Scottish Government consultation on community benefits from net zero energy developments
Foundation Scotland recently responded to the Scottish Government’s consultation on updating the good practice principles for community benefits from renewable developments.
This consultation is part of a review of the Good Practice Principles for onshore and offshore renewable energy, which seeks to ensure that guidance helps communities and developers get the best from community benefits. You can read more here.
Our Communities team works with, and was involved in the development of, the previous iteration of these good practice principles (GPPs) for onshore renewables, and recently also worked with the University of Strathclyde on a related report in this area, looking at guiding principles and actions for enhancing community benefits from Community Benefit Funds.
If you were familiar with the previous Good Practice Principles, this most recent consultation incorporates a wider range of technologies as potentially coming into the frame of reference for the updated principles, which is a reflection of the significant proliferation of projects and project types as we move towards the Net Zero targets.
Our response calls for clear principles underpinned by practical support to maximise fairness, impact, and sustainability in community benefit schemes. We emphasised the need for inclusive, flexible, and community-led approaches to defining and distributing community benefits from offshore wind and other renewable energy developments.
Key points include recognising a wide range of affected communities - by place and interest - and adopting a tiered model, reflecting levels of impact. Any decision making processes established for fund distribution should be informed by the scope and reach of the fund, supported by robust governance, strategic planning, and community engagement.
Guidance should also promote early, meaningful engagement and enable communities to influence arrangements from the outset, whilst a national, regional, and local layered approach to benefit distribution is recommended, ensuring directly impacted communities are not disadvantaged.
The response also highlights the value of aligning benefits with community plans and national priorities with fund use for greatest impact, and stresses the importance of adequate and tailored support for communities lacking capacity. Linked to this, our response also proposes the creation of a national Community Benefit Advisory Service (CBAS) to support consistency and equity of support across projects.