Towards increased social acceptability of marine renewable energy

The required decarbonization of our societies needs, amongst other things, the development and mass deployment of renewable energy technologies and related infrastructure – both on-shore and off-shore. Traditionally, such deployment has been considered from a primarily techno-economic (and to an extent regulatory) perspective. However, the scale of the mass deployment required to meet our climate targets means that this is no longer sufficient (if indeed it ever was). The move away from are liance of carbon intensive fuels has been significantly hindered by public opposition, sometimes to certain technologies themselves, but more often to the siting of particular projects. Effective programmes are needed to educate the public about the technology and to inform prospective host communities about proposed deployments, but also importantly to listen to, and learn from, such communities. This paper presents the work within the Safe WAVE project to develop an education and public engagement framework and create tailored programmes building on lessons of a critical review of selected programmes associated with marine energy and infrastructure deployments.