Stakeholder Engagement: A Key Strength for the Success of Our Projects

Consultation does not happen spontaneously. But without it, we believe that it would no longer be possible to imagine the smallest project – even more so if it is an industrial project and a host region needs to be found. Rather, what is needed is the willingness to create – through consensus – the conditions under which a project can be sustainable, in accordance with a region’s own development aims.

Against the backdrop of the energy transition, EDF aims to become the champion of low-carbon growth and the standard-setting electricity company for performance and responsibility. The main provisions of Cap 2030 – EDF Group’s strategic project – are to be closer to customers and to double by 2030 its installed global capacity in renewables: wind, solar, marine energy, and hydropower. That adds up to hundreds of projects that must be put in place throughout the world. The stakes are high to ensure their sustainability and public acceptance.

We have heard the warning bells that society is sending out in countries around the planet: People expect more dialogue and are increasingly vigilant when it comes to projects that are likely to modify the surrounding environment. For that reason, we have decided to make consultation our key strength for success and a lever for our company’s transformation and the way it goes about its business.

Building offshore wind power with fishermen, environmental organizations, and SMEs

In France, EDF Energies Nouvelles is conducting several offshore wind farm projects. One of these is an 80-turbine farm in Brittany, off the coast of the fishing town of Le Croisic and not far from the shipbuilding town of Saint-Nazaire. In the space of five years, apart from the mandatory public inquiry procedures, dialogue and consultation have enabled many legitimate concerns of local people to be assuaged. Fishermen participated to study trips to the United Kingdom to find out about existing offshore wind farms and talk to their counterparts.

They then worked with engineers at EDF Energies Nouvelles to establish a location for the future wind farm that would have the least impact on their activity. The Bretagne Vivante non-profit organization was tasked with carrying out a study on the impact of the wind turbines on bird and bat populations in order to gain a better understanding of the behavior of maritime fauna, which was little known up until then. The region’s small companies had very limited international experience, so to prepare them for how to participate in technical calls for tenders, training in English was put in place via a non-profit that wished to protect their interests. Welding skills – which are very specific for offshore wind turbines – were also improved. In the end, all the environmental, fishing and industrial stakeholders concerned are now working alongside EDF Energies Nouvelles in support of the project.

Forming partnerships to conduct our business

Consultation and dialogue lead us to change our practices. As we experiment and see the resulting benefits, we build new ways of conducting our business through forming operational partnerships that enable us to bring in project stakeholders as early as possible. In the French Pyrenees, for example, we reorganized maintenance schedules for our major hydro dams. The environmental engineers of the national nature park help us identify the breeding areas of the bearded vulture, a protected bird of prey. We modify the helicopter fly-over plans that transport the people and materials required so as not to disturb the mother vultures. Any work that is too close to young broods is postponed.

Another example concerns fighting fuel poverty. In Toulouse, we bring together neighborhood resident associations with small businesses working in home renovation and suppliers of light equipment and tools. They form workshops that enable vulnerable people to benefit from advice, training, and tools so they can renovate their own homes, especially to improve energy efficiency.

Training project managers

Consultation requires a clear decisionmaking process, procedural rules, and set principles for all stakeholders involved. In addition, the fears and worries that can hamper trust have to be allayed. To achieve all this, in 2012, EDF set up a Group-wide training course and implemented a methodology, called Durabilis, for training project teams in how to identifity local priorities and thereby carry out the ground work for better stakeholder
inclusion in projects. The areas looked at are local value creation, the consequences of projects on the areas where they are located, and environmental health issues.

Alongside the usual criteria of national and local health regulations as well as the governance of health issues at the regional level, Durabilis backs up regional assessment tools and encourages the inclusion of several additional sets of criteria (geographic, demographic, social, and cultural). These criteria examine the region’s environmental characteristics; the state of existing pollution and health risks; expected impacts due to climate
change, weather, lifestyles, and on quality of life; people’s levels of education; healthcare systems in the region; and so on. In total, more than 60 questions relating to environmental health were fed into the regional assessment that the project teams drew up.