The accelerating impacts of climate change, the need to adapt to changing economic and political realities, and the recent energy crisis have made the green transition something that most Nordic citizens acknowledge as necessary. Since renewable energy production is more decentralised than fossil fuel or nuclear energy production, it significantly impact landscapes and land use, placing the Nordic rural regions at the forefront of green transition goals. However, there are already signs that the transition process will treat urban and rural regions unequally and leave regions that are already marginalised further behind. Recent citizen surveys demonstrate that people living in rural regions also sense this. As a result, we struggle to conduct just green transitions, which puts the work for achieving climate goals at risk (e.g. Rodríguez-Pose & Bartalucci 2023; Tapia et al. 2023; Ovaska & Vihinen 2020).
How can we ensure more just green transitions in rural regions? This policy brief is based on case study work in the project Just Green Transition in rural areas: local benefits from value creation, which set out to examine what kind of benefits would generate value from green transition measures in the direct impact zone of new energy projects. The case studies took place in three Nordic countries and six locations: in Northern Ostrobothnia and Northern Central Finland of Finland, involving wind power and land use planning; in Nord-Fron and Nord-Odal in Norway, involving both wind power and strategic sustainability work; and in Skive and Bornholm of Denmark, involving a hybrid mix of renewable energy sources in the context of industrial park development.
The results highlight the importance of considering local needs and, crucially, involving the community in planning and implementing green energy transitions right from the start. If new green energy projects were always owned by local or regional cooperatives and produced energy mainly for local use, it would not be that difficult to have people feel a sense of ownership towards these projects. However, this is often not a realistic scenario. A project like the municipally initiated green industrial park of GreenLab in Skive, which has since its establishment become a stand-out example for similar rural regions to follow, is difficult to copy without considerable public investment. Is there a way to carve out more living space for local action, even in municipalities without major resources?
The recommendations of this policy brief seek to offer ways to answer this question to overcome typical problems weighing on green energy projects and to foster a sense of justice rooted in the local lived realities. They suggest:
emphasising early engagement and transparent communication and promoting only realistic visions to map out all the possible impacts of a new energy project and make engaging local communities more genuine;
for municipalities to help establish joint negotiation tables and information sharing between public actors as a way to diversify compensation schemes and pressure energy companies for more inclusive approaches;
discover ways to make also non-monetary, non-quantifiable benefits of green transitions such as social well-being and municipal attractiveness visible;
to discover and utilise the small size of a rural municipality for benefit by tapping into the potential of already active citizen movements, possible small-scale projects, and more flexible ways to handle public affairs that it allows.
The policy brief concludes by pointing out that rural areas in Nordic countries are facing several interlinked transitions and related challenges simultaneously: the green transition, digital transition, and adaptation to population decline and lack of workforce, to name a few. In this situation, it is important to remember to cooperate across sectors and policy-making silos to align resources and address the whole spectrum of actors and stakeholders impacted by the green transition.
Finally, we need to review what justice is in the context of rural green transitions. Only certain aspects of it are considered in the current regulations and impact assessment processes. When we acknowledge this and open up the processes surrounding new energy projects from their very first steps, we may notice that the capital regions should catch up with rural regions, not the other way around.