Stakeholder Engagement is NOT a Check-The-Box Activity

By Marguerite Wells, Alliance for Clean Energy New York

We all know it’s getting harder to build projects, and we know opposition to projects is growing. We as an industry need to own our part in causing that. Yes, you read that right. We are in part to blame for the opposition we are increasingly facing. We need to do better, or we risk losing our social license to operate.

I’ve been a renewable developer for 17 years here in NYS. Stakeholder work is one of my strong suits. I’ve built strong local coalitions, I’ve also had death threats from opponents, and I’ve seen developers get run out of town for poor stakeholder work. I’ve been on the job as executive director of ACE NY for 6 weeks so far, and every week I have been hearing stories of poor developer behavior that has caused increased local opposition. Developers have more junior people on staff who may not have sufficient mentorship on this topic,  there are more projects than ever, which increases the number of interfaces with public opinion. We need to improve our level of effort on community outreach.

A few quick examples to illustrate the point:

I got a call from a county manager last week, a longtime renewable supporter that ACE NY has been able to count on in the past for supportive leadership, whose county boasts lots of operating projects. The county is well aware of the benefits of renewable energy. He was frustrated by a developer demanding he send a staff member to a project’s 94-C meeting because, in the developer’s own words, they “need to check the box for ORES.” The hearing date didn’t work for his staff, and he asked the developer to meet on a different day when the county staff were available. No, said the developer, county staff must come to this hearing. The developer called him five times demanding he send someone. This county administrator told me he’s getting ready to turn into an opponent from this treatment! Pro tip: Go meet with the county when they are available, document the meeting, and tell ORES that the county staff couldn’t make the 94-C meeting but you already met with them prior and here’s what they said….that approach will also check the box for ORES without antagonizing one of your local champions and ruining the sandbox for everyone.

Next example: A battery storage project is proposed in a town. It has a queue position, some land, and a few local people know about it, so word is spreading. But the developer has not been to any town meetings, nor even met privately with the supervisor, so no details about the project are known. From the developer’s perspective, they did not plan to develop the project for another year or two, so they are not out in public talking about it yet. But that just means they are not controlling the narrative or providing facts, and everyone else with less information is. Do you think the local gossip is talking about the excellent opportunity this will offer the town? No! Fear and uncertainty are gathering a storm of opposition, a moratorium is now in place, and development has not even begun! We cannot blame fear and ignorance as root causes of the moratorium– those are natural human responses to the information vacuum caused by the developer not showing up and setting the table properly with even basic information, local benefit discussions, and accessible contact information.

Here’s another one: Have you ever wondered why NYSERDA procurements require that you show correspondence from the host town(s) showing they know you’re bidding into the RFP? It’s not a heavy lift to get that documentation, just one more detail to chase during bid time…but why is it there? Because on multiple occasions, developers have been awarded contracts, but six months later, when awards were announced in the press, surprised and furious supervisors called NYSERDA when they saw their town named in the newspaper.  Municipal officials of some projects had never heard from the developer that there was a proposed project in their town. In other words, the developer had six months between being notified of the award and it being publicized, and they didn’t get out to the field once to meet with the town supervisor. NYSERDA is tired of getting those calls, so they put the onus where it belongs -- on the developer.

Believe me, I get it. Developer time is valuable and scarce, travel is expensive, and getting out in the field risks stirring up opposition early in the project life. But I can tell you from experience, opposition is going to show up. The only variable is whether the developer gets out ahead of it, sets the narrative, and builds credibility by showing up locally over and over again, or whether they are late to the game and the fight is mostly over in the opponents’ favor in local hearts and minds. ORES can’t and won’t save you from your own lack of investment in local stakeholder work. This is not a new phenomenon, nor one reserved for renewable energy development. Peer-reviewed studies across the world and across development types (citations available upon request) all land on the same basic fact -- if the developer shows up early and often, although that will not prevent opposition, it controls its spread and results in more successful project outcomes.

Article 10, the predecessor to 94-C, had many flaws, but one of its strengths was the required Public Involvement Plan, the PIP, which was an outline of all ~150 local stakeholders you’d need to go meet, and a schedule and meeting log of the outcomes of those meetings. That kept developers more accountable for getting out in the field. 94-C has no equivalent, and developers are treating the one required local meeting under 94-C as their bare minimum level of effort for local outreach. That is lazy. And it is backfiring on us all right now. Expensive PR campaigns and developer appeals to ORES to waive local laws are no substitute for in-person work in host communities. Don’t ask to meet on Zoom. Don’t drive a fancy sports car to a meeting in a rural town. Don’t wear your shiny office shoes or carry around a disposable Starbucks coffee cup. Don’t give your lawyer’s name and number as contact info for regular project inquiries (yes, these are all real recent examples). DO wear a ballcap and well-worn shoes, drive a minivan or boring sedan with in-state plates if possible, hand out your own business card, and keep showing up in person. You don’t have to have all the detailed answers on your project. But you need to be a human with actual contact information and a reliable presence. Get out there in the field, ACE members!