Environmental Justice

HYDROGEN & ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE: EXPLAINED

To support hydrogen’s role as a sustainable energy transition solution, its deployment needs to be developed with meaningful and sustained input from the communities where it is produced, transported through and used.

Hydrogen has been produced and used in industrial settings in the United States for decades.  With opportunities growing for clean hydrogen in the U.S. energy transition, new clean hydrogen projects are starting to take shape at a rapid pace across the country – driven in part by federal incentives provided in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).  The entire hydrogen value chain – from project developers and producers to transport and end-use partners – have a critical responsibility to engage with communities and stakeholders across project planning and implementation to establish best practices for the development of clean hydrogen, guided by strong, continuous engagement, diligent risk mitigation, and active sharing of benefits across communities, particularly those that have been negatively impacted in the past.

 

Environmental justice as the core principle

Environmental justice is defined by the Department of Energy (DOE) as the “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.” While the concept is not new, it’s come to the forefront of public attention in recent years as the transition to cleaner energy sources prioritizes addressing historic inequalities in energy development and the substantial growth in new energy sources, such as clean hydrogen.

As industries invest in new clean energy technologies, there is a growing focus on ensuring that project development is more inclusive and that engagement with local communities and other impacted stakeholders starts early and continues throughout the development and project lifecycle. The goal is to bring benefits to host and neighboring communities through areas like job creation, economic development, and improved environment and air quality. Companies are engaging directly with communities around project sites to understand concerns, identify solutions, and develop open dialogues throughout project lifespans. Stakeholders across the energy system are soliciting community input on everything from site selection to policy implementation recommendations, and increasing transparency around project operations through project webpages and publicly communicated implementation strategies.

The federal government has emphasized this focus through initiatives like the government-wide Justice40 Initiative, which aims to provide 40 percent of the overall benefits of federal investments relating to climate change and clean energy to disadvantaged communities who are marginalized, underserved, and/or overburdened by pollution. Government bodies have developed various screening tools to identify such communities, including the White House’s Climate and Economic Justice Screening Tool (CEJST), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool (EJSCREEN), and the DOE’s Energy Justice Dashboard (currently in beta mode).

Source: Department of Energy

 

Commitments to community benefits 

To facilitate a transparent and accountable engagement with stakeholders, project developers and partners build and execute projects accompanied with Community Benefit Plans (CBPs) which lay out commitments to local communities. CBPs seek to ensure project benefits are realized by the surrounding community and are built around four points of emphasis:

  1. Investing in America’s workforce
  2. Engaging communities and labor
  3. Advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility
  4. Implementing Justice40

Strong CBPs can include workforce commitments to create local jobs, agreements with labor organizations, and skill-training partnerships with local educational institutions or technical schools. They can also include commitments in response to unique local needs – e.g., provide needed resources or address specific community concerns around noise, traffic, etc. In some cases, projects may even develop a legally binding Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) between project developers and community groups to help ensure benefits are realized. The DOE requires CBPs for all BIL and IRA funding applications. Companies developing clean hydrogen projects without federal funding are also committed to being good neighbors and are working to ensure that various project benefits flow to their surrounding communities.

While details of federal applications remain private, some organizations have chosen to share commitments publicly. Each of the seven DOE Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs (H2Hubs) program selectees shared aspects of their respective CBPs in a series of webinars, including proposals to create Community Benefits Advisory Committees, Community Advisory Councils, and other forums to oversee and facilitate engagement. Several are committing additional financial investments in project communities above statutory requirements. California’s Alliance for Renewable Clean Hydrogen Energy Systems (ARCHES) has also published its CBP in full, while many other selectees include detailed descriptions of community commitments on their webpages.

Source: Department of Energy

 

Early, open and sustained dialogue is critical to effective community engagement

The common thread running through all aspects of effective community engagement – from initial project surveys to formal CBPs and CBAs – is the criticality of early, open and sustained dialogue between project developers and local communities. As hydrogen projects develop across the country, they may face additional hurdles when it comes to communicating with local stakeholders on hydrogen and associated nascent technologies. Creating an open dialogue between community leaders and project developers is crucial to both educating and hearing from stakeholders on hydrogen, its decarbonization and economic benefits, and how individual projects fit into local and national climate goals.

Effective dialogues need to occur throughout all stages of project development, from pre-construction to retirement. Transparency and opportunities for engagement between all parties should be highly valued. Regular updates and project town halls, community meetings, and even websites can all be used to create open channels of communication between community stakeholders and project developers. Hydrogen Forward and the Electric Power Research Institute partnered to create recommendations on this process in a fact sheet and event in May 2023.

 

The Bottom Line

The hydrogen industry is committed to ensuring the expected benefits of a decarbonized energy system flow to local communities. The engagement plans and commitments are built from lessons learned from the past to ensure that any potential shortcomings are avoided in this new, cleaner energy landscape. Policy action is a critical step in codifying this intent, and stakeholders across the industry are going above and beyond to ensure that new clean hydrogen projects are developed to benefit all communities.

 

More resources on hydrogen and environmental justice