Participation (and Co-Creation) in the Marine Renewable Energy Framework

The essay explores the role of communities and citizens, as well as the legal instruments at their disposal, in decision-making processes concerning the authorization of renewable energy projects, with a particular focus on offshore wind farms. The development of such installations, despite their location in open waters, often faces opposition from local communities, thereby delaying the permitting procedures. Given the growing importance of renewable energy in addressing the climate emergency, the chapter critically examines the need to rethink, simplify, and rationalize permitting procedures for offshore wind farms. It also emphasizes the importance of strengthening participatory approaches which, through ex-ante engagement, can foster decisions broadly supported by stakeholders, thereby mitigating social and environmental conflicts. The analysis highlights the central role of involving local communities in planning and permitting processes to balance private interests with broader public interests, including seascape protection. From this perspective, the chapter investigates whether traditional participatory mechanisms could be complemented or enhanced by more advanced methodologies, such as co-creation, which involve continuous dialogue with a plurality of institutional and non-institutional actors from the early stages of the project and for its entire duration, to better support the development of offshore renewable energy plants.