Where do you draw the line? Legitimacy and fairness in constructing community benefit fund boundaries for energy infrastructure projects

Abstract

The low carbon transition is fraught with challenges for policy makers, not least the social acceptance of large-scale infrastructure. In response to community objections, the distribution of benefit funds has become increasingly prevalent as a means to bolster acceptance. However, little research has investigated the spatiality of benefit provision - where boundaries are drawn that define the ‘locality’ of a project and who is eligible to benefit. Using a high voltage power line in Ireland as a case study, this paper investigates how the boundaries of the community fund were identified, contested, negotiated and implemented. It draws on a qualitative dataset comprising secondary materials, observation and in-depth interviews with the stakeholders administering the fund and both successful and unsuccessful community applicants. Stakeholders justified boundary setting as essential for efficient and equitable fund distribution, founded upon discourses of impact and proximity. Those administering the fund mixed objectivity and subjectivity, departing from a logical, formulaic approach to identify the locality of the project before revising it in response to ‘reasonable’ local knowledge and interests. The outcome was a boundary that was widely acknowledged to be imperfect, yet legitimate and fair. Community groups recognised the fund both as an instrumental tool to secure their acceptance and as a means to mitigate impact and share benefit, provided it served their interests. Application of the boundary in fund decision-making revealed inherent difficulties in putting abstract definitions of ‘locality’ into practice as well as tensions between values of meritocracy and distributional equity. We discuss the applicability of the findings to non-linear energy projects (e.g. wind farms) and propose recommendations to optimise legitimacy and fairness in drawing boundaries for community benefit provision.