Social Licence

At our final Social Licence Community of Practice for 2025, Kirsty O’Connell, co-founder of The Australian National University’s Next Generation Engagement Program, shared research and practical strategies for improving trust, project acceptance, and addressing misinformation in the energy sector.

Key takeaways:

• Key drivers of project acceptance: Social value, cumulative impacts and perceived risks, and—most importantly—the quality of engagement.
• Managing social risks: Transparent communication and responsive engagement are critical to mitigating risks such as land acquisition concerns, cumulative effects, and political influence.
• Social due diligence: Using publicly available data and engagement insights to build community profiles and support respectful, evidence-based decision-making.
• Building trust: Maintaining public commitment registers and written, trackable promises to communities.
• Combating misinformation: A three-phase framework—pre-emption, pre-bunking, and debunking—supported by trusted local voices and accurate information.
• Community energy literacy: Assessing knowledge levels and creating tailored educational resources through collaboration with schools and industry partners.
• Government perceptions: Communities often see “government” as a single entity, contributing to confusion and low trust.

ANU Professor Dr Sara Bice, Co-Founder and Director of ANU spin-off, Next Generation Engagement, helped us explore how unconscious bias shows up in our engagement practices and what we can do to address it. We also touched on how many communities are feeling like a lot is happening TO them rather than WITH them.

Key takeaways:

• Acknowledge and address presumed benevolence – the unconscious assumption that “good for all” projects (like renewables) will be automatically accepted. Without care, this bias can fuel community resistance.
• Build collective efficacy – strengthening people’s belief that, together, their communities can shape outcomes, despite challenges. This sense of shared agency is vital for trust and momentum.
• Use the compression effect – recognising that social licence isn’t static. It flows across project, community, and industry levels – meaning local failures can ripple outward, compressing trust across the sector.

The Energy Charter’s third Social Licence Community of Practice brought together professionals from across the energy sector to explore groundbreaking research from Dr Scott Condie and Dr Justine Lacey of the CSIRO on measuring and modeling social licence in renewable energy projects.

Key research insights:

• Social licence can be measured scientifically using comprehensive community surveys and advanced modeling techniques
• The Social Licence Graph – a new visualisation tool that maps community sentiment from “social obligation” (strong opposition) through “contested” to “social licence” (strong support)
• Trust sits at the center of all social licence models and is the critical mediating factor
• Offshore wind generally has better community support than onshore wind across international studies
• Australia sits in the “contested” middle ground for renewable energy acceptance – not strongly opposed but not yet achieving social licence

Strategic learnings:

• Independent, unbiased surveys reveal large uncertain populations, while media focuses on extremes
• Social media is persuasive but untrusted by communities
• Collaborative learning and science literacy reduce conflict more effectively than advertising
• Local attitudes often depend on how communities self-identify (e.g., industrial heritage areas may be more supportive)
• Support typically increases through the development cycle from planning to operation
• Practical Applications: The research provides tools for developers and policymakers to understand community sentiment, identify risks early, and develop targeted engagement strategies that build genuine trust rather than simply managing opposition.

In this Community of Practice, we heard from Louise Pogmore and Hannah Lock from KPMG Australia, and Dr Kimberley Crofts, who delivered insightful presentations on their deep work unpacking the challenges facing the human side of this transformative era.

Takeaways from the session:

• The awareness-support gap: While awareness of energy transition is growing (34%), support isn’t keeping pace (66%). This highlights a critical challenge for our sector.
• We’re facing a transformation, not just a transition – especially in regional communities where we need to create genuine shared value.
  Trust requires three elements: ABILITY (demonstrating capability), HUMANITY (prioritising people), and INTEGRITY (ethical leadership).
• As Louise Pogmore noted, how we work with “humanity” may be our weakest link right now.
• Communities need more than consultation – they need voice, respect, and influence in shaping their futures.
• We need to expand our definition of “community” beyond directly impacted areas to engage with broader regional and public concerns.

In this session, we heard from experts and boots on the ground to better understand biosecurity management in today’s high-risk environment. With threats like bird flu, foot-and-mouth disease and other emerging biosecurity risks, it’s more important than ever to elevate how we protect farms and projects throughout the energy transition.

Hear from four speakers across agriculture, renewable energy and transmission operations who will share case studies and better practice solutions.

Queensland Farmers’ Federation – The farmer perspective

Dr Laurie Dowling, Agriculture and Biosecurity Coordination Officer, Queensland Farmers’ Federation shared on:

• Why biosecurity is critical for famers
• Why there are increasing concerns (changes over the last 30 years)
• Pathways for entry (kinds of risks)
• Biosecurity responsibilities

AusNet Services – Biosecurity management in the transmission sector

Taree Lamplugh, Engagement Lead, AusNet Services who shared on:

• AusNet’s approach to biosecurity management
• Recent project experience

Tilt Renewables – Biosecurity management in the renewables sector

Daved Owen, Environmental Compliance Manager, Tilt Renewables who shared on:

• Tilt Renewables’ operating context
• Overview of biosecurity management and measures during project development and construction
• Biosecurity management during operations including compliance, O&M contractors, inductions

ExoFlare – Biosecurity management software solution

Andrea Koch and Chris Aitken, Exoflare who shared on:

• Jurisdictional responsibility around Emergency Animal Diseases (EAD)
• Record keeping and good practice between entities – farmers and businesses
• Compliance with place-based biosecurity management plans + movement permits
• ExoFlare solution and how it looks in practice
• Data sharing + understanding the network and benefits