What's in store: Lessons from implementing CCS

Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) has been identified as a key technology for mitigating carbon emissions. However, CCS is still very much at a developmental stage and the full-scale projects required to test the technology have proven difficult to implement, with lack of societal acceptance considered a key contributing factor to this delay. This paper reports on a study that explored practices for effective communication, engagement strategies and activities in the context of five detailed CCS project case studies. The cases studied included Barendrecht, The Netherlands; Carson, USA; FutureGen, USA; ZeroGen, Australia; and the CO2CRC Otway project, Australia. Comparative analysis of these cases identified a series of factors including: the extent to which key government and project team members are aligned; deployment of communications experts as part of the project team from the outset; consideration of the social context; the degree of flexibility in the project; and competition involving community self-selection. The research team designated these “critical success factors” that, when present, seemed to enhance the effectiveness of best practices in engagement and contribute to successful project deployment in some cases. The paper proposes that project developers need to consider ways to maximise these critical factors as part of their project planning and implementation process. It also discusses best practices in stakeholder communication and engagement activities applicable to CCS projects.

► The synthesis of this paper contributes to the social science knowledge base and is applicable to other energy projects beyond CCS.
► We compare five international CCS communication case studies at different stages of implementation.
► Communications experts should not be seen as an add on, but part of the project team from the outset.
► Frequent, transparent communication helps projects to establish and maintain trust with local communities.
► A project's ability to be adaptive and flexible to the immediate social context is also important.