Social Site Characterisation for CO2 Storage Operations to Inform Public Engagement in Poland and Scotland

Abstract

Public supp ort has p roven crucial to the imp lementation of CO2 cap ture and storage (CCS) d emonstration p rojects. Whereas no method exists to guarantee local p ublic accep tability of any p roject, a constructiv e stakeholder engagement p rocess does increase the likelihood thereof. Social site characterisation can be used as an instrument to p lan and evaluate an ap p roach for actively engagin g local stakeholders. Social site characterisation is the p rocess of rep eatedly investigating local p ublic awaren ess and op inions of a sp ecific CC S p roject, chan ges therein ov er time, and underly ing factors shap ing p ublic op inion as a p arallel activity to technical site characterization. This p ap er p resents results from the EU FP7 SiteChar p roject in which social site characterisation (a.o. survey s) and p ublic p articip ation activities (focus conferences) were conducted by a multidiscip linary team at two p rosp ective CCS sites in in Poland (onshore) and Scotland (offshore). Results demonstrate that social site characterization and focus conferences are p owerful tools to raise p ublic awareness about comp lex issues such as CCS and to initiate local discussion and p lannin g p rocesses with the app rop riate typ e of information, through ap p rop riate media, and involvin g all relevant stakeholders. Ap p lication and the duration of effects in real-life p roject settings will be discussed.