IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-14-00099.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How to promote community social acceptance of solid biomass in Europe? Identifying firms' best practices

Author

Listed:
  • Emilio De Meo

    (University of Foggia & AgroEnergy STAR* Research Group)

  • Antonio Lopolito

    (University of Foggia & AgroEnergy STAR* Research Group)

  • Maurizio Prosperi

    (University of Foggia & AgroEnergy STAR* Research Group)

  • Giacomo Giannoccaro

    (University of Foggia & AgroEnergy STAR* Research Group)

  • Rosa Anna Ciccone

    (University of Foggia)

Abstract

The siting of solid biomass energy plants can be conceived as a transaction process taking place between two specific economic agents, the investor and local community. The investor is interested in obtaining the use rights for local resources (e.g., area for setting; natural resources to feed the process, release of pollutants into the environment) while the community expects an increase in net benefits (e.g., job opportunities, induced industrial development). This transaction process has been analyzed according to the typical transaction costs theory, where the economic activities are conceived as the result of transactions among economic agents, which are hindered by three main obstacles: i) bounded rationality, ii) opportunism, iii) asset specificity. By applying the New Institutional theory approach, we treat the issue of social acceptance as a transaction cost problem. The aim is to identify the best practices adopted by biomass firms' managers in order to enhance the social acceptance of solid biomass plants at the local community level. In this paper, we conduct a positive analysis where the methodological approach is based on the comparison of six successful study cases. This allowed us to identify twelve measures capable of fostering social acceptance and consequently of reducing the costs related to the investment.

Suggested Citation

  • Emilio De Meo & Antonio Lopolito & Maurizio Prosperi & Giacomo Giannoccaro & Rosa Anna Ciccone, 2014. "How to promote community social acceptance of solid biomass in Europe? Identifying firms' best practices," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(4), pages 2080-2092.
  • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-14-00099
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2014/Volume34/EB-14-V34-I4-P192.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wolsink, Maarten, 2007. "Planning of renewables schemes: Deliberative and fair decision-making on landscape issues instead of reproachful accusations of non-cooperation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2692-2704, May.
    2. Breukers, Sylvia & Wolsink, Maarten, 2007. "Wind power implementation in changing institutional landscapes: An international comparison," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2737-2750, May.
    3. Jobert, Arthur & Laborgne, Pia & Mimler, Solveig, 2007. "Local acceptance of wind energy: Factors of success identified in French and German case studies," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2751-2760, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Prosperi, Maurizio & Lombardi, Mariarosaria & Spada, Alessia, 2019. "Ex ante assessment of social acceptance of small-scale agro-energy system: A case study in southern Italy," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 346-354.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Adams, Michelle & Wheeler, David & Woolston, Genna, 2011. "A participatory approach to sustainable energy strategy development in a carbon-intensive jurisdiction: The case of Nova Scotia," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 2550-2559, May.
    2. Heagle, A.L.B. & Naterer, G.F. & Pope, K., 2011. "Small wind turbine energy policies for residential and small business usage in Ontario, Canada," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 1988-1999, April.
    3. Eltham, Douglas C. & Harrison, Gareth P. & Allen, Simon J., 2008. "Change in public attitudes towards a Cornish wind farm: Implications for planning," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 23-33, January.
    4. Simón, Xavier & Copena, Damián & Montero, María, 2019. "Strong wind development with no community participation. The case of Galicia (1995–2009)," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    5. Anshelm, Jonas & Simon, Haikola, 2016. "Power production and environmental opinions – Environmentally motivated resistance to wind power in Sweden," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1545-1555.
    6. Feurtey, Évariste & Ilinca, Adrian & Sakout, Anas & Saucier, Carol, 2016. "Institutional factors influencing strategic decision-making in energy policy; a case study of wind energy in France and Quebec (Canada)," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1455-1470.
    7. Bergek, Anna, 2010. "Levelling the playing field? The influence of national wind power planning instruments on conflicts of interests in a Swedish county," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(5), pages 2357-2369, May.
    8. Thomas Hoppe & Antonia Graf & Beau Warbroek & Imke Lammers & Isabella Lepping, 2015. "Local Governments Supporting Local Energy Initiatives: Lessons from the Best Practices of Saerbeck (Germany) and Lochem (The Netherlands)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(2), pages 1-32, February.
    9. Langer, Katharina & Decker, Thomas & Roosen, Jutta & Menrad, Klaus, 2016. "A qualitative analysis to understand the acceptance of wind energy in Bavaria," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 248-259.
    10. Merethe Dotterud Leiren & Stine Aakre & Kristin Linnerud & Tom Erik Julsrud & Maria-Rosaria Di Nucci & Michael Krug, 2020. "Community Acceptance of Wind Energy Developments: Experience from Wind Energy Scarce Regions in Europe," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(5), pages 1-22, February.
    11. Thøgersen, John & Noblet, Caroline, 2012. "Does green consumerism increase the acceptance of wind power?," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 854-862.
    12. Ioannidis, Romanos & Koutsoyiannis, Demetris, 2020. "A review of land use, visibility and public perception of renewable energy in the context of landscape impact," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 276(C).
    13. Haggett, Claire, 2011. "Understanding public responses to offshore wind power," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 503-510, February.
    14. David Rudolph & Claire Haggett & Mhairi Aitken, 2018. "Community benefits from offshore renewables: The relationship between different understandings of impact, community, and benefit," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(1), pages 92-117, February.
    15. Pepermans, Yves & Loots, Ilse, 2013. "Wind farm struggles in Flanders fields: A sociological perspective," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 321-328.
    16. Fjaestad, Maja, 2013. "Winds of time: Lessons from Utö in the Stockholm Archipelago, 1990–2001," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 124-130.
    17. van Rensburg, Thomas M. & Kelley, Hugh & Jeserich, Nadine, 2015. "What influences the probability of wind farm planning approval: Evidence from Ireland," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 12-22.
    18. van der Plank, Sien & Walsh, Bríd & Behrens, Paul, 2016. "The expected impacts of mining: Stakeholder perceptions of a proposed mineral sands mine in rural Australia," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 129-136.
    19. Olaf Kühne, 2020. "Landscape Conflicts—A Theoretical Approach Based on the Three Worlds Theory of Karl Popper and the Conflict Theory of Ralf Dahrendorf, Illustrated by the Example of the Energy System Transformation in," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-20, August.
    20. Suškevičs, M. & Eiter, S. & Martinat, S. & Stober, D. & Vollmer, E. & de Boer, C.L. & Buchecker, M., 2019. "Regional variation in public acceptance of wind energy development in Europe: What are the roles of planning procedures and participation?," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 311-323.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    transaction costs; new instutional theory; social acceptance; bio-energy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B4 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology
    • Q4 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-14-00099. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.