UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) Contested environmental policy infrastructure: socio-political acceptance of renewable energy, water, and waste facilities Contested environmental policy infrastructure: Socio-political acceptance of renewable energy

Abstract

Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. Abstract Decisions to build new infrastructure are often contested. The general idea is that such infrastructure is considered to serve the (proclaimed) public interests, whereas the impact or risk is concentrated at a smaller scale, for example in local communities. The nature of such risk is that it concerns threats to environmental quality. A frequently arising type of environmental conflict arises when the proclaimed public good lies within the domain of environmental policy and sustainability. Impact assessments are essential parts of identification and assessment of acceptability and risks associated with projects, plans or programs. The social acceptability of building infrastructure as a part of environmental policy, however, is hardly conceptually defined so far, and the role of policy appraisal methods is unclear. The social acceptance of environmental-policy infrastructure is conceptually defined as institutionally determined, and will be elaborated in three cases. The first case is the policy domain of renewable energy implementation, which is a major component of climate change mitigation strategies. The empirical basis comes mainly from studies on the implementation of wind power. The second case concerns the building of waste infrastructure, which is part of environmental policies that, however, not only focus upon sound waste management and disposal, but primarily upon waste minimization (the 'waste management hierarchy'). The third case is the Dutch policy on space-water management, that tries to implement a new style of management that contrasts with the current style of water management and governance that is based on control and 'hard' infrastructure. This is now becoming the spearhead of climate change adaptation policy. All three cases show a large variety of social acceptance issues, in which the appraisal of the impact of siting the facilities is confronted with the desirability of the policies. The latter can also be questioned, and within the framework of the projects of infrastructure, they tend to be highly contested. The social acceptance of such facilities becomes a multi-dimension phenomenon, that manifests itself at all geographical scales and levels of governance