CCS project developers worldwide are aware of the impact opponents can have on their initiatives. Both research and practice has shown that resistance can be dealt with by engaging stakeholders in the project. This has made public engagement high on the agenda of CCS project developers. Good news, one could say. It however immediately also raises some potential dangers.

I was confronted with this in a meeting at the International Energy Agency in Paris last year. Representatives of CCS projects worldwide presented, amongst other issues, how they will include public engagement in their projects. A large majority of the presenters said that they would organise workshops and provide information to the public. For example information leaflets, a visitors centre and workshops with representatives of the local community and other local stakeholders. At first glance this is a positive signal, but when listening more carefully I realised that many of these project developers just repeated the advice of researchers and other public engagement experts while they themselves were not fully aware of WHY and HOW public engagement can be helpful in dealing with potential resistance.

Providing information and organising workshops are indeed often elements of successful engagement. But not always! Much depends on how they are performed. For example, when stakeholders only want specific information and clearly have a preferred communication channel, you can increase resistance by providing an overload of leaflets, booklets, websites, presentations and events. Similarly, resistance can occur when stakeholders and community members are only given a chance to input their thoughts in group fora, but prefer more private methods of communication. Obviously, workshops are not the best tool to engage them in this instance. Additionally, CCS project developers should realise that providing information and organising workshops is not implicitly ‘engaging’ people. Ineffective workshops can be just one-way communication tools which do not supply the necessary two-way dialogue that engagement stands for.

It made me think about a conversation I had once with Norwegian and Polish colleagues. The Norwegian said that people in his country were fully aware of where to find information about projects and how to provide input and feedback to project developers via the formal existing routes. They don’t like joining workshops or any additional information events because these have little additional value for them. The Polish colleague however claimed that in her country people enjoy workshops and deciding cooperatively on issues. Organising workshops gave projects an immediate positive image and thus worked well for her.

From a historical point of view, the difference could be explained by the relatively young Polish democracy. One could imagine that the Polish are more partial to discussions, open dialogue and being listened to by the Government, compared to long existing democracies where these possibilities are taken for granted more often. More importantly, this example shows differences in cultures and how engagement can be successful. Likewise within any country, different opinions exist around how information should be provided, and if and how workshops must be organised

Thus, questions of why and how need first to be answered by CCS project developers in order to engage stakeholders and the community successfully. Initially, project developers must identify and investigate the current situation and demands, needs and expectations of the community and all formal and informal stakeholders. This includes not only investigating their level of knowledge about CCS, energy and the environment and expectations about the project, but also their norms and values, the social cohesion and tensions, trust aspects, historical experiences and conflicts. Secondly, the engagement strategy needs to be adapted to the outcomes of this initial research. Messages, spokes people, communication channels and tools must be designed to fit the expectations, capacities and needs of the project's stakeholders and community. Here it must be decided if, what and how information is provided and if workshops or other engagement tools are needed. Project developers are only ready to start engaging after these two steps are finished completely!