Abstract
For implementing renewable energy policies it is necessary to convince the population of the appropriateness and usefulness of the ideas. The information provision needed for that requires the communication to be accessible and understandable to the target audience. This research examined the national renewable energy action plans of the member states of the European Union. The online accessibility of these documents and their readability were examined using a simple accessibility test and the Flesch and Flesch–Kincaid readability tests. The paper also addresses the relationship between the culturally-determined power distance indices and the economic and developmental characteristics of the countries and the readability values of their samples. The results showed that the examined documents could be easily accessed, but the action plans of all the member states were difficult to read. The emerging pattern suggested that the text samples of the countries with higher power distances were harder to interpret. Nevertheless, no significant relationship was detected by the correlation analyses between the power distance indices and the Flesch and Flesch–Kincaid readability scores, while strong relationships were detected between the Human Development Index (HDI) data and the results of both readability tests in the group of countries with the highest power distance values.
Highlights
Introduction and Literature ReviewBesides the most commonly used energy sources, the world’s nations of today try to make use of renewable sources of energy to replace fossil fuels
The action plan of Luxembourg is only available in German, besides the international English version, in spite of the fact that the country has three official languages: Letzebuergesch, French, and German
Concerning the availability of the national renewable energy action plans in the languages of other national minorities living in the member countries no data have been found on the Internet
Summary
Introduction and Literature ReviewBesides the most commonly used energy sources, the world’s nations of today try to make use of renewable sources of energy to replace fossil fuels. The main reason for this is the public perception that our current energy consumption and production, based mainly on fossil fuels, is to blame for such harmful environmental processes and changes as the ever-growing carbon dioxide emissions and the resulting climate change. Considering the enormous social, environmental, and economic importance of the issue, providing stakeholders—and the public in general—with relevant information about the related policies of the governments and supranational organisations has become crucial. An investigation into how such communication is carried out seems to be conducive to establishing if citizens’ rights to be informed are fulfilled and if the clarity and comprehensibility of policy-related documents differ from country to country and/or are influenced by cultural differences or other major economic or developmental characteristics of the nations
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