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Effective communication strategies to engage the public and stakeholders around

CCS projects: a review of country experiences

Workshop report

Part of the project - International comparison of public outreach practices associated with large scale CCS projects, sponsored by the Global CCS

Institute

Prepared byTom Mikunda and Ynke Feenstra

The Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands

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AcknowledgementThis case study report of the Barendrecht CCS project in the Netherlands is part of the Interna-tional Comparison of Public Outreach Practices Associated with Large Scale CCS Projects, coordinated by CSIRO and funded by the GCCSI (Global Carbon Capture and Storage Insti-tute). The project is registered at the Energy research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN) as project 6.00121.

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ContentsSummary 4

1. International comparison of public outreach practices associated with large scale CCS projects 5

2. Objectives of the workshop 5

3. Workshop setup and participants 63.1 The ECN research team 6

4. Presentations 74.1 Public Awareness – The activities of the Global Institute 74.2 Communicating CCS: Raising the Bar 74.3 International comparison of public outreach practices associated with

large scale CCS projects 84.4 What happened in Barendrecht? Communication and public

engagement activities in a Dutch CCS project 84.5 Comparison report of communication and public engagement in CCS

projects worldwide 94.6 Key messages of the CCS communication toolbox 10

5. Breakout session synthesis 10

6. Plenary session 11

7. References 12

8. Useful links 12

9. Annexes Error! Bookmark not defined.12

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Summary

In mid 2009, the project ‘International comparison of public outreach practices associated with large scale CCS projects’ was conceptualised, with the objective of providing practical guidance for CCS project developers on the topic of public engagement and risk communication. The project is sponsored in full by the Global CCS Institute (GCCSI), Canberra, Australia, with re-search being conducted by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation(CSIRO) from Australia, the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University of Illinois and AJW Inc. from the United States.

As an integral part of this project, on the 10th of November in Brussels, a European workshop was organised by ECN entitled ‘Effective communication strategies to engage the public and stakeholders around CCS projects: a review of country experiences’. The aim of the workshop was to assemble researchers and CCS project developers, and allow them to share experiences and discuss newly gained knowledge generated during the project. In particular, the primary ob-jective of the workshop was to gather feedback on a recently completed ‘toolkit’, a compilation of communication techniques for possible implementation in public outreach efforts around CCS projects.

The workshop was attended by 27 participants, including 4 project team members. 50% of the delegates represented industry or industrial branch organisations, and other delegates were af-filiated with various European government bodies, academia and non-governmental organisa-tions. During the workshop, the participants were asked to divide into smaller focus groups ‘breakout groups’ and provide comments on the toolkit. This report summarises the introductory presentations given, and presents the key conclusions of the breakout and plenary sessions.

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1. International comparison of public outreach practices associated with large scale CCS projects

Recent turmoil around a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Barendrecht, the Nether-lands, leading to the project being put on hold (and eventually later being entirely cancelled), has made clear that public perception is an extremely relevant field for CCS. Much research has been done on general public views on CCS, but attitudes on CO2 storage seem to change con-siderably when a project is considered nearby. It is essential that developers CCS projects know about the do’s and don’ts of public engagement and risk communication, based on the latest and best insights from social science.

In mid 2009, the project ‘International comparison of public outreach practices associated with large scale CCS projects’ was conceptualized, with the objective of providing practical guid-ance for CCS project developers on the topic of public engagement and risk communication.The project is sponsored in full by the Global CCS Institute (GCCSI), Canberra, Australia, with research being conducted by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisa-tion (CSIRO) from Australia, the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University of Illinois and AJW Inc from the United States.

Over the last 5 years, a number of large-scale CCS demonstration projects have been proposed, and a number have been implemented. In terms of public engagement, the various CCS projects and project proposals have been met with diverse reactions from local stakeholders. Certain re-gions have welcomed CCS projects, whereas in other regions the announcement of a potential CCS project has been met with anger, frustration and institutionalised protests from within communities, also causing conflicts between national and municipal governments. In light of these experiences, the international comparison project has identified the ‘do’s and don’ts’ in local communication on CCS projects, drawing from the public engagement processes imple-mented in a selection of projects, and observing their outcomes. These ‘do’s and don’ts’ have led to a set of practical public engagement guidelines and techniques, which have been trans-posed into a convenient ‘toolkit’.

2. Objectives of the workshop

The workshop ‘Effective communication strategies to engage the public and stakeholders around CCS projects: a review of country experiences’, is an integral part of the project ‘Inter-national comparison of public outreach practices associated with large scale CCS projects’. The aim of the workshop was to assemble researchers and CCS project developers, in order to share experiences and discuss newly gained knowledge generated within the project, concerning the critical role that public engagement and communication play in the success and failure of CCS projects. The workshop previewed concrete information acquired from detailed case studies of previous public outreach practices from various CCS projects; the Barendrecht CO2 Storage project (the Netherlands), the Carson Hydrogen Power Project, (California, United States), the FutureGen project (Illinois, United States), the Otway Basin project of the CO2CRC (Victoria, Australia) and the ZeroGen project (Queen-sland, Australia). The approach taken for the project is unique in the sense that it analyzes and

Workshop Objectives:

- Introduce and disseminate the lessons learnt from the evaluation of 5 CCS pub-lic outreach case studies.

- Gather feedback on the draft toolkit for CCS public engagement, from mem-bers of industry, relevant government bodies and communication experts.

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compares the consequences of the various communication strategies employed at a number of proposed CCS projects worldwide.

In addition to the case study findings, the draft toolkit for public engagement in CCS projects was presented which incorporates, incorporating the lessons learned from the case study evalua-tions. The toolkit is directed towards CCS project developers, aiming to assist them in the for-mulation and implementation of an effective communication strategy. A substantial part of theworkshop was dedicated to facilitating discussion of the suitability of the toolkit, allowing par-ticipants to reflect on their own experiences with public engagement, and on the way the toolkitcould support them now and in future projects. The feedback gathered from the breakout ses-sions will directly influence the final details and format of the toolkit. All comments and ques-tions contained within this document, with the exception of the presentations, are stated anony-mously.

3. Workshop setup and participants

The workshop in Brussels was intended to allow European CCS project developers and stake-holders to provide feedback on the toolkit. The workshop was structured with two introductory presentations on CCS and communication, followed by a further three presentations introducing the project, the Dutch case study on the Barendrecht CCS project, and an overview of the les-sons learned through the international case study comparison. In the afternoon session, the tool-kit was introduced prior to the participants being asked to breakout into three smaller groups to discuss the document, moderated by a project team member with a set of consistent questions. The programme of the day can be found in Appendix A.

The workshop was attended by 26 delegates, including four project team members. An ap-proximate breakdown of the types of organisations the delegates were affiliated with is pre-sented in the figure below. A full list of participants can be found in Appendix A.

Figure 3.1 Delegate affiliation (excluding project team)

3.1 The ECN research teamThe members of the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands involved in the project ‘Inter-national comparison of public outreach practices associated with large scale CCS projects’ and who organised and attended the workshop were:

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Suzanne Brunsting, researcher, Energy innovation and society group. Ynke Feenstra, researcher, Energy innovation and society group. Marc Londo, group manager, Energy innovation and society group. Tom Mikunda, researcher, International energy and climate group.

The research team members would also like to acknowledge Manuela Loos of ECN for her valuable assistance with organising the workshop.

4. Presentations

The workshop was chaired by Marc Londo, Group Manager of the Energy Innovation and Soci-ety group at the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, and a member of the project team.

4.1 Public Awareness – The activities of the Global Institute Derek Taylor, Regional Representative – Europe, of the Global CCS Institute (GCCSI), pro-vided an overview of the activities of the institute concerning public awareness of CCS. The GCCSI was established by the Australian government in partly in response to an agreement by the G8 in 2008, for a global commitment by 2010 of at least 20 CCS projects (1Mt/annum) to be realised by 2020. The overarching goal of the GCCSI is to accelerate the broad deployment of commercially viable CCS. The institute does not fund projects directly, but facilitates the devel-opment and sharing of knowledge, building capacity and supporting regulatory frameworks. The GCCSI recognise that one of the key enablers of this goal is the issue of public awareness. Greater public awareness and understanding of CCS is needed to improve sentiment towards CCS technologies and reduce delays in project development. Full presentation in Appendix A.

4.2 Communicating CCS: Raising the Bar

The following presentation was given by Eric Drosin, Director of Communications at the Eu-ropean Technology Platform for Zero Emission Fossil Fuel Power Plants (ZEP), gave a presen-

tation entitled ‘Communicating CCS: Raising the Bar’. Mr Drosin began by describing statistical observations on the per-ception of climate change by the public. Belief in human-induced climatic change has dropped in the last 3 years both in Germany and the UK. Possible reasons are skepticism in cli-mate science, changed priorities, and confusion amongst the public between weather events and long-term climatic change.In terms of CCS, the awareness of the technology is extremely limited, with an awareness level in Germany understood to be just 1%.

Communication of CCS should be done using clear and honest answers, and the benefits of certain CCS technologies such as co-production of hydrogen and the possibility of negative emission through biomass/CCS combinations should be hig-hlighted. Finally Mr Drosin presented the improved ZEP CCS website, and raised the possibility of having the ZEP site as the

online reference for CCS. The full presentation can be found in Appendix A.

Perceptions and beliefs (Drosin, 2010)

Perceptions and beliefs (Drosin, 2010)

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4.3 International comparison of public outreach practices associated with large scale CCS projects

Tom Mikunda, a junior researcher of the International Energy and Climate group at ECN, in-troduced the project ‘International comparison of public outreach practices associated with large scale CCS projects’, of which the workshop was part of. The project is a collaboration be-tween research institutes in the Netherlands, the US and in Australia. The project aims to learn from previous public engagement approaches that have been applied at five large scale CCS in-stallations. The lessons learnt from such research will then be translated into a practical tookit for project developers. The sites were selected based on location, the outcome, the availability of sufficient information and access to stakeholders. Mr Mikunda presented a summary table (see below) of the five case studies, highlighting their key features. The presentation can be found in Appendix A.

Case study quick reference (Mikunda, 2010)

4.4 What happened in Barendrecht? Communication and public en-gagement activities in a Dutch CCS project

After a short break, Suzanne Brunsting PhD, a researcher of the Energy Innovation and Socie-ty group at ECN, presented the European case study of the Barendrecht CCS project, the Neth-erlands, entitled ‘What happened in Barendrecht?’ In 2007, a CCS demonstration project was proposed close to the large industrialised port area of Rotterdam. The CO2, captured from a Shell oil refinery, would be transported approximately 20km by pipeline and stored an expended gas field roughly 1,5km under the small town of Ba-rendrecht. The plans were met by large protests, which persistently delayed the project until its cancellation in November 2010. Ms Brunsting, who has thoroughly investigated the public engagement procedure sur-rounding the project as part of a number of research projects, identified a number of flaws in the engage-ment strategy. The public should be involved as early as possible in the planning process, and should be able to participate in the development of the project propos-al. However, Ms Brunsting also highlighted that the current planning procedure policy in place in the Neth-erlands does not encourage extended public participation as they mostly lead to a ‘decide-announce-defend’ approach. The full presentation can be found in Appendix A.

An angry citizen of Barendrecht (Brunsting, 2010)

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Q & A and comments session Brunsting:

Q: Was there involvement of non-governmental organizations (NGOs)?A: There was minimum NGO involvement in the protest and decision making procedures. Greenpeace have stated that they are against CCS being implemented on coal-fired power plants, but as this was an industrial CCS project they did not get actively involved.

Q: What was the benefit for the citizens of Barendrecht?A: There was no direct benefit for the citizens. Due to fear of the CO2 storage causing surface movements, an apparent compensate for possible damages to houses and for loss of property value was understood to have been considered.

Q: To what extent did you take into account the context variables of the project, e.g. political elections?A: During the 3 years running up the cancellation of the project, there have been local elec-tions, and of course all the local political parties had made it clear they were against the project due to the presumption that the majority of the voters strongly apposed the project. There was conflict of interest between the local and national entities of certain political parties, with CCS being supported on the national agenda. Furthermore, the area had seen substantial infrastruc-ture developments, increased rail capacity and larger road networks. The CCS project was thought of as an additional risk.

4.5 Comparison report of communication and public engagement in CCS projects worldwide

Ynke Feenstra, a researcher of the Energy Innovation and Society group at ECN, made a pres-entation that provided additional depth on the project ‘International comparison of public out-reach practices associated with large scale CCS projects’, giving a detailed account of the out-comes of each of the five CCS project investigated, and explaining the methodology used to

identify 39 ‘success factors’ upon which each of the five case studies have been evaluated. When engaging the public in the locale of a potential CCS project, project developers were given three key compo-nents to be included in a communication strategy – investigate the community, adapt your approach and engage early. Ynke an-nounced that an overview document includ-ing an evaluation of all the five case studies against the success factors is available for download from the CSIRO website (see Section 8 for useful links). Presentation Appendix A.

Communication, engagement and outreach (Feenstra, 2010)

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4.6 Key messages of the CCS communication toolboxAfter the break for lunch, Ynke Feenstra continued with a second presentation, ‘Key messages of a CCS communication toolbox: A draft to be discussed.’ The toolkit was presented as a uni-versal guide for CCS implementers, assisting in the design and management of communication and engagement activities around CCS projects. The toolkit does not just include recommenda-tions, but also practical methods and examples. The toolkit covers three main aspects; gathering social data; stakeholder engagement and devising a communication plan. The toolkit contains inter alia templates to be used for gathering demographic information, assessing local attitudes, estimating the local impact of the project, and composing a media release. Ms Feenstra ended the presentation by introducing a set of questions to be answered during the following 3 parallel breakout sessions.

Q & A and comments session Feenstra:

Q: Have you looked at how to place emphasis on local pollution reduction benefits?A: This was not addressed directly. It may be useful to assess to what extent a local community is aware of baseline local pollution levels.

Q: How was the competition for the location of the CCS project in the Futuregen case orga-nised?A: The participant was directed to the specific case study material for a detailed account of the competition setup.

Comment 1: A participant commented that the local public should, at some point, be entitled to say a binding ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the initiative. However, if we assume to put the decision in the hands of the general public, which company will be able to deal with the uncertainty of success due to the factor of public acceptance? The high uncertainties may not be able to pass the board member level.

Comment 2: You need to achieve an alignment between the national and local government. Unless there is agreement in the national government, then the local level can easily pick holes in the involvement of the national government in a CCS project.

5. Breakout session synthesis

Each breakout group during the one-hour session compiled the feedback on the toolkit into a power point presentation. After the breakouts, the participants reconvened in order to share the results amongst the entire group. Each group had nominated a speaker, and short presentations were given by Simon Bennet (Program manager, DG Energy, European Commission), Tom

Breakout groups participant breakdown (Feenstra, 2010)

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Mikunda (ECN) and Ynke Feenstra (ECN). The full presentations can be found in Appendix A, however a summary of the key conclusions to the questions is provided below:

The added value of the document is the practical examples and templates it provides. There are existing documents available such as the US Department of Energy Best Practices for Public Outreach and Education for Carbon Storage Projects, however these provide recom-mendations but do not go as far as providing a strategy to implement them.

One addition to the toolkit can be a temporal dimension, a sort of timeline. It would be useful to chronologically order the various tools to help the project developer to implement the right tool at the right time. Address the question ‘how early is early engagement?’ A generic example project could be setup to demonstrate the timeline for stages and types of pro-ject/public interaction.

Greater emphasis should be placed on the identification of local benefits to a CCS project. Developers should be aware that the general concerns of local citizens are more immediate, and selling CCS to prevent climate change and meet emissions targets for multinational companies is not going to win support.

The toolkit is not only relevant for project developers, but it should also be disseminated topolicy makers and local authorities.

Just like an ordinary toolkit, this one should consist of a diversity of potentially helpful pieces of information, checklists and so on, for the user to pick from.

6. Plenary session

Immediately after the results of the breakout sessions, a short plenary session was opened allow-ing the delegates to share comments with one another.

The group was in agreement that the research team should not delay the release of the tool-kit, and extensive reviews and revisions may impede the effectiveness and impact of the toolkit. Developers of proposed CCS projects require this information as soon as possible.

It was pointed out that communication is not about convincing those that are against a project to become in favour of it. You want people to accept the project (you don’t need them to be in favour of it). To create acceptance you have to make sure that stakeholders ex-perience ‘procedural justice’, that the process (the communication, engagement, decision making process) is perceived as being well performed. Focus must thus be on the process it-self and not on the outcome of the process. When people feel that the process is done well,they will accept the outcome better (even though they are not in favour of the outcome).

It was proposed that the toolkit should be a ‘living document’, with maintenance of the document according to input from actual users.

After the plenary, the research team provided an update of the general release of the final toolkit, expected in spring 2011.

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7. References

Brunsting, S. (2010): What happened in Barendrecht? Communication and public engagement activities in a Dutch CCS project. Presented at the workshop: Effective communication strategies to engage the public and stakeholders around CCS projects: a review of country experiences. Brussels, Nov, 2010.

Drosin, E. (2010): Communication of CCS: Raising the bar. Presented at the workshop: Effective communication strategies to engage the public and stakeholders around CCS projects: a review of country experiences, Brussels, Nov, 2010.

Feenstra, Y. (2010): Comparison report of communication and public engagement in CCS pro-jects worldwide. Presented at the workshop: Effective communication strategies to engage the public and stakeholders around CCS projects: a review of country experiences, Brussels, Nov, 2010.

Mikunda, T. (2010): International comparison of public outreach practices associated with large scale CCS projects. Presented at the workshop: Effective communication strategies to engage the public and stakeholders around CCS projects: a review of country experiences, Brussels, Nov, 2010.

8. Useful links

The overview document presented by Ynke Feenstra is available at:www.csiro.au/resources/CCS-Comparison-report.html

The individual case studies are available at:www.csiro.au/resources/Otway-case-study.htmlwww.csiro.au/resources/Zero-Gen-case-study.htmlwww.csiro.au/resources/Barendrecht-case-study.htmlwww.csiro.au/resources/FutureGen-case-study.htmlwww.csiro.au/resources/Carson-Case-Study.html

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Appendix A

See separate file.