re-frame I shared in my responses above, I wanted to share the term “ecological acupuncture”. This term may conjure up an image of the built and social environment in which there are dormant meridians and nodes of unrealized potential energy and creativity. It is these meridians and nodes that need to be identified and targeted for interventions to synergistically and holistically awaken the ecological transformation of society and the built and natural environment in which it exists. Again, rather that using renewable energy to power an unsustainable society we need to work things the other way round.