Tilting at windmills? The attitude behaviour gap in renewable energy conflicts

Researchers
Claire Haggett
(Please note: All contact regarding this project should be made to Claire Haggett)

Institution
University of Newcastle

Summary of Project
Project Update
Researcher Profiles
Researcher Contact Details
Publications
Annual progress report - 2003 (pdf format)
Final report (pdf format)

Summary

There is an apparent gap between high public support for renewable energy (including wind power) and high public opposition to individual windfarm developments leading to low success in permitting decisions. Essentially society has a problem but has relatively little understanding of the complex human attitudes and behaviours operating within it. The project will unpack this apparent gap between human attitudes and human behaviours using theories, concepts and existing research from a range of disciplines, including economics, environmental management, geography, planning, politics, psychology and sociology. The aims are: (i) to synthesise current understanding from different disciplinary perspectives of the human attitudes and behaviours exemplified by wind energy controversies, (ii) to begin to develop new theoretical and conceptual tools to extend that understanding, (iii) to devise new research questions and new methodologies that involve novel links between previously unconnected or loosely connected disciplines, and (iv) to begin to inform public policy on these issues. The project will deepen our understanding of the relationships between human attitudes, behaviours, values and renewable technologies. The findings will have implications and applications beyond the specific issue of wind energy and will also inform public policy on the degree to which policy can or should attempt to provide information, change attitudes, change behaviours, change policies and procedures or change incentives.

Background
There is an apparent gap between high public support for renewable energy (including wind power) and high public opposition to individual windfarm developments leading to low success in permitting decisions. The effect is not only British or European but worldwide. Many analysts and commentators identify the gap as a "planning difficulty" or it is characterised as a value or lifestyle clash between different social groups. There is also a widespread suggestion that this is the NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) syndrome par excellence. There has been some research into public opinion and attitudes to windfarms. Evidence is accumulating that allows typical profiles of proponents and opponents to be mapped, but it is less clear how underlying attitudes, preferences, beliefs and social norms combine together to create these profiles, and how malleable they are. Evidence suggests that opinions and values may not be shaped much by objective impacts measured in quantitative ways (e.g. project size or landscape change) but rather that it is the attitudes and behaviours of developers, local decision makers and the decision processes that have significant effects.

Key Research Questions

  1. What research exists that can be used to inform a detailed exploration of renewable energy-wind energy debates and siting controversies?
  2. To what extent are scientific, environmental, psychological, social, cultural, economic, geographical and political issues a focus of the literature?
  3. To what degree do the different disciplinary literatures focus on issues such as knowledge, uncertainty, risk, citizenship, altruism, trust, agency, fairness and equity?
  4. What are the main theoretical and conceptual frameworks used in each discipline for understanding the links between environment and human attitudes and behaviour?
  5. What range of approaches, and what commonalities and synergies, exist between disciplines?
  6. What methods and tools are used in each discipline, what are their strengths and weaknesses, and what are the opportunities for different disciplines to use the same tools, or different tools in novel combinations?
  7. What are the research gaps, and how might these be closed?
  8. What new research questions need to be asked? How might these be addressed? What future empirical work is required?
  9. What are the links and interactions between public and other stakeholder attitudes and behaviours?
  10. What are the relationships between attitudes, behaviours and development processes?

Research Approach
The approach to be adopted involves

  1. disciplinary research reviews drawing on theories and published studies,
  2. analyses of published grey literature and web-based materials, and
  3. interactive participant workshops, including a "witness" session.

The project therefore involves two parallel strands of work:

  1. a series of five interactive workshops during which a multi-disciplinary team of participants will review and dissect the human attitudinal and behavioural issues embedded in the windfarm issue, map out a preliminary understanding of the issue from their own disciplinary perspective, and suggest new avenues for research;
  2. in parallel to the workshops, the project leader and research assistant will provide continuity by acting as facilitators and organisers of the workshops, will assemble common "data" sources for all participants, and will carry out cross-disciplinary comparisons and some integrated writing using materials produced in the workshops.

Intended Outcomes
These include (i) to begin to develop new theoretical and conceptual tools to extend current understanding of environment-behaviour relationships, with an emphasis on cross-disciplinary synergies, (ii) to devise new research questions and new methodologies that involve novel links between previously unconnected or loosely connected disciplines, and (iii) to contribute to the development of public policy in relation to renewable energy in general, wind energy in particular, and to the procedures and processes through which project permitting occurs.

 

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Project Update - October 2003

The aim of the project is to bring together a range of disciplines to draw out, understand and start to develop approaches that address the apparent gap between human attitudes and behaviours in renewable energy conflicts. The project is progressing well, and has already developed a number of fascinating insights and indications for further research.

A comprehensive literature review has been carried out (and continues) on the factors that may influence conflicts around renewable energy siting. This was focused on whether such opposition is best understood in terms of deficiencies in the regulatory and planning system, or in terms of unfavourable public attitudes. In terms of the public, a number of theories of attitudes and behaviour have been considered, most notably that of 'nimbyism', which is surprisingly widely used still. However, evidence from several empirical studies has cast doubt on this as a simplistic explanation for opposition, and cross national comparisons can be used to highlight the complexity of the issues and the necessary focus on the interaction between people and planning; this may be in terms of such things as communication, involvement, and ownership. The database is available to project participants on the project website which has been set up to facilitate communication.

Two workshops for members of the project have been held. The first of these set the scene, brought all members up to speed with the relevant aspects of the UK planning system, the development of windfarms and the wider energy context. It was also an opportunity for members to begin to highlight areas of theory and concepts from their disciplines that are relevant to the research questions.

The second workshop consisted of presentations by participants of working papers on their initial approach to the questions that have been posed. These papers were circulated amongst group members and after presentations they formed the basis for some very fruitful discussions, with a number of commonalities and potential areas for overlap, synergy and collaboration being identified. The proceedings of each workshop have been recorded and transcribed and may offer an opportunity for a modest "discourse analysis" of the project itself. The papers are at different stages of development, but will in due course contribute to the outputs of the project and may lead to more formal publication.

One of the first areas in which there has been some interesting discussion has been the consideration and definition of the very nature of the 'gap' itself. Does it exist? At what level? Is this a societal or an individual concern? Is it representative of a time lag between changes in attitudes and behaviour? Furthermore, a number of links between the seemingly diverse disciplines in the project are starting to emerge. These are on both a theoretical and a methodological level. In terms of theory, these include links between politics and planning on the emphasis in communicative planning theory on active collaboration between experts, officials and the public to achieve certain goals; and between geography and sociology on the social construction of knowledge, its development and transmission. There are also links to be made in terms of methodology; for example, sociology can give insights into which variables should be tested in an economics model; or a discursive approach in social psychology may illuminate some of the factors, such as communication between key stakeholders, that are critical in environmental management.

Plans for the next stages of the project

In December the project will meet again for a 'witness session', where representatives who have been key participants and stakeholders in wind energy debates and controversies will be invited to present their perspectives, and participants will have the opportunity to ask questions to further inform their understanding. A visit to a local windfarm is also planned, to allow some of the discussions to be put into context; one of the issues that has emerged in the project is the perceptual differences between wind energy in theory and wind turbines in their physical form. A fourth workshop is then planned early in 2004 to develop further the interdisciplinary approaches, and a final workshop will conclude the project and finalise plans for dissemination of the findings.

A number of inter-disciplinary papers for refereed journals are already being planned and/or written, including the possibility of an edited book, and this material will be available for posting on the website as soon as it reaches a suitable degree of resolution.

Researchers

 Claire Haggett
Claire is a sociologist based in the Landscape Research Group. She has previously worked for the Home Office in the Research & Statistics Directorate and on a number of cross-disciplinary and international projects funded by the European Union, the Health Education Authority and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. She has particular interests in the development of interdisciplinary research and in risk, discourse and the construction of social problems.

The project also involves cross-disciplinary engagement and collaboration between the following twelve people:

  1. Chris Armitage, Lecturer, Psychology, University of Sheffield.
  2. Derek Bell, Leverhulme Fellow, Politics, University of Newcastle
  3. Sue Chilton, Lecturer, Economics, University of Newcastle.
  4. Hugh Clear Hill, Senior Lecturer, Environment, University of Sunderland.
  5. Tim Gray, Professor, Politics, University of Newcastle.
  6. Robert Macfarlane, Senior Lecturer, Geography & Environmental Management, Northumbria University.
  7. Hugh Metcalf, Lecturer, Economics, University of Newcastle.
  8. Suzanne Moffatt, Lecturer, Population & Health Sciences, University of Newcastle.
  9. Neil Powe, Lecturer (Planning and Environmental Economics), Architecture, Planning & Landscape, University of Newcastle.
  10. John Smith, Reader, Psychology, University of Sunderland.
  11. Chris Spencer, Reader, Psychology, University of Sheffield.
  12. Geoff Vigar, Lecturer (Planning), Architecture, Planning & Landscape, University of Newcastle.

 

Contact Details

Claire Haggett
Landscape Research Group
School of Architecture,
Planning & Landscape
University of Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU

T.+44 (0) 191 222 6006
F.+44 (0) 191 222 8811
E.claire.haggett@ncl.ac.uk
W.http://www.apl.ncl.ac.uk

Publications

Project Update (pdf)
October 2003