5. General lessons learned and ways forward

Social acceptance issues need to be addressed wisely if the Nordic region wants to remain a green frontrunner and a source of inspiration globally. As the findings in this project show, considerations about social acceptance shape local and national policies and decisions with regards to wind power development and fuel taxes.

The project has also shown that there are significant differences between the countries in terms of how opposition to wind power and increased fuel taxes manifest themselves, and how they are handled politically. Social acceptance for a given policy is e.g., partly determined by an individual’s political alignment and one’s preferred party’s stance on the policy, and political landscapes differ across the Nordics. Social acceptance issues also overlap with other, pre-existing, divides in each country e.g., between rural and urban people or between the state and indigenous peoples.

However, several themes are relevant across the Nordic region. In this chapter, we summarize the main cross-Nordic lessons learned based on insights from the literature and the virtual workshops:

The need for holistic perspectives, planning and shared visions
Navigating and addressing existing divides in society
Ensuring involvement and democracy
Social climate plans as a lever for change

They serve to highlight the main issues that policymakers across the Nordic countries and the Nordic Council of Ministers should emphasize going forward. Under each heading, we also highlight some ways forward.

The need for holistic perspectives, planning and shared visions

Green energy initiatives, such as wind and solar power, inevitably require space and compete with other land uses. This is a growing debate across the Nordic region, as land is increasingly becoming a scarce resource.

The debate includes a wide range of concerns, for example, the need for nature conservation, biodiversity, food production, climate mitigation, energy production, infrastructure development, and indigenous rights. These competing needs, and the diverse set of stakeholders associated with them, often result in a lack of social acceptance towards green transition initiatives in general.

As such, lack of community acceptance towards a specific wind power development project is not necessarily created by the wind power project itself. Instead, it is the public response to the sum of the many different green transition initiatives (and other initiatives) that impact their daily lives. For example, for the Sámi populations in Norway, Finland, and Sweden, wind power is just one type of (land) development among others that encroach on their way of living.

The same logic applies to fuel taxes. Citizens might not necessarily be opposed to environmental taxes per se, but when these are added to other existing taxes/initiatives – and without a holistic narrative for how these interact – social acceptance is low.

Initiatives fall short of gaining social acceptance when they only involve fuel taxes but gain more support when they comprehensively address the challenge of phasing out fossil fuels in the transportation sector, e.g. by bundling fuel taxes with the increased provision of affordable transportation alternatives. Creating a shared (Nordic) vision on sustainable mobility of the future (and similarly local visions for wind power and land-use) would bring solutions to the discussion as well and ensure that decisionmakers bring attractive solutions to the challenges and with a roadmap for the future, so that people – in the case of fuel price increases - would not be left to find their own alternatives to the increased costs.

Generally applicable	Provide transparent information and clear communication. Perceived impacts play a key role in explaining local acceptance of wind power projects. Concerns include distributional impacts and environmental consequences. To ensure that perceptions are not based on misunderstandings (e.g., regarding the placement of wind turbines or the impact of a new fuel tax on fuel prices) this calls for transparency with regard to information about the project/initiative and clear communication about the purpose of policies and their expected impacts and co-benefits. This applies at all government levels and for developers etc.
Specifically for wind power	Facilitate co-created local vision on the green transition. To improve social acceptance of wind power developments, locals need to be able to see the development in the larger context of the green transition – and their role in it. This might be achieved with a local vision co-created between local government and citizens. We suggest that visions, as a minimum, encompass local land use in general and consider other needs and goals as well (e.g., biodiversity, local economy, contribution to national goals etc.).
Specifically for fuel taxes	Facilitate a Nordic vision on sustainable mobility. There is Nordic added value in co-creating a shared (Nordic) vision on sustainable mobility that national and local decision-makers can tap into, refer to, and build on. This also has the potential to be a blueprint for an approach/process that can be applied in national, regional, and local contexts. Since it requires cross-Nordic collaboration, it could be an effort led by the Nordic Council of Ministers. Gather examples of successful policy mixes. Unpopular policies, such as fuel taxes, gain support if they are bundled/mixed with other policies that benefit citizens. As has become clear in this report, there is a sparsity of Nordic examples in the mobility area, indicating a need to look beyond the Nordics for inspiration. Work could be initiated to gather examples of successful policy mixes from around the world.
References to the NJUST toolbox (Sánchez et al. 2024)	3. Develop a vision for the green transition Establish clear goals and common ground. Co-create an inspiring vision. Use the vision to inspire action. 5. Assess and mitigate social and regional impacts of the green transition Conduct impact assessments. Mitigate adverse impacts. Promote a universal design perspective. Monitor impacts.

Table 3: The need for holistic perspectives, planning and shared vision – ways forward

Navigating and addressing existing societal divides

For both wind power and fuel taxes, one must pay close attention to existing societal divides. Green transition initiatives risk tapping into existing grievances and inequalities and are received accordingly by the affected citizens.

These considerations have also been highlighted in the cross-Nordic “Not Just a Green Transition” (NJUST) project. The report “In all fairness: perceptions of climate policies and the green transition in the Nordic Region” shows that the Nordic population feel that climate policies affect people in different ways, depending on socioeconomic background, location (urban vs. rural) and if they are indigenous people (such as the Sámi). This perceived inequality and injustice, whether or not it is accurate, affects social acceptance.

For fuel tax increases, conclusions in the literature across all Nordic countries point towards a need for addressing the perceived (and often real) unequal impacts of the tax between people living in cities compared to rural areas. In rural areas where public transportation systems are lacking, additional initiatives that make transport less affordable or less approachable are unpopular, no matter their intended purpose. This must be taken into consideration when designing fuel tax policies/policies for sustainable mobility. Earmarking is a possible solution. This has been shown to increase both the perceived fairness and effectiveness of taxes. Studies such as Dugstad et al. (2024) found that acceptance is highest when tax revenues are used to fund both climate mitigation measures and reduce rural-urban inequalities. There are, however, also significant drawbacks with earmarking of revenues, particularly that it restricts budgetary flexibility.

The same conclusions are valid for wind power development. If the placement of wind power is perceived to be biased towards certain regions, affecting certain groups in society disproportionately, the perceived injustice negatively affects social acceptance. If local communities feel they bear the burden without receiving any tangible benefits, this creates resistance. Community ownership, local involvement and benefit sharing are possible, and maybe necessary, solutions (see also the next section).

Generally applicable	Research on and experimentation with compensation mechanisms. There is a need for more research on and experimentation with compensation mechanisms that ensure equality in the transition without compromising the effectiveness of a price signal. These mechanisms do not have to compensate for specific impacts of specific policies but help ensure equitable outcomes more broadly. Do note that compensation should be accompanied by dialogue with citizens. If they feel that they are simply being paid off, this instead undermines trust and fairness (see also section on Involvement and democracy below).
Specifically for wind power	Share and scale Nordic example of benefit sharing practices. Often, landowners are the primary beneficiaries of wind power development. To ensure social acceptance, benefits must be shared more broadly in the local community. For example, economic benefits and opportunities for local businesses are key drivers for social acceptance of wind power. A good place to start is by sharing and scaling good examples across the Nordic countries. Ensure local anchorage. Projects initiated by private landowners tend to have higher levels of local acceptance compared to those initiated by wind power companies, as they are perceived to better reflect local objectives. Local anchorage can also be improved with transparency and clear communication (see section above) and involvement (see section below).
Specifically for fuel taxes	Identify Nordic and international examples of earmarking. Earmarking tax revenue for environmental initiatives has consistently been shown to increase the level of support. There is thus a need for more examples of earmarking to help guide decision makers, and an assessment of what works and what does not (in a Nordic context). Increase knowledge about alternatives. As this report has shown, the urban-rural divide, and the mobility initiatives such as fuel taxes that risk deepening the divide, hinder social acceptance. Some of this is based on the perception that there are no feasible alternatives to current, fossil-fueled mobility practices. However, there are alternatives available, also for rural areas, and there is a need to spread this knowledge to decision makers and citizens. Increase attractiveness of alternatives. Making unsustainable practices more expensive does not necessarily increase the attractiveness of sustainable alternatives. Especially for low-income groups, decision makers need to provide economic incentives to move away from fossil fuels, e.g. support for used EVs.
References to the NJUST toolbox (Sánchez et al. 2024)	6. Adopt a place-based approach for your policies Develop place-based action plans. Ensure local quality-of-life benefits. Close ties to 4. Engage people in the green transition, and 3. Develop a vision for the green transition.

Table 4: Navigating and addressing existing societal divides – ways forward

Ensuring involvement and democracy

For wind power and other local green transition investments, everything points to involvement as a key to ensuring social acceptance. Especially early community engagement has been highlighted both in Nordic studies and by participants in the workshops as an effective tool.

The Nordic countries generally have a strong tradition of involving citizens in local land-use development, for example, through citizen hearings. However, there are still aspects that can be improved, e.g. with respect to the way in which citizens are involved in the process. For example, for wind power, early engagement and transparent communication by both the municipality and developers is recommended by multiple sources.

However, the urgency of the green transition creates a dilemma: how to create more involvement while also speeding up the green transition, as well as how to make sure involvement does not become a burden for certain people or certain groups, municipalities or developers, especially in areas with multiple projects? As was highlighted by multiple stakeholders in the virtual workshop on wind power, involvement requires a lot of time and knowledge from the local people, emphasizing a need to improve the efficiency of involvement from a local perspective.

While classic forms of involvement and citizen engagement might help ensure a minimum of social acceptance, there might be a need for trying out other and newer forms of citizen participation. For example, across the Nordic countries, experiments with citizen assemblies and similar democratic forms of engagement should be assessed and scaled (if successful). This is neither easy nor cheap. Both at the national and local levels, government employees need to be equipped with the right competencies to handle and facilitate citizen involvement processes. Involving locals project by project requires a lot of resources from the citizens, implying that coordination between projects (not only wind power or green transition projects, but all projects impacting the locals) and combination of involvement processes decreases the burden of involvement and serves to demonstrate, for the locals, expected overall impacts and cumulative effects.

Generally applicable

Facilitate early engagement and transparent communication. Early engagement and transparent communication by both the municipality and developers is recommended by multiple sources. As this report has shown, lack of perceived participation in the planning process decreases social acceptance in terms of perceived personal well-being. Specifically, in many Nordic municipalities, a lack of transparency and insufficient public involvement has undermined trust in the decision-making process related to wind power. Therefore, early engagement with citizens and transparent communication is key. This will require allocation of funds to e.g., the local governments or core agencies responsible for engagement, involvement, and communication.

Experiment with different forms of engagement. Considering the challenge of the urgency of the green transition clashing with the need to involve and engage citizens, there is a need for cross-Nordic assessment of the many different experiments with citizen assemblies and similar democratic forms of engagement taking place across the Nordic countries. There are opportunities for scaling and implementing across countries (see e.g. ongoing Nordic work: https://www.nordforsk.org/projects/legitimacy-and-acceleration-green-energy-initiatives-and-transitions-legit) but these need to be sold to national and local policymakers.

Competencies for citizen involvement. Both at the national and local levels, government employees need to be equipped with the right competencies to handle and facilitate citizen involvement processes, e.g., how and when to involve citizens. There are examples across the Nordic countries of specialized organizations, teams, etc., with these kinds of competencies, but national policymakers must ensure that these organizations and teams are scaled accordingly or that competencies are spread out more evenly across relevant agencies and government levels.

References to the NJUST toolbox (Sánchez et al. 2024)

4. Engage people in the green transition

Map stakeholders who should be involved.
Make meetings accessible and inclusive.
Engage experts and facilitators.
Ensure that engagement processes have a concrete impact.
Make citizen engagement practices a regular routine.

Table 5: Ensuring involvement and democracy – ways forward

Social climate plans as a lever for change

Except for Iceland, all the Nordic countries are participating in the EU’s emissions trading system (ETS), which from 2027 is extended to also cover smaller industries, heating, and transportation (ETS2). It will thus have the same effect as a fuel tax.

Knowing that this may put a financial burden on some households, the ETS2 regulation includes: 1) allocation of some of the revenue to the individual states (SCF – Social Climate Fund), to alleviate social aspects, as well as 2) a requirement that the states develop Social Climate Plans describing how they will handle fuel poverty in relation to the new regulation.

This presents an opportunity for the Nordic countries to use this strategically to enhance social acceptance of this implicit additional tax on fuel by 1) developing the required plan – not only due to EU requirements, but because it can give value nationally, and 2) communicating clearly and proactively that "yes, there is a risk that fuel prices may increase if the transition doesn’t happen fast enough, but rest assured that we have plans – and funding – in place to handle this."

Ways forward: We suggest that the Nordic countries collaborate on how to best use the social climate plans as a lever for change.