Final report: Wind Energy and the just transition: Political and socio-economic pinch points in wind turbine manufacturing and windfarm communities in Europe and South Africa

This report has been funded by the British Academy under the call the ‘Just Transition within Sectors and Industries Globally’ (grant COVJT210011, October 27th, 2021 – March 22nd, 2022). It presents our finding from the research project ‘Wind energy and the Just Transition: Political and socio-economic pinch points in wind turbine manufacturing and windfarm communities in Europe and South Africa’. In this project, we explored four key pinch-points of the Just Transition: community outcomes leading to either acceptance or resistance to windfarms and skill formation, job quality and social dialogue in the wind turbine manufacturing industry.

This report presents our findings regarding these four pinch points and four key questions that were informed by the British Academy’s call:
1. How is the Just Transition defined by workers, managers, social partners, and community stakeholders in the industry?
2. What are the political and socio-economic pinch points at windfarm manufacturing sites and in communities where windfarms are located?
3. How are work intensification and intensified use of the natural environment resulting from the political imperative to deploy wind turbines quickly and at large scale dealt with?
4. How can the process of structural change, meaning here the expansion of the wind turbine industry, be managed equitably so that communities and workers benefit more broadly?

Our findings are based on data from windfarm communities and the wind turbine industry in Germany, Denmark, South Africa and the UK, which we collected between the years 2012 and 2022. The bulk of our data consists of semi structured interviews and focus groups with in total156 participants including industry experts, local citizens, activists, trade union and industry representatives, managers in the industry and workers, managers and instructors from skill formation providers, and municipal policy makers. We complemented this data with secondary sources, news clippings and policy documents to develop community and industry case studies for each country.