The Local Politics of Renewable Energy

Jamil Khan

Department of Environmental and Energy Systems Studies

Lund University, Lund Institute of Technology

Gerdagatan 13, SE-223 62 Lund, Sweden

Paper presented for the workshop

“Environmental Politics at the Local Level”,

ECPR Joint Sessions, Grenoble, April 6-11 2001.

E-mail: Jamil.Khan@miljo.lth.se

Tel: +46 (0) 46 222 86 39

Fax: +46 (0) 46 222 8644

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INTRODUCTION

Renewable energy is seen as a crucial element in the development towards a

sustainable energy system and governments, business, the environmental

movement and the public in general are all very positive to its increased exploitation.

At the local level, though, specific renewable energy projects can be controversial

and the siting of renewable energy facilities may face serious problems of public

opposition. Previous research about environmental siting conflicts has mostly studied

projects that have clear negative impacts and no environmental benefits, such as

hazardous waste facilities, chemical factories, waste incinerators and infrastructure

(Boholm 1998, Löfstedt 1997, Dorshimer 1996, Leiss 1996, Lidskog 1994, Rabe

1994). However, many projects within renewable energy are controversial in similar

ways and face the same problems of local public opposition even though they are

generally seen as good for the environment. It is, therefore, of both scientific and

societal interest to increase the knowledge about what characterises local conflicts

concerning the siting of renewable energy facilities and this paper is one attempt to

contribute to such a development.

The paper is divided into two quite separate parts, which have in common the fact

that they are concerned with the local politics of renewable energy. The first part is

firmly based on recent empirical research and presents the results of a case study

about a conflict concerning the siting of a biogas plant. The main aim of the first part

of the paper is to give an account of the planning and application process and to

discuss the role of the opposition group that was formed against the project. The

second part of the paper is much more general and is only loosely based on

empirical research. It presents an initial discussion regarding whether renewable

energy poses a dilemma to the environmental movement, since it is positive for the

global environment but can be viewed as a threat to the environment and people in a

specific area. The second part of the paper does not present any empirical findings,

rather, the aim is to point to the possibilities for a new interesting area of research.

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PART ONE – THE BIOGAS CASE STUDY

1. PURPOSE

In January 2000, a political majority in the city of Lund in southern Sweden decided

not to allow any further planning for a biogas plant outside the village of Dalby, a

decision which put a stop to an application process that had been going on for one

and a half years and that had created a heavy local public opposition and much

political hesitation. The overall purpose of the case study has been to reconstruct the

planning process and the interactions of the actors involved. The presentation will

focus on different aspects of the role of the opposition group. One important aspect is

the reasons why an opposition developed and there will be a discussion about how

the shape of the planning process affected public reactions to the biogas project.

Another key aspect is what influence the opposition group had on the final decision to

stop the project. The characteristics and protest activities of the opposition group will

also be discussed.

2. MATERIAL AND METHODOLOGY

The empirical material for the case study consists of documentation and interviews.

The documentation has come from various sources such as the developer (location

reports, the application paper, supplementary information, memoranda), the

authorities (comments on the application and the supplementary information, notes

about decisions), the opposition group and other members of the public (letters to the

authorities about the application, debate articles) and newspapers (articles about the

planning process). The written material was mainly used in order to reconstruct the

chronology of the planning and application process, to find out the issues at stake in

the siting conflict and to check against the answers given in the interviews. Since the

case study focused on the interaction between the key actors and on how they

interpreted the planning process and the actions of other actors, interviews have

been the most important source of empirical information. 14 semi-structured

interviews were carried out with different key persons: 2 representatives from the

developing company, 4 members of the opposition group, 7 municipal politicians and

1 civil servant. The interviews lasted between 30 and 90 minutes and have been

recorded on tape and transcribed into written form. In addition to this, two shorter

untaped interviews were carried out with civil servants at the Planning Office. The

interviews were carried out as a dialogue and the respondent had plenty of

4

possibilities to explore a topic that he or she found interesting and had much insight

about. The interview guides were specifically designed for each type of respondent

(opposition group, developer, politician in the early planning, politician in the Planning

Committee, civil servant) and there was no aim to be able to make a categorised

comparison between the different interviews1. The selection of the interviews

basically followed a snowball procedure where the key persons such as the

representative of the developer, the most involved politician and the most active

members of the opposition group were first interviewed. The original interviews and

some further reviewing of documents made it possible to identify and interview other

persons. The research process had a clearly exploratory character and new

questions where formulated throughout the study, which meant that additional

respondents had to be interviewed and that the interview guides were not fixed even

for respondents of the same type. The main way to increase both reliability and

internal validity2 has been the use of data triangulation. One aspect of data

triangulation is that both documents and interviews were used to reconstruct the

planning process. A second aspect is that different kinds of documents were used

and that people representing all key actors were interviewed, in order to get a more

complete picture of the planning process. The selection of respondents from the

opposition group and the local government was guided by a wish to include different

experiences and perspectives. Two of the interviewed members of the opposition

group were neighbours to the site while the other two lived in the nearby village. Both

politicians engaged in the early planning and those involved in the application phase

were interviewed. Furthermore, politicians from different political parties were

represented.

3. BACKGROUND TO THE BIOGAS CASE

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in Sweden to build biogas

reactors which enable a faster digestion of different types of organic waste (Lindberg

1997). The main purpose of a biogas plant is to find a sustainable way of taking care

of organic waste instead of putting it on deposit or burning it. The biogas process

produces two end products: (1) biogas which can be used to produce heat or as a

1 For an example of an interview guide, see Appendix 1.

2 In short, reliability implies the aim that if another researcher follows the same procedures he

or she would reach the same results and conclusions, while internal validity has to do with the goal to reduce false interpretations and to openly describe your methodology so that other researchers can judge if the conclusions are reasonable. See Yin (1994) for a further discussion.

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substitute to natural gas in pipelines and vehicles and (2) the digested product which

can be brought back to the fields and used as a fertiliser. The present case study

followed a failed attempt to site a biogas plant in the south-west of Sweden. The

facility was planned to be located in the municipality of Lund, 2.5 kilometres away

from the village of Dalby which has around 7.000 inhabitants. The planning and

application process stretched from 1995 to the beginning of 2000 and involved a

variety of different actors. The key actors were the developer, the municipality of

Lund and the local opposition group, and I will later discussion go into detail about

their roles and interactions. A short introduction is, however, necessary at this point.

The developer was the regional waste management company (called Sysav). The

company is jointly owned by nine municipalities in south-western Skåne (the most

southern county in Sweden) and is in charge of the waste disposal and the re-cycling

in the area. It was the developer who was in charge of the planning process and who

made the formal application to build the biogas plant. The municipality of Lund was a

central actor throughout the process and its role was rather complex. The involved

politicians and civil servants played different roles and that of the municipality as a

whole varied in the different stages of the planning and application process. In short,

the municipality at the start worked actively to site the biogas plant in Lund but later

distanced itself from the plans and acted more as a critical authority in the application

phase. At the end of the process a majority within the municipality voted against the

project. The opposition group consisted of close neighbours to the site as well as

households in the nearby village of Dalby, who worked actively to oppose the plans.

Other important actors have been the County Administration which handled the

application for the biogas plant and the population in Dalby where a strong public

opinion against the plant developed.

The bottom line of the conflict was the specific location of the biogas plant and the

perceived impacts it would have on the local environment and on the people living

there. The main issues were bad smell, increased transports, adverse effects on the

landscape and that the use of water might affect an environmentally protected pond

and the groundwater level.3 It is difficult to judge who was right and who was wrong

in the debate about environmental impacts, since further studies on the suitability of

the plant were blocked by a political decision. Such a judgement is beyond the scope

of the case study and would demand a careful analysis of the different arguments as

well as a reconstruction of the environmental impact assessment. However, a few

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comments are possible to make. In a study of siting conflicts, Carlman (1992)

distinguishes between genuine and false conflicts of interest. Genuine conflicts are

those were the parties agree about the actual impacts of a facility but disagree about

how to handle them, while false conflicts appear when one of the parties have the

wrong idea about the impacts of the facility. False conflicts ought to be able to be

solved by more information while genuine conflicts have to be solved by other

means, such as a legal decision, compensation or a compromise. The picture

becomes more complicated, though, if there is an uncertainty about the impacts,

which allows for different interpretations and makes it unclear whether a conflict is

genuine or false. Furthermore, distrust of the developer can mean that information

which could potentially solve a false conflict is viewed as untrustworthy. A general

observation is that the main issues in the biogas case, were either genuine conflicts

of interest or issues that were fraught with uncertainty. This was also the view of the

handling authorities, who kept calling for supplementary information before they were

ready to make a decision. However, several false conflicts also existed since the

opposition group used some arguments that were clearly wrong or exaggerated and

brought up issues that had nothing to do with the environmental impact of the facility,

only in order to discredit the project.4

4. TWO PHASES OF THE PLANNING PROCESS

The planning process for the biogas plant can be divided into two distinct phases, the

early planning phase and the application phase. The early planning, started in 1995

and stretched to June 1998, when the first consultation meeting was held with

neighbours of the chosen site. The early planning started as two parallel processes,

where both the developer and the municipality started planning for a biogas plant.

For the developer, this resulted in a first location report where six locations in its

wider area of activity were studied. One of the alternatives was the location 2.5

kilometres outside Dalby (hereafter called the Dalby location).

3 Letters from the public, comments by the authorities and interviews with members of the

opposition group. 4 Examples of incorrect arguments were claims that it was not possible to return the rest

product to the fields or what seemed to be a deliberate misunderstanding about the amount of traffic that would be generated by the facility. Examples of arguments that did not concern the environment were claims that there was not enough supply of manure and that there would be problems to sell the gas (Letters from the public.).

7

In the report it was not stated whether any of the locations was the best and it

concluded that more research was necessary to determine this (1996-09-16, Lloyd).

Since politicians in the municipality of Lund were very positive to having a biogas

plant, it became natural for the developer to focus on Lund in the further planning.

The latter part of the early planning was, thus, carried out as a joint planning between

the developer and the municipality and was characterised by a close co-operation

between the two parties. The planning was done in working groups covering issues

Chronology of the planning and application process

The Early Planning Phase 1995 Political discussions about the construction of a biogas

plant start in Lund. The regional waste management company develops plans for a biogas plant somewhere in its district of activity

October 1996 The first location report is completed by the developer. Six locations are discussed, among them the Dalby location.

1997 Joint planning between the developer, the municipality and other stakeholders.

Autumn 1997 The second location report is completed by the developer. The Dalby location is stated as the chosen location.

The Application Phase

June 1998 Consultation meeting with the neighbours of the site. The neighbours react negatively and start discussing how to oppose the plans.

July 1998 The application is handed in to the County Administration. An application for building permit is handed in to the City Planning Office. Immediately neighbours write critical letters to the authorities.

September 1998 An opposition group consisting of neighbours to the site and households in Dalby is formed.

Autumn 1998 The opposition group and other members of the public send numerous critical letters to the authorities. The County Administration and the Environmental Committee ask the developer for supplementary information.

November 1998 Two public meetings are held in Dalby, one by the opposition group and one by the developer. There is a strong opinion against the project.

January 1999 The County Administration decides that more supplementary information is necessary. The Planning Office decides that a detailed planning of the site is needed.

October 1999 The developer hands in the supplementary information. Autumn 1999 More letters from the opposition group as well as an

intensive personal lobbying on politicians.

January 2000 A political majority in the Planning Committee decides not to allow a detailed planning. The project is stopped.

8

such as the location of the plant, technology and market, the use of the biogas and

co-operation with farmers.5 Civil servants from several of the municipal departments

were involved in the working groups and the most active politicians took part in the

steering group that supervised the planning. The early planning also involved other

actors who had an active interest in the project such as farmer organisations and the

local energy company.6 However, a striking feature of the early planning is that it only

involved stakeholders who would benefit from the project and therefor had a positive

interest in it. The planning dealt primarily with technical aspects of the project and did

not include a broader political discussion on the issues that could be controversial,

such as environmental aspects and the localisation of the facility. There was for

example no working group dealing exclusively with environmental aspects and the

planning did not involve local environmental organisations. Likewise, the working

group on localisation involved only civil servants and did not include consultations

with the public and the local political representatives of the areas were possible

locations were identified. The purpose of the working groups was not to reach a

consensus which all parties would accept, even though they partly served as a way

to spread information and get support for the project among the major stakeholders.

Instead, the principal purpose was to make the planning more efficient by taking in

different types of experience and expert knowledge.7 Though the working groups

involved different parties, it was always the developer who was in charge of the

planning and who made the final decisions about for example the location of the

facility. One possible reason why nothing was done to involve the public in the early

planning is that the project was not seen as controversial since all political parties

were positive to biogas. The feeling of strong political support was expressed by the

representative of the developer several times during the interview.8 At the end of

1997, the developer completed a report where the Dalby location was stated as the

chosen location (1997-10-13, Ekwall and Lloyd). The report, which later served as

the basis for the legal application, was partly a result of the discussions in the

working groups but was composed by the developer alone.

5 Memoranda notes of the developer from the initial planning.

6 Farmers are vital to the biogas system, since they deliver animal manure which is an

important raw material in the biogas process and are also the recipients of the digested end product which is used as fertiliser. The local utility was involved in relation to the use of the biogas. 7 Interviews with representative of the developer (2000-05-09) and politician in the

Environmental Delegation (2000-06-27). 8 Interview with a representative of the developer (2000-05-09).

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The application phase, started in June 1998 with the first consultation meeting and

ended in January 2000 with the political decision that put an end to the project. While

the early planning was characterised by an atmosphere of co-operation between the

developer and the municipality, the application phase was characterised by a

polarised conflict between the developer and the local public. Project developers can

use different approaches towards the public when they want to site facilities that

imply risks to the local area. It is possible to distinguish between two general

approaches, the technocratic approach and the co-operative approach, which are

very different to each other concerning the way the public is involved in the planning

process (van Erp 1996). In the technocratic approach, public participation is limited to

information from the developer and to the legally prescribed participation, which is

often interpreted in a narrow way. The co-operative approach, on the other hand, is

characterised by the use of deliberative methods to involve the public in planning and

often strives to go beyond what is legally prescribed. The siting approach of the

developer in the biogas project was a typical example of a technocratic approach.

The public was not involved at all in the early planning, and in the application phase

the only forms of public participation organised by the developer were information

and legally prescribed participation. According to the Swedish environmental

legislation at the time9, the developer was obliged to hold a consultation meeting,

before the application was handed in, with those of the public who would be affected

by the facility. The consultation meeting was held with neighbours of the chosen site

in June 1998 and this was the first time they had any notice whatsoever of the plans.

People living in the nearby village of Dalby were however not invited. The meeting

was held one month before the application was handed in to the County

Administration and at this point the technical description as well as the environmental

impact assessment were already completed. The meeting was strictly informational

and though the neighbours had many questions and comments there was no

possibility that these could serve as an input to the project plans, since the

application was already completed. During the first meeting people wondered

whether there would be further meetings and the developer answered that no further

informational activities had been planned.10 Shortly after the consultation meeting,

the neighbours started writing letters criticising the plans and soon an opposition

group was formed, consisting both of neighbours to the site and people living in

Dalby. The group was very active and opposed the plans both by mobilising a public

9 The biogas project was tried according to the Environmental Protection Act which was

replaced in 1999 by the Environmental Code. One of the changes with the new legislation is that the demands on consultation with the public has been made stricter.

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opposition and by influencing the decision makers. As a response to the negative

public opinion and as an effort to counter the intense informational activities of the

opposition group, the developer organised a second meeting in November 1998

where the general public in Dalby was invited. By that time, however, there was

already a strong public opinion against the biogas plant. The County Administration

and the Environmental Committee were of the opinion that there was not enough

information in the application to determine the environmental impacts of the plant and

kept asking for supplementary information. After a drawn out application process, the

County Administration decided to call for a final consultation meeting concerning the

suitability of the plant. Meanwhile, however, the Planning Office had decided that it

was necessary to make a detailed planning of the site before a decision could be

made about whether to give a building permit and in January 2000 a political majority

in the Planning Committee decided that they would not allow for a detailed

planning.11 This meant that the project was stopped on political grounds and the

decision was not the outcome of a full legislative process.

5. THE ROLE OF THE OPPOSITION GROUP

This chapter will discuss the role of the opposition group in the conflict surrounding

the siting of the biogas plant. The discussion will focus on four

aspects: (1) the characteristics of the opposition group, (2) the reasons why an

opposition group was formed, (3) the activities of the opposition group and (4) the

influence of the opposition group.

5.1 Characteristics of the opposition group

After the consultation meeting with the developer, the neighbours, who were mostly

farmers, discussed their views about the biogas plans and agreed that they were

opposed to the project and had to do something to try to stop it. Parallel to this, some

of the households that lived in the part of Dalby facing the site heard about the

biogas plans and started to wonder what the project was about. In September 1998

they had an informal meeting with some local politicians in Dalby, who were unaware

of the project and therefore could not give answers to any questions. Soon, the most

active neighbours and the households in Dalby formed an opposition group

consisting of a core group of around ten members. The members of the opposition

10

Interviews with neighbours (2000-05-30 and 2000-06-06). 11

Notes from a meeting at the Planning Committee, 2000-01-20.

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group formed a homogenous group.12 They were middle-class, well educated and in

their middle-ages or older (none of the members was younger than 40). Most of the

members were men and only one woman played an active role in the group. Among

the members were two farmers, two university employed natural scientists, two civil

engineers and a bank officer. None of the members were active in politics or had any

earlier experience of engaging in interest organisations. In the interviews the

members were careful to point out that they originally knew very little about the legal

an political aspects of the application process and how to manage an organised

opposition and that the protest activities for this reason followed an incremental

approach, where they learnt throughout the process how to most effectively work

against the project.13 However, some of the members were familiar with participating

in public situations and had professional experience of reading and understanding

complicated technical matters, which was very important when it came to organising

a strong opposition. The members had different areas of knowledge (geologist,

ecologist, chemist, economist) and this was used in order to get a better

understanding of the issues as well as to increase the credibility of the arguments

among the authorities and the general public. Even though the members of the

opposition group were not actively engaged in any environmental organisation, there

was a high level of environmental awareness in the group and two of the members,

one ecologist and one geologist, deal with environmental issues in their profession.

5.2 The reasons for an opposition

It is of course impossible to fully explore the reasons for the siting conflict and the

development of an organised opposition and any attempt will have to focus on some

aspects and disregard others. The focus of this study has been on how people’s

perceptions of the developer, the planning process and their possibilities to influence

the outcome of the project, have contributed to the development of an opposition.

Before going into that analysis, I will briefly discuss the relevance of people’s

perceptions of the environmental impact of the facility. Perceptions of the potential

environmental impacts of the facility and the risks it implied for the local population,

obviously played a significant role in the development of an opposition. The

numerous letters to the handling authorities and interviews with members of the

opposition group, show that it was the environmental impact that was at the heart of

12

Interviews with members of the opposition group. 13

One example of learning is that they were not originally aware of the importance of mobilising a public opinion until people from the newspapers asked if it was only their little group who was sceptical.

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the conflict.14 Regardless of whether the criticism from the public corresponded

accurately to the actual risks and possible impacts of the facility, it did reflect an

authentic worry and the main issues were genuinely perceived as potential threats to

the local environment and the local population. From the perspective of the members

themselves, the environmental impact was the single most important reason for their

opposition. As a contrast to this view, it can be noted that other biogas plants in

Sweden have not created such an opposition and in comparison with some of these,

the plant near Dalby would not have been in a particularly bad location. There were

four farms within 500 metres (the recommended safety distance), and the distance to

Dalby was 2.5 kilometres. Some existing plants are located much closer to living

areas. Furthermore, within the municipality of Lund this was one of the best locations

considering proximity to buildings. Even though the perceived impact of the plant

played an important role, there was no obvious reason why it should be seen as an

unsuitable project and the chosen location was not necessarily destined to face such

a fierce opposition.

Perceptions of the planning process

In the literature on risk communication and the siting of controversial projects, the

concept of trust has a very important position and lack of trust is stated as one of the

key influences on public opposition and a major reason why it is often difficult to

reach a solution which all parties can accept. (Löfstedt 1999, Kasperson et. al. 1992).

There is a general consensus among risk researchers today that in order to gain the

trust of the public for a project, it is important to have planning processes that are

open and allow for an early and substantial public participation. In the present case

we have instead a situation of a technocratic planning process with very little public

participation and the underlying question of the following discussion is to what extent

this has had a negative effect on trust and thus contributed to the rise of a public

opposition. It is of course very tricky to determine a direct casual link between

people’s perceptions of the developer and the planning process, and their opposition

towards the project. Such a link can hardly be captured in the direct answers of

respondents, and as mentioned above, the members of the opposition group said

that the only real reason for their opposition was that they were of the opinion that the

project was harmful for the local environment. The negative perception of the

developer and the planning process was not seen by them as a crucial factor for the

opposition. However, when people look back into their role in a process they tend to

seek logical explanations to their own behaviour, which in this case would mean

14

Letters to the authorities from the public. Interviews with members of the opposition group.

13

opposing the project out of strictly factual motives, and they might play down, both to

themselves and to others, the significance of negative perceptions of the developer

and the planning process. The task of the researcher then becomes to try to read

between the lines and interpret whether the perception of the developer and the

planning process had any significance, even if no casual explanation can be

reached. Because of these methodological complications there has been no attempt

to weigh the importance of the perception of environmental impacts in relation to the

perception of the developer and the planning process. Instead, it is argued that these

two factors are likely to reinforce each other, which means that in a siting case where

potential conflicts exist, it becomes even more important to use planning procedures

that do not exacerbate conflicts and undermine public trust.

When the neighbours were called to the first consultation meeting they did not know

what the plans were about and during the meeting there was no outright opposition

against the project even if the atmosphere was tense and suspicious. The

suspiciousness was turned into a clearly negative attitude after the meeting had been

held and the change had a lot to do with the neighbours’ negative perception of the

developer and the way the project was being handled. There was a perception that

the developer wanted to carry through the application process with as little contact

with the public as possible and that the information given was neither comprehensive

nor objective:

They told us rather clearly that they had a consultation in order to fulfil the

requirements of the law. We asked if they planned a further information meeting in

Dalby and they said no and that they had fulfilled the requirements put on them. The

purpose of the meeting was not to inform or to hold a consultation with neighbours or

those who saw themselves as concerned, it was that such a meeting had to be held.

And they did. (Interview with a neighbour, 2000-05-30)

The impression about skewed information continued throughout the whole process.

Both the opposition group and the authorities, asked for supplementary information

on several issues, which fed people’s suspicions that the developer could be holding

back information or did not itself have the required knowledge to begin with. Apart

from a dissatisfaction with the information, there was an impression at the first

meeting that the representatives of the developer had difficulties to answer questions

about the project and particularly that they did not have good knowledge about the

local conditions of the site, for example, how the facility would affect the ground water

14

and a nearby environmentally protected pond.15 The perception that the developer

did not have enough knowledge about the specific conditions of the site was

especially important since the crucial controversy was over the location itself. It may

well have reinforced the impression of a big company coming from outside to build a

facility in the local area without knowing or caring about how it might effect the people

living there. The members of the opposition group acknowledged that their view of

the competence of the developer improved as the process went on and they also

expressed respect for the competence and professionalism of the consultant of the

developer, who had made the technical and environmental report. However, the work

of the consultant was ultimately seen as being dependent on the motives of the

developer and the respect for his competence could not compensate for the lack of

trust in the developer. Another important perception that affected the attitude towards

the project was that the developer acted as if the real decision had already been

made and that there was no point in trying to do anything about it.

At the consultation meeting they presented completed plans and they even said when

the building was going to start and when the plant would be ready, before the

application had been sent to the handling authorities. So the fact that it was going

through the County Administration and the Environmental Committee was really just a

formality. (Interview with a neighbour, 2000-05-30)

The main conflict was about the specific location of the biogas plant and one issue

that had a great impact on public trust in the developer concerned on what grounds

the decision about the location of the site was made. There was a suspicion among

the opposition members that the site was chosen simply because the developer had

found a farm property for sale and that the localisation report was basically done after

the site had been chosen and manipulated in order to show that the selected site was

the best. A closer scrutiny of the planning process shows that this suspicion was

exaggerated and it is clear that the localisation decision was based on a great deal of

prior analysis.16 However, a few critical circumstances about the localisation decision

fuelled the suspicions. First, there was an unclarity about two alternative locations

which had been investigated in the first location study but which were not presented

in the application to the County Administration. The two alternatives had advantages

concerning economy and local environmental impact but had the major disadvantage

15

Interviews with neighbours (2000-05-30 and 2000-06-06). 16

The final localisation was mentioned as possible location already in an early localisation report from 1996, which was completed long before the developer had any specific plans to buy a property.

15

that they would have to use sewage sludge making it difficult to bring back the rest

products to the fields (1996-09-16, Lloyd). The reason why the developer did not

present the alternatives in the application was that they were located in the city of

Malmö, while the planning had been for a biogas plant in Lund. However, the

developer later presented the two alternatives after the authorities had asked for

supplementary information on different possible locations. This was interpreted by

the opposition group as if the developer had tried to avoid to present the Malmö

alternatives out of fear that it would be obvious that they were more suitable.17

Secondly, it was clear that the political pressure from the municipality had influenced

the decision to focus on finding a location in Lund, and this was interpreted by

members of the opposition group as if it was doubtful whether it was suitable at all to

site a biogas plant in Lund. Thirdly, after the developer had made the decision on the

localisation, it focused completely on showing that the chosen site was the best one

and was no longer interested in a discussion about alternatives. This inflexibility on

the part of the developer made it easier to believe that he wanted to avoid a

discussion, knowing that this was maybe not the best location. The discussion above

shows the importance of openly and clearly account for the different steps of a

planning process in order to avoid misunderstandings and counteract the spreading

of rumours.

All in all, the interviews with members of the opposition group show that the trust in

the developer was very low and that this originated in the way the project was

presented and from a perception of the developer as arrogant and uninterested in the

views of the public. The lack of trust meant that the scepticism about the project and

particularly about the specific localisation was reinforced and hindered a dialogue

between the developer and the opposition group.

5.3 The activities of the opposition group

The main objective of the opposition group was to stop the facility from being built on

the chosen site and since it was not possible to discuss any alternative locations they

focused on trying to stop the project entirely. If this would not succeed, the second

aim was to achieve as strict environmental demands as possible on the facility. This

meant that they were not interested in a dialogue, since they perceived that their

objectives and that of the developer were impossible to bring together.

17

Interviews with members of the opposition group.

16

We did not have any contacts with the developer. We actually felt right from the start

that we were playing on different sides of the court. It was pretty obvious that their

application was about a localisation on that specific site. Our objection was not a

general no to a biogas plant […] but a refusal to accept that farm property that close

to nature protection areas and buildings. Because of this we did not really see it as a

good thing [to have contacts with the developer]. (Interview with a Dalby resident,

2000-06-13)

Instead, the opposition group focused their activities on influencing the application

process by using a variety of different strategies including:

writing official letters to the County Administration and the Planning Office who

handled the application.

creating a public opinion in Dalby against the biogas plant by a variety of

methods such as door to door discussions, spreading of flyers and organising of

an information meeting in Dalby. The opposition group was helped by the village-

like character of Dalby, which meant that news about the plans and the

opposition could spread quickly from mouth to mouth.

collecting signature lists of people in Dalby against the plant and sending these to

the handling authorities. There were between 2.000 and 4.000 signatures on the

protest lists and Dalby in total has around 7.000 inhabitants.18.

writing debate articles against the plant in local newspapers.

organising meetings with local politicians in Dalby.

attending the information meeting in Dalby held by the developer.

atending various meetings held by the Planning Committee and the

Environmental Committee.

making personal phone calls to politicians in the Planning Committee and the

Environmental Committee. This was done in the end of 1999, when the handling

process reached its final stages.

5.4 The influence of the opposition group

The direct reason why the biogas project was stopped was a political decision in the

Planning Committee and this chapter will discuss to what extent the activities of the

opposition group influenced this decision. The influence of the opposition group on

the politicians worked in two ways: indirectly by the mobilisation of a public opinion in

18

The number of signatures is not possible to know exactly since there were two different lists (to the county administration and to the city planning committee) and some people only signed one of them. Each list had around 2,000 signatures, so the true number of people signing is somewhere between 2,000 and 4,000.

17

Dalby and directly by personal contacts with politicians in the Planning Committee. It

is fair to say that the development of a strong public opinion in Dalby was principally

due to the activities of the opposition group. The public in Dalby had not been invited

to the first consultation meeting and new nothing about the biogas plans when the

opposition group started their activities. It can be assumed that the majority were

quite unaware about the implications of a biogas plant and its possible environmental

impacts. For this reason they were open to the information and arguments of the

opposition group. An important reason why it was so easy to mobilise a strong public

opinion was that the developer did not have any information activities in Dalby in the

initial stages of the application process, which left the field open to the opposition

group. Not until November 1998, when the opposition group had already been active

for two months, did the developer act to counter the information activities of the

opposition group by holding their own public meeting in Dalby. By this time there was

already a strong opposition against the project and people’s will to listen to the

information of the developer was very limited.

If the reasons for the development of a public opinion are rather straightforward, the

question about the extent to which the politicians were influenced by the public

opinion and the pressure from the opposition group is more complex. The main

puzzle regarding why the politicians acted as they did is how a very positive view on

having a biogas plant could end up in a political decision to say no to the specific

decision without even allowing for a legal investigation. From the perspective of the

opposition group, the main explanation is that the localisation decision was made

without any political discussion and without consulting the public, which lead to an

unacceptable location. From the perspective of the developer, it was the public

opposition and the fear of losing votes which made the politicians change their

minds, even though they were in fact not against the location. The plausible

explanation, however, seems to be a combination of both a lack of political

discussion and a strong public opposition, and the following discussion will try to

show how these two things worked together to create such a drastic change in the

political standpoint. As we saw on page 8, the main aim of the early planning in

working groups was to speed up the process and include parties with the right

expertise, and it was never a specific goal to reach a decision on localisation that

would have a general political support. Still, the extensive studies in the group

working with different locations had the clear potential to function as a base for a

political discussion. However, for various reasons such a political discussion never

took place. One important reason was that the developer was of the opinion that the

18

localisation study had showed the Dalby location as the most suitable and decided to

buy a farm property in that location. After the purchase of the property, the developer

was no longer willing to consider other locations making any political discussion

about alternatives pointless. Another reason for the lack of political discussion was

the common feeling that gaining political support was not an important issue since all

political parties were positive to a biogas plant and since there were no fears that it

would be a controversial project.19 Neither the politicians nor the civil servants made

any strict demands for a political discussion, since it the project was seen as

belonging to the developer, who should therefor make the final decision. The

developer assumed that there was an informal agreement about the localisation,

which would be communicated to other politicians and civil servants within the

municipality, but such an internal communication never took place. The result was

the paradoxical situation that there was no profound political support for the

localisation, while the developer felt that the political support was as strong as ever.

The fragile political support for the localisation was made even weaker by a shift in

the political majority, which occurred at the same time as the public opposition in

Dalby grew (the election was in September 1998 and the new majority came to

power in January 1999). It was not an ideological question that made the issue

politicised, since all parties were basically positive to biogas, but rather a question of

familiarity with the issue. The politicians in the newly elected liberal – right-wing

coalition, with the exception of the Centre Party, had not been actively involved in the

early planning and were rather sceptical to the chosen location. Those parties who

had been pushing the question and who had actively taken part in the early planning

(the Social Democrats, the Centre Party, the Left Party and the Green Party) had a

bigger feeling of ownership over the project and were not as negative to the specific

location. However, they were not either prepared to directly support it. The lack of

political discussion and support had two important effects. First, it meant that the

majority of the politicians were not prepared to defend the biogas plant and that they

were hesitant to engage in discussions with the public about the location. Secondly, it

meant that politicians were much more open to the influence from the opposition

group and from the public opinion. In the Planning Committee, it was evident that

there was a lack of insight about the initial planning between the developer and the

municipality and a main critique was in fact that there had not existed any joint

19

Interviews with representative of the developer (2000-05-09) and politician in the Environmental Delegation (2000-06-27).

19

localisation study or a proper dialogue with the municipality about the location20. The

politicians in the Planning Committee to some extent shared, with the opposition

group, the suspicion that a major reason why the location had been chosen was that

the developer had found a farm property for sale21.

6. FINAL DISCUSSION

The discussion on the biogas case has mainly focused on different aspects of the

role of the opposition group. In the final chapter I will conclude with a more general

discussion about the characteristics of the planning and application process. An

underlying question regarding a siting conflict, such as this, is naturally whether it is a

an example of a good project that has been stopped because of the influence of a

small group of individuals guarding their selfish interests or if it is an example of a

bad project that has been avoided thanks to a working local democracy and active

citizens. As I see it, this question is very difficult to answer since it depends on

different interpretations of the possible impact of the facility. The different actors had

diverging and sometimes contradictory perceptions of the planning process and it is

impossible to say that one way to look at it is more legitimate than the other. Instead,

it is better to realise that the present case shows a situation were all the key actors to

some extent have lost something and that this could have been avoided. The

members of the opposition group suffered since they felt disregarded; they were

worried that the project would be carried through without any possibilities to influence

and they felt forced to spend considerable time and effort throughout the application

process in order to oppose the plans. The municipality lost a chance to build a biogas

plant within its area, something which all political parties favoured, and it seems that

the chance will not come back within many years to come. The developer had been

planning for many years in order to find a suitable place to locate a biogas plant and

had invested a lot of time and money in the Dalby location, which can be considered

as largely wasted. The biggest loss resulting from this case is that of trust. The public

lost trust in the developer, who will find it even harder to site facilities in the future.

The biogas technology as such might also have been affected by the loss of trust,

making biogas look more like a controversial technology and less like something that

is good for the environment. Finally, the experience from the planning process has

created suspicion and disappointment between the municipality and the developer,

20

Interviews with politicians in the Planning Committee(2001-01-11 and 2001-01-16).. Written documentation from the Planning Committee. 21

Interview with the chairman of the Planning Committee (2001-01-16).

20

making future co-operation more problematic and perhaps impossible when it comes

to biogas. With regard to such a perspective, a more appropriate approach is to ask

what we can learn from this case about how to avoid planning processes that are

perceived as negative to all parties involved and how we can achieve processes that

are both democratic and effective at the same time. In relation to this I will briefly

discuss a few critical observations regarding the planning and application process.

An interesting result of the case study is that the different actors involved show very

different interpretations of the planning process, which derives from their own

position and from the things they have been able to observe. It is noteworthy that the

developer interpreted the planning process as being open and inclusive while the

public and the opposition group perceived it as a typical example of a closed process

where the aim had been to hurry through the project in secret. The lack of

communication between the involved actors fostered misunderstandings and

misinterpretations and enabled them to create images of each other’s motives and

actions that did not correspond with reality. This was most obvious in the relation

between the developer and the opposition group, which was from the very start

marked by mutual distrust. The developer saw the conflict as a typical Nimby-

phenomena (Not in my back-yard), where local people, out of purely selfish motives,

manage to stop a project, which they otherwise would regard as positive as it

benefits society as a whole (and, in this case, the environment as well). This view

was reinforced since the opposition group was not interested in a discussion with the

developer and organised public meetings without inviting the developer. The public

opinion in Dalby was seen as being largely created by the opposition group by the

use of aggressive propaganda and information that manipulated the truth. The

opposition group, on the other hand, was deeply suspicious of the motives of the

developer and perceived the information coming from it as modified in order to show

that the chosen site was the best. This negative view was founded in the first meeting

were representatives of the developer had difficulties to answer some of the

questions and were it became obvious that they had not planned any further

informational activities. This view was reinforced by the fact that the developer was

not willing to contemplate any other locations. The distrust made it possible to

question how the site had been chosen and even made people suspect that it was a

more or less random decision. As we can see, both views were highly exaggerated

even though they contained some elements of truth on which the negative images

were constructed and confirmed. These findings are similar to those of an earlier

study from the mid 1980’s concerning conflicts surrounding the location of energy

21

facilities in Sweden (Sjöström 1985). From a psychological perspective, the author

showed the processes in which the actors created and reinforced the negative

images of the counterpart, in order to maintain the image of themselves as fighting

for a just case. As in the present case, the main reason why these images could be

sustained was a total lack of communication between the opposite parties. The

solution advocated in the report was to strive for more democratic and participatory

planning processes, where the different perspectives could meet, which would

counteract decisions being based either on the influence of experts or on single-

question opposition groups. In a later study from the early 1990’s, which included

case studies of several energy projects, the same conclusions about the importance

of more participatory planning processes was reached (Carlman 1993). And almost a

decade later, in the present study, the same conclusions are once again reached.

One of the most striking features of the decision-making process of the biogas

project is the sharp contrast between the level of public involvement in the different

phases of the process. The developer, the municipality and the direct stakeholders

were the only ones co-operating in the initial planning of the project, which

completely excluded any form of citizen involvement. When the developer had

decided upon a location and the application, which included an environmental impact

assessment, was ready to be handed in, the neighbours of the site were still unaware

about what was being planned in their vicinity. However, when the application was

handed in and entered the legal system, citizen involvement became very

pronounced and took shape as an active opposition against the project. The legal

system allows for a substantial influence from citizens when a project with potential

environmental impact is being handled and, for instance, gives people the right to

hand in official comments about an application which the authorities are obliged to

take into consideration. When such official channels are combined with other ways of

influencing, as in the present case, active citizens have considerable possibilities to

affect decision-making and even stop a project. Thus, we have a situation where

there is little incentive for project developers to involve people in the planning of

projects, while there are many possibilities for people to become involved and

influence the decision whether to approve the project and, as the present study has

shown, this tends to lead to rather destructive conflicts between the different parties

involved. This points to a shortcoming in the legal system, since it guarantees public

involvement only in the later stages of the process and may thus contribute to an

escalation of the confrontation instead of serving as an instrument to handle conflict

and mediate between different parties. In Sweden, this problem has partly been

22

addressed in the new Environmental Code, which stresses the importance of early

consultation and states that there should be different alternative locations to consider

when a new facility is being built. It is however still unclear how much the new

regulations can actually contribute to shaping planning processes and encouraging

meaningful public participation, since the regulation about the forms and aims of

consultation is still rather vague.

The results of the case study concerning the reactions of the public to a technocratic

planning process should serve as a reminder to project developers that the public

can, and does, have a decisive influence on the outcome of a project, originating

both from the rights given to them in the law and from the fact that people nowadays

are more aware about environmental matters and more able to fight for their case.

The results are in line with findings from similar studies (Petts 2000, Löfstedt 1997,

Rabe 1994) and the trend tells us that both factors will continue to increase public

influence in the future (Boholm et al 1998). This means that decision-making

strategies with the aim to hurry through projects with a minimum of information and

dialogue will become more and more difficult to follow and will face the risk of

discrediting the developer. Of course, public involvement in the planning process is

not an easy matter and there are many aspects of a project which can hardly be left

to public influence, such as those concerning budget and technical considerations

affecting the viability of the project. Furthermore, before the public can become

involved in an meaningful way there must have existed some initial planning so that

there is a fairly concrete preliminary plan to have a discussion on. There is thus a

certain contradiction between public involvement, on the one hand, and the

developer’s goals and needs when planning for a facility, on the other hand.22 Such

problems are no doubt very important to address but should not overshadow the

basic conclusion that an early public involvement is vital for projects with a possible

environmental impact.

PART TWO – RENEWABLE ENERGY CONFLICTS AND

ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT ORGANISATIONS

22

In the present case a typical example of this contradiction was that the developer decided to buy the farm property while the possibility arose and after that was not prepared to consider other alternative locations. Since the purchase was done before the project became known to the public, there was never any possibility to have a public discussion on that crucial issue.

23

7. BACKGROUND

The extensive research done on the evolution of the environmental movement in

Europe shows that the protection of the environment has become more

institutionalised into politics, one example being that environmental movement

organisations (EMO) have become more directly involved in formal policy-making,

both within individual states and at the EU level (Rootes 1999). Established EMOs,

such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FoE), have gone through a

transformation from being originally mainly organisations to becoming more focused

on activities related to sustainable development. While the institutionalised access to

political decision-making gives EMOs increased influence on environmental policy-

making, it has also made them more wary of engaging in direct actions of protest

outside the formal political arena, since this might lead tensions in the relations with

governments and the business sector. As well established organisations they have

also become more vulnerable to legal claims about their activities than when they

were more loosely organised movements (Rootes 1999). This has lead to the

observation that the established EMOs are being challenged both by their own local

branches and by new locally based EMOs, which are not afraid to use radical

methods and which often concentrate on protest actions against specific projects.

The dilemma within the environmental movement between pressure group activities

and direct protest has been observed in several EU countries, such as the UK,

Germany (with the recent anti-nuclear demonstrations as a good example), the

Netherlands and Spain (van der Heijden 2000, Jiménez 2000, Rucht and Roose

2000, Rootes 1999). Though the relations between the old and the new EMOs is

often tense, it is not appropriate to talk about a split in the environmental movement,

since the basic values remain largely the same. Instead Rootes argues that the

situation looks as follows:

Relations among EMOs may be considered in terms of competition and division of

labour. On the one hand, EMOs compete with one another for the same scarce

resources – especially public attention. On the other hand, EMOs often appear to

practice an explicit or implicit division of labour: radical groups sometimes appear

more or less deliberately to draw the fire of hostile forces whereas moderate groups

sometimes appear to be softening up the opposition for assaults by more radical

ones. (Rootes 1999, p.4)

In an account of the major EMOs in Sweden, Jamison and Ring (2000) show that the

Swedish situation differs somewhat from that of other countries. Due to the strong

24

corporatist elements in the Swedish political system, the large EMOs have early on

had a considerable influence on environmental policy making, which has made it

difficult for alternative EMOs to gain importance. Moreover, the environmental

movement has been further integrated into the formal political arena through political

parties with strong environmental profiles (initially the Centre Party and later the of

the Green Party). Even though there has not been any real clash between

established and new radical EMOs in Sweden, it is possible to observe a similar

division of labour as elsewhere, where local and some national EMOs (eg

Greenpeace) concentrate on protest actions, while others (eg Friends of the Earth)

focus on sustainable development and issues such as green labels and life-style

changes. A summary of the present situation is that, despite the transformation and

institutionalisation of the more established EMOs, they co-exist with the new ones in

a symbiotic (though sometimes problematic) relation, since they share the same

basic values and fight on the same side. It is in this context I wish to frame the

underlying question of this paper, namely how the more and more common public

opposition against the siting of renewable energy facilities fits into the larger picture

of environmental conflicts at the local level and the activities of local and national

EMOs. The aim of the following discussion is to put into debate an initial hypothesis

that renewable energy poses a dilemma to the environmental movement since it is,

on the one hand, looked upon very positively as the only viable alternative to fossil

and nuclear energy but, on the other hand, implies possible negative effects on the

local environment and local communities. My original research interest has been to

study the nature of, and reasons for, local conflicts concerning the siting of renewable

energy facilities, as in the biogas case study. During this work, though, a general

observation has been that EMOs tend to play a rather unclear role and I believe that

the reasons for this are worth further attention. The discussion is, thus, not the result

of a structured scientific research about the role of EMOs in the local politics of

renewable energy and it should primarily be seen as an attempt to highlight a new

possible area of research. The empirical base of the discussion consists of the

biogas case study as well as more general observations about local renewable

energy conflicts, particularly concerning the siting of wind turbines.

25

8. CHARACTERISTICS OF RENEWABLE ENERGY SITING CONFLICTS

The opposition at the local level against renewable energy facilities is typically

organised by ad hoc interest groups consisting of neighbours and other people in the

local area, who feel that the local environment is being threatened. The biogas case

in Lund was a typical example of this type of opposition. In this case, a group of

around 10 people managed to mobilise a whole village against the biogas plant,

Renewable energy

Renewable energy is the umbrella term for a rather heterogeneous group of energy technologies, which share the fact that the resources they use do not “disappear” once they are exploited and can thus be used over and over again. Furthermore, they contribute little or nothing to emissions of green house gases, such as CO2, which means that switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy reduces the global warming problem. Below follows a short account of the most important forms of renewable energy with comments on their possible negative impacts on the environment and the types of conflicts they may generate. Bioenergy is energy derived from the earth’s living matter, the biomass. Biomass can be taken from forests, from the growing of energy crops or from organic waste and can be used for the generation of heat and electricity as well as a transport fuel. The outtake of biomass in forests might have negative impacts on biodiversity while energy crops affect the visual agricultural landscape. Facilities for generating heat and electricity from biomass basically imply the same risks to local communities as similar fossil fuel facilities, such as increased transports, local emissions, visual impact and the risk of accidents. Biogas is a special form of bioenergy that is derived from the digestion of organic matter, such as manure and animal and vegetal residues. Biogas plants typically create concerns among local communities about the risk of bad smell. Wind power is the type of renewable energy most typically related to local conflicts in recent years. The most common source of contention is the visual impact of wind turbines, since they are high constructions that tend to dominate the landscape. Besides, the most suitable sites for wind turbines are in areas with previously untouched nature or areas with a flat landscape and many turbines are needed to generate significant amounts of electricity. Other possible impacts of wind turbines are noise pollution, shadow effects which appear when the blades obscure the sun and disturbance of animal life, particularly concerning birds. Hydropower can be either at large or small scale. Large-scale hydropower implies major projects with very big impacts on the local environment. These projects are typically handled on a national level and are often highly controversial. In Sweden there is a parliamentary decision which forbids the expansion of large scale hydro in the four remaining major rivers that are untouched. Small-scale hydropower has impacts on the ecological systems of rivers and typically creates conflicts with anglers and environmental organisations. Solar energy can be divided into solar thermal energy (heat generation) and solar photovoltaics (electricity generation). Facilities for solar energy can either be centralised into large solar fields or integrated into buildings. Today, there are hardly any cases where solar energy has generated conflicts with other interests but the technology is on the other hand not very widely spread. Since solar collectors need much space there is a potential conflict over space in cases where solar energy is placed on the ground.

26

which highly contributed to a political decision to stop the project. Other cases of

local opposition against biogas plants have been observed in Denmark and Germany

(Langniss et al 1999). Windpower is the type of renewable energy most commonly

associated with local conflicts. In almost every case when a new wind power project

is being planned, there are some people who are sceptical and this seems to be

something inevitable. What is more challenging though, is that there are numerous

cases in Sweden (and elsewhere) of a more organised opposition towards

windpower, involving large parts of the local population, and that such opposition

tends to become more and more common. Many observers have used the term

Nimby (not in my backyard) to describe the characteristics of an opposition against a

facility that is considered as necessary to society but which nobody wants to have

close to their own home. Such a description implies that the local population acts in a

selfish way since they oppose what is good for society as a whole. In the case of

renewable energy, the Nimby reaction can be regarded as even more selfish, since a

renewable energy facility is looked upon as something which is good for the

environment as well as for society, which is not the case with e.g. a road or a fossil

fuel plant. However, there has been a great deal of criticism against the use of

Nimby, since it does not consider the issue of distributive justice and since it tends to

pay little attention to the views and worries of the local population, thus reinforcing a

conflict instead of contributing to solving it (Burningham 2000; Luloff 1998; Wolsink

1994). A closer look at the motivations for resistance among the members of the

opposition group in the biogas case, shows that they were genuinely worried about

the risks of the biogas plant and that they did not perceive neither the project as

environmentally friendly nor the developer as environmentally aware. Conflicts

concerning the siting of wind turbines show the same picture. The main issue of

conflict is the visual impact on the landscape, which might be the most important

environmental question for people who have lived a long time in an area with a

beautiful and untouched landscape. From such a perspective, a large company

wanting to build several wind turbines is not necessarily viewed as environmentally

friendly and certainly not as working for the good of the local area. The opposition

against a specific project is often closely connected to a negative perception of the

planning process and to the limited possibilities to influence its outcome. In the

discussion of the biogas case study, I argued that the technocratic planning process

which excluded public participation, contributed to the opposition against the biogas

plant and to the highly polarised conflict between the developer and the opposition

group. The same observation has been made in relation to wind power projects

(Hammarlund 1997, van Erp 1996, Wolsink 1990). The fact that a project is about

27

renewable energy does not mean that it will be automatically welcomed by everybody

and the lessons about inclusive planning processes are as important here as in the

siting of other facilities. The people who oppose a renewable energy facility do not

necessarily have to be negative to renewable energy per se even if they are critical of

the chosen location and the way it has been chosen. A bad experience with a

specific project can, however, lead to a more sceptical attitude towards the

technology itself.23 If we compare renewable energy facilities with other facilities that

imply risks to the local area, such as hazardous waste plants, chemical factories and

infrastructure projects, people’s reactions do not differ very much concerning the

reasons for an opposition or the worries that the new facility bring about. What

differs, however, is the standpoint of environmental movement organisations towards

renewable energy.

9. THE ROLE OF ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT ORGANISATIONS

A quick review of the policy documents and internet home pages of some of

Sweden’s most important EMOs gives the picture that they are in general positive to

the use of renewable energy.24 The Swedish Society for Nature Conservation

(Svenska Naturskyddsföreningen, SNF) and Greenpeace, which are two of the most

important EMOs in Sweden (with 170.000 and 70.000 members respectively), both

argue for a substantial increase of the use of all forms of renewable energy (except

hydro power) and they see renewable energy as a viable alternative to fossil fuel and

nuclear energy (in combination with energy efficiency and a reduced consumption of

energy).25 Concerning the risks for conflicts with other interests and the potential

negative impact on the local environment, they only speak in very general terms. The

two organisations have very different relations with people at the local level.

Greenpeace is completely centralised and works on a national basis even if they

engage in various specific protest campaigns at the local level, where they frequently

interact with the local population. Normally, they gain the support of the locals but in

some cases Greenpeace finds itself arguing against the local population as in the

case of a debate concerning the protection of a forest in the north of Sweden, where

23

See Wolsink (1994) for a discussion about different possible local reactions to a new facility. 24

See references (p 35) for internet addresses. 25

Other major EMOs in Sweden, such as World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Natural Step (det Naturliga Steget) and Friends of the Earth (Miljöförbundet Jordens Vänner) do not have any official policies concerning renewable energy since they are not actively working with those issues. The international branch of Friends of the Earth is however actively working for an increased use of renewable energy.

28

local people saw their rights to use the forest as being threatened. (Boström 1999,

p.146). SNF, in contrast, is a highly decentralised organisation and gains its strength

from its almost 300 local branches all over Sweden. The local branches are relatively

independent and their activities vary depending on the interests of the local

members. The relations with the central organisation is normally smooth but

sometimes tensions arise if a local branch does not agree with the centrally decided

policies or if they feel disregarded. While SNF in general is clearly positive towards

renewable energy, the attitudes of the local branches, who deal with the reality of

local conflicts, is more ambiguous. Tom Böhler interviewed representatives from four

local branches of SNF along the Swedish west coast (an area which has experienced

a rapid expansion of wind power) and asked about how they looked upon the use of

wind power (Böhler 1998). The results showed that the local branches were generally

positive to wind power but that they had a rather detached relation to it. They all

wanted to see an increase of wind power in their local area but none of the branches

were actively working to promote this. They also emphasised that wind power, as

well as other energy sources, had its problems and that they were against an

overexploitation, a view which was more pronounced in the local area which had

experienced more conflicts. The question is how this double attitude to wind power

can be explained. Böhler’s interpretation is that it stems from a belief that the energy

problems can be solved by other technologies which will decrease the demand for

energy, making a large scale exploitation of wind power unnecessary. Another

interpretation would be that local EMOs are hesitant to actively promoting wind power

if it is seen as controversial by many people in the local area, since this would imply

the risk that their reputation gets damaged. EMOs have traditionally had the role as

the actor that protests against environmentally harmful activities and it can be

assumed that they do not want to be placed in the opposite corner, defending

something that people view as an environmental threat. One of the respondents

voiced a concern that there is a risk that the ecological arguments are used in order

to overexploit renewable energy and that it should be a task for EMOs to work

against this (Böhler 1998, p.110). In the biogas case in the municipality of Lund, the

local EMOs remained passive during both the planning and the application phase.

They were clearly positive to a biogas plant in Lund, but were unofficially critical to

the specific siting and to the way the planning process was handled by the developer.

The local EMOs were critical to the same things as the opposition group but they did

not voice this in the open, since they did not want to work against the general aim of

a biogas plant.

29

The dilemma of EMOs working at the local level is thus that they are caught between

two motions. On the one hand, there is a drive to support the development of

renewable energy, born out of conviction and from the fact that renewable energy is

seen as the solution to the energy problem by large parts of the environmental

movement. On the other hand, local conflicts and a perception of negative

environmental impacts at the local level create hesitation among local EMOs to

wholeheartedly support renewable energy and actively work for its development.

Meanwhile, as in the case of wind power, networks are forming, consisting mainly of

people who have had bad experiences with projects in their local area. In several EU

countries there are formalised network organisations which co-ordinate the local

opposition against wind power.26 The Swedish organisation, Swedish Landscape

Protection (Svenskt Landskapsskydd, SLS) was formed in 1999 with the main aim to

keep down the development of wind power, especially onshore. They state that one

of the reasons to form such an organisation was that many people had felt a sense of

powerlessness when specific projects had been planned and that, for this reason,

there was a need to organise a resistance.27 This feeling of powerlessness was also

seen in the biogas case in Lund and in observations from the planning of various

wind power projects. An organisation such as Swedish Landscape Protection has

aims that are very different from those of Greenpeace and SNF and they can in some

respects even be viewed as each others opponents. This raises questions about how

to define an Environmental Movement Organisation. To the extent that SLS truly

represents people at the local level who feel that their environment is being

threatened, ought it then be counted as an EMO, even if its values go against the

mainstream of the environmental movement? At least it should be seen as a

representation of some form of social movement. A possible consequence of the

passiveness of established EMOs is that the local opposition against different forms

of renewable energy becomes more rigid and narrow-minded, since the only support

for an ad hoc opposition group comes from network organisations that are

determined opponents of renewable energy. As mentioned earlier, even if people are

originally only critical to a specific project this may lead to a negative standpoint

towards the technology itself. This situation suggests that a passive role for EMOs is

not a viable alternative, since it would mean that they leave it up to other actors to

determine the development of renewable energy. However, it poses some critical

questions about how they should act in specific conflicts at the local level. They have

to take the worries of local people seriously and be careful not to support energy

26

Such networks exist in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Sweden and France.

30

projects that may be harmful to the local environment, even if they have are labelled

as renewable. However, if they do take a clear standpoint for the increased use of

renewable energy, they should also be prepared to actively support projects they

believe in even if there is scepticism among the local population.

10. FUTURE RESEARCH

The discussion above has pointed to the existence of an interesting dilemma for

EMOs concerning their relations to the local politics of renewable energy. The

discussion has mainly been based on general observations and has not been

supported by any thorough empirical research. However, it points to interesting

possibilities for future research on the subject and gives the background to formulate

more specific research questions. The paper finishes by giving a few suggestions

about how such research questions could be formulated:

How have EMOs acted in specific cases of local conflicts concerning renewable

energy projects and what are their relations to the local opposition groups?

Is it possible to observe different attitudes towards renewable energy among

different types of EMOs and how does this manifest itself at the local level?

What are the connections between the policies of national EMOs and the

activities of their local branches concerning the attitudes to renewable energy? Is

it possible observe any tensions in this aspect?

What characterises the new networks that work against an increased exploitation

of renewable energy, concerning issues such as membership characteristics,

degree of activity in local conflicts and connections to other actors?

27

See page 35 for the internet address of Svenskt Landskapsskydd.

31

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Primary material from the biogas case study

Written documentation’

The Developer

1996-09-16, Lloyd, Ola, 1996, Utvärdering av olika lokaliseringsalternativ för

behandling av biologiskt nedbrytbara material, EnerChem, Sysav Utveckling

AB, Lund.

1997-01-30 – 1997-09-01, Memoranda notes about the progress of the joint planning

between the developer, the municipality and other stakeholders. (Received

from Kjerstin Ekwall, Sysav AB)

1997-10-13, Ekwall, Kerstin och Ola Lloyd, Fortsatt utvärdering av lokalisering, teknik

och ekonomi för en biogasanläggning i Lunds kommun, Sysav Utveckling AB,

Lund.

1998-09-16, Application for a permit to build a biogas plant. Sysav AB. (Sent to the

County Adminstration according to the Environmental Protection Act

(miljöskyddslagen)).

1998-10-16, Supplementary information for the biogas application, Sysav AB.

1999-09-30, Supplementary information for the biogas application, Sysav AB.

The Municipality and the County Administration

1998-2000, Planning Office and Planning Committee, Municipality of Lund.

Statements about the application. Notes from meetings and decisions

concerning the biogas plant.

1998-2000, Executive Board, Municipality of Lund, Statements about the application.

34

1998-2000, Environmental Office and Environmental Committee, Municipality of

Lund. Statements about the application.

1998-2000. County Administration. Decisions about the need for supplementary

information.

The public

1998-2000, Letters to the County Adminstration and the municipality from neighbours

to the site and people living in Dalby. Some letters contain protest lists.

1998-2000, Debate articles sent to the following newspapers: Sydsvenska

Dagbladet, Sydskånksa Dagbladet and Arbetet.

Newspapers

1998-2000, Articles from the following newspapers: Sydsvenska Dagbladet,

Sydskånksa Dagbladet and Arbetet.

Interviews

Politicians

2000-06-27 Sven Tufvesson, Member of the Environmental Delegation until

December 2000 (Social Democrat), Municipality of Lund

2000-07-11 Tranje Danielsson, Chairman of the Environmental Committee

(Conservative), Municipality of Lund

2000-07-13 Roger Lönnebjär, Chairman of the local political committee in Dalby

(KDN Dalby) until December 2000 (Social Democrat) , Municipality of

Lund

2000-01-11 Gunnar Jönsson, Member of the Planning Committee (Social

Democrat) , Municipality of Lund

2001-12-01 Cecilia Wadenbäck, Member of the Planning Committee (Left Party) ,

Municipality of Lund

2000-12-06 Bertil Göransson, Chairman of the Waste Management Board (Centre

Party) , Municipality of Lund

2001-01-16 Göran Brinck, Chairman of the Planning Committee (Conservative) ,

Municipality of Lund

Civil servants

2000-07-20 Bengt Aronsson, Planning Office, Municipality of Lund

2000-11-15 Christer Källqvist, Planning Office, Municipality of Lund

2001-01-17 Bo Selmer, Environmental Office, Municipality of Lund

35

Representatives of the developer

2000-05-09 Kjerstin Ekwall, Executive Planner at Sysav AB

2000-07-26 Anders Dahl, BioMil AB (the consultant company).

Members of the opposition group

2000-05-30 Neighbour to the site

2000-06-06 Neighbour to the site

2000-06-13 Dalby resident

2000-11-22 Dalby resident

Homepages of organisations in Sweden

Fältbiologerna (the Field Biologists), 2001-03-08, http://www.faltbiologerna.se/

Greenpeace, 2001-03-08, http://www.greenpeace.org/

Livskvalité runt Öresundsgrepen, 2001-03-08, http://www.motvind.nu/

Miljöförbundet Jordens Vänner (Friends of the Earth), 2001-03-08, http://www.mjv.se/

Svenskt Landskapsskydd (Swedish Landscape Protection), 2001-03-08,

http://www.landskapsskydd.nu/

Sveriges Naturskyddsförening (SNF), 2001-03-08, http://www.snf.se/

Världsnaturfonden (WWF), 2001-03-08, http://www.wwf.se/go.wiz?doc=hem

36

APPENDIX 1 – EXAMPLE OF AN INTERVIEW GUIDE

Interview with a member of the opposition group – neighbour to the site

Initial contact with the biogas plans

How did you first hear about the plans for a biogas plant?

Which were your very first reactions to the plans?

Which were the most important reasons for you to be opposed to the plans for a

biogas plant?

Was there any factor of specific importance for your attitude towards the biogas

plans?

The consultation meeting

Did you participate in the consultation meeting organised by the developer?

How big was the participation among the neighbours who had received a personal

invitation?

Did other people from the general public who had not received a personal invitation

also attend the meeting?

How did you perceive the developer’s purpose with organising the meeting?

How did you perceive the information from the developer at the meeting?

What was your attitude towards the biogas plans before the consultation meeting had

been held?

Did your attitude towards the plans change after the consultation meeting? Why?

What is your perception of the attitude of the other neighbours before and after the

consultation meeting?

The public opposition

Describe how the opposition against the biogas plans developed.

How did the reactions among the neighbours develop?

Were all neighbours critical to the plans?

What did the neighbours do to show their negative views about the plans?

How did the reactions among people in Dalby develop?

Which contacts were taken between neighbours and people in Dalby?

What was done to create a public opinion in Dalby against the plans?

How big share of the people in Dalby was negative to the plans?

How did the opposition group act to stop the biogas plans?

What was your role in the activities against the plans?

37

About the developer

What is your opinion in general about the information from the developer on the

planned facility? Was it enough? Was it easy or difficult to understand? Was it

reliable? Was it objective or subjective?

What is your opinion about how the developer handled the communication and

dialogue with the neighbours?

Do you believe that the developer took into consideration the views of the neighbours

while planning for the biogas plant?

There were many critical questions from the public in letters and at the information

meetings. What is your opinion about how the developer answered to these

questions?

What could the developer have done in order to take into consideration the worries

among the public?

How would you describe your degree of trust in the developer and its

representatives?

About the municipality

What is your opinion about the way the municipality handled the general planning for

a biogas plant in Lund?

What is your opinion about how the municipality handled the specific application for a

biogas plant?