Purpose, scale and power: expanding the role of community benefits for the energy transition

The energy transition is neither proceeding as rapidly, nor as widely, as required to meet global climate policy goals. Moreover, the energy transition is under pressure due to rising far right political movements which frame the economic shifts required as a threat to livelihoods. One strategy for generating support for renewable energy development has been the distribution of “benefits” by project proponents. In this critical review, we explore the literature on benefit sharing in distinct contexts: energy projects, urban infrastructure and the extractive industry. Reading the literature through a theoretical lens that centres community engagement, power relations and social provisioning economic theory, we argue that prevailing approaches to benefit sharing for the energy transition are too narrow. We propose three changes that constitute a new point of departure for benefit sharing in the energy transition. First, we expand the scale of benefit sharing from project to recognise that the scale of the energy transition impacts not only the immediate and local area but the economy as a whole. This demands that we query not only the scale, but also the objective of benefit sharing. Existing benefit sharing practice often adopts a compensatory aim. We argue instead that the purpose of benefit sharing, should be broad-based, redistributive and prioritise agency for community parties. This reorientation demands that “the community” be actively and consciously constructed, rather than assumed. Finally, community parties must be properly resourced to participate in the process - financially, organisationally and through regulatory structures – to support their bargaining power.