What are the reasons for this Action?
Pressure on decision-makers (e.g. planners, public agencies), communities, and developers to resolve landscape-energy conflicts is increasing, because of
- the continued roll-out of RE technologies to meet low-carbon energy goals
- the widespread recognition of the value of European landscapes to people’s wellbeing and the rural economy
If you would like to inform others about the Action, you can download the PR-statement.
New integrated and interdisciplinary approaches are necessary to guide the transformation process towards renewable energies. The Action is aiming at creating a vision and coalition for reconciling renewable energy systems and landscape quality. Build bridges across publics, stakeholders, and sectoral, administrative and national boundaries.
About the Action
In response to climate change, limited fossil fuels and rising energy demand and prices, renewable energy (RE) is heavily promoted throughout Europe. While objectives to boost RE and trans-European energy networks are ambitious, it is increasingly understood that public acceptance becomes a constraining factor and general support for green energy does not always translate into local support for speciic projects. Perceived landscape change and loss of landscape quality have featured heavily in opposition campaigns in many European countries, even though RE can facilitate sustainable evelopment, especially in disadvantaged regions rich in wind, water, biomass, geothermal or solar energy.
1. Advance a interdisciplinary and multi-paradigm science base to aid in the management of landscapes, in the light of climate change and renewable energy deployment.
2. Examine, critique and (re)define landscape quality objectives in the context of the above mentioned challenges, based on validated empirical research.
3. Increase the awareness of the two-way interaction between renewable energy systems and landscape quality.
4. Explore and extend procedures for participation of the public and other parties in the planning of renewable energy systems.
• Better understanding of how European landscape protection/management and renewable energy deployment can be reconciled to contribute to the sustainable transformation of energy systems.
• Consolidating and extending knowledge in landscape quality, renewable energy, and public participation from a pan-European perspective.
• Provision of best practice examples for decision-making, and production of guidelines and toolboxes for public participation in the planning of renewable energy systems.
• Revealing the potential of sustainable landscape development, with innovative land uses producing synergies for landscape quality and renewable energy.
• Optimization of trade-offs between renewable energy production and landscape protection by promoting an effective policy without jeopardizing the values and quality of European landscape.
• Advancing participative approaches in planning to assist a smoother transition to energy systems based on renewable energy.