Abstract
Justice and fairness are increasingly popular concepts in energy research and comprise several justice dimensions, including distributive and procedural justice, related to energy production and consumption. In this paper, we used factorial survey experiments—a method employed in sociological justice research—for energy transition research. In a factorial survey, respondents evaluated one or more situations described by several attributes, which varied in their levels. The experimental setup of factorial surveys is one of its advantages over simple survey items, as based on this, the relative importance of each attribute for justice evaluations can be determined. We employed the method in a study on the perceived fairness of renewable energy expansion projects related to wind energy, solar energy, and biomass in Germany, and considered aspects of procedural and distributive justice. We show that the effects of these justice dimensions can be separated and the heterogeneity in justice evaluations can be explained. Compared to previous studies applying factorial survey experiments to explain the acceptance of renewable energy projects, we employed the method to directly measure justice concerns and asked respondents to evaluate the vignettes in terms of perceived fairness. This is important because acceptance and fairness as well as inequality and injustice are different phenomena.
Highlights
While much research on energy production and consumption is concerned with the concept of justice [1,2,3,4], there is little empirical quantitative research that directly measures citizens’ justice concerns and fairness perceptions
By directly measuring justice/fairness perceptions and varying justice-related attributes across vignettes, we examined and disentangled the relevance of different justice dimensions for energy-related projects
For example, that the number of renewable energy plants is less important than aspects of procedural and distributive justice
Summary
While much research on energy production and consumption is concerned with the concept of justice [1,2,3,4], there is little empirical quantitative research that directly measures citizens’ justice concerns and fairness perceptions. A direct measurement of justice perceptions is important because social inequalities related to energy production and consumption do not necessarily imply injustice: inequality and perceived injustice regarding the exposure to environmental harms and goods are two different phenomena. With regard to justice concerns, the environmental justice movement typically strives for an equal distribution of environmental harms and goods across social groups in society This means that all groups in society are affected, for example, by renewable energy production. Respondents compare alternatives that vary in multiple attributes and choose the alternative they prefer most This method has advantages for measuring citizens’ preferences and estimating welfare measures, for example, citizens’ willingness to pay for renewable energy expansion, but it is less suitable for measuring attitudes, (normative) beliefs, and (fairness) perceptions. We consider three renewable energy sources—wind energy, solar energy, and biomass—and compare the importance of justice dimensions and fairness perceptions across the different energy sources
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