Procedural justice and the implementation of community wind energy projects: A case study from South Yorkshire, UK

•Examines perceptions of 'procedural justice' in the implementation of a community wind project.•Interviewees had divergent expectations about what constituted 'procedural justice' in project implementation.•Experiences of the implementation process reinforced perceptions of procedural justice or injustice.•Challenges the notion that community energy projects will always be considered locally fair.•Provides lessons of how procedural justice might be achieved in community energy schemes.

In policy and activist discourses there is often an expectation that community wind energy projects will avoid the conflicts and local opposition often associated with private-developer-led developments. However, the empirical validity of this assertion has not been widely investigated. In previous research on private-developer wind projects, the fairness of decision-making processes ('procedural justice') during project implementation has been identified as an important factor in shaping local acceptance, but has not been deeply studied in relation to community-led schemes. Using in-depth qualitative research of a proposed community wind project in South Yorkshire, this paper examines stakeholder interpretations of procedural justice during the design and siting of this scheme. Although the project leaders explicitly aimed for a fair and 'democratic' implementation process, considerable conflict emerged over whether this goal was achieved. The analysis shows that these conflicting views were the result, firstly, of different normative expectations of what 'procedural justice' actually meant and involved, and, secondly, of contrasting stakeholder experiences of the decision processes that were utilised. It cannot be assumed that community wind projects will always be considered procedurally just at the local level, with much resting on the details of how they are undertaken.