How can we build public trust in hydrogen technologies?

Without proper stakeholder engagement, projects can be cancelled due to public concern. Launching comprehensive public awareness and education campaigns can demystify hydrogen technologies, highlight the benefits of hydrogen adoption and address concerns related to safety and feasibility.

Stakeholder engagement is crucial for hydrogen blending projects as it fosters public acceptance, regulatory compliance, risk identification and collaboration. Engaging stakeholders such as communities, environmental groups and industry representatives allows project developers to understand concerns, address them transparently and build support. It also helps fulfill regulatory requirements and comply with environmental and safety standards. Developers can identify and mitigate potential risks, manage concerns, tap into local knowledge and enhance project outcomes through collaboration and partnership.

Community and Customer Engagement Plans provide a high-level outline of stakeholder groups, objectives, methods and tools for engagement to support pilot projects. These plans include recommendations on how and when the various stakeholders and the public should be engaged in a two-way dialogue and where feedback will be gathered to address any concerns or questions.

The Community and Customer Engagement Plans use a blend of new technologies, social media and traditional methods to engage customers, providing opportunities that serve all demographics, locations and levels of engagement. Engagement ranges from “Inform” through to “Collaborate” on the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) engagement spectrum, depending on the level of impact and interest for each stakeholder group.

For effective engagement, a stakeholder identification and mapping exercise should be conducted to understand the key individuals, groups and industries most impacted by the pilot projects. This exercise categorises stakeholders based on their potential influence and interest in the projects.

The engagement methods are tailored to match stakeholders’ knowledge, capacity and willingness to engage. The aim is to engage the right people in the right way at the right time to facilitate the smooth adoption of the proposed service changes. It is important to be flexible and allow stakeholders to move between levels of engagement based on their circumstances and capacity.

Community and Customer Engagement Plans aim to create meaningful engagement processes by understanding stakeholders’ deep-rooted values. It proposes two rounds of engagement in the pilot communities: round one is for introducing the project, educating the community and gathering their questions and concerns; round two is for providing more in-depth feedback and exchanges once stakeholders are familiar with the pilot projects.

The plan emphasises the importance of delivering effective public education and awareness campaigns to increase stakeholder awareness, desire, knowledge, ability and sustained behavioural change. Effective engagement involves actively listening to people’s opinions, creating safe spaces for meetings and workshops and amplifying disadvantaged and marginalised voices. The plan also incorporates the EAST (Easy, Attractive, Social, Timely) framework to effectively engage and communicate with stakeholders, manage change and avoid reluctance or resistance in the pilot project communities.

Establishing a community liaison project office at a physical location in each pilot project area provides a space for community members to ask questions, express concerns and access project information. Collaborating with local universities for the project office would highlight the research and development aspects of the pilot project while also involving the local community and creating potential job opportunities.