Best Practice Guidelines: Consultation for Offshore Wind

Energy Developments

Russell Marsh, WWF-UK

www.wwf.org.uk

Why Consult

• Onshore developments experienced strong opposition

• Offshore wind is a new industry - full impacts unknown

• Formal consents process less developed than for onshore wind

• Early, effective consultation with all interested parties important

The Guidelines

• Initiated by the BWEA - web based process run by ‘Dialogue by Design’

• Used consensus building process

• Final product supported by large number of organisations including WWF

JNAPC

The Guidelines

• Outline the importance of effective consultation for offshore wind development

• Present a number of tools to help ‘design’ the process:– Who are the stakeholders– Consultation process– Techniques

Effective Consultation

‘Enable all stakeholders to make known their views and to work together to ensure

they are addressed’

Effective Consultation

• Principles:– Inclusive– Equality– Responsibility– Transparent

The Stakeholders?

• Impossible to provide an exhaustive list but will include:– Statutory consultees– Strategic stakeholders– Community stakeholders

• Community stakeholders more difficult to define but potentially most important

Consultation is no guarantee that consensus will be reached but an

inclusive, effective process will help to smooth the path of offshore wind development and build people’s

confidence and support of the technology