Can maps point us toward responsible clean energy development?

When it comes to siting clean energy, data cannot substitute for building relationships with communities.

Spatial data play an important role in shaping early decisions about renewable energy projects. Practitioners often use mapping tools to screen a project’s technical viability and identify potential locations and environmental sensitivities.

Spatial data are also playing a growing role in identifying community-level considerations. Many mapping tools—including TNC’s Clean Energy Compass—now incorporate socioeconomic and environmental vulnerability indicators including income, pollution exposure, health burdens and energy affordability. These data can help to reflect where communities may face cumulative impacts and, thus, may be indicators of community priorities.²

Mapping tools can also identify opportunities for community benefit, not just risk. For example, mapping tools can highlight brownfields, landfills and previously disturbed lands that may offer opportunities for redevelopment into renewable energy projects, helping to align clean energy goals with land restoration and local economic development.

Taken together, these applications show that renewable energy spatial tools do not simply identify where projects might encounter risk, but can help practitioners shape projects from the start in ways that better align with ecosystem and community values. When used thoughtfully, these tools can support more informed, transparent and inclusive decision making across the clean energy transition.

There are, of course, limitations to what maps can do. Spatial datasets often lack important local detail and cannot capture a community’s experiences with infrastructure development, cultural or economic significance of places, other systems of knowledge and value or the changing conditions of a community.³ Maps can also unintentionally reinforce inequities if used without care. Data may be interpreted in ways that overlook community priorities or as a substitute for meaningful engagement. Most importantly, use of mapping tools does not replace the need to build trust with communities through direct outreach.

Moving from data to partnership

Moving from data-driven siting to relationship-driven planning means strengthening the practices of intentional, resourced, consistent community engagement. Strong engagement begins early, not in project development, but in the culture and practice of developers, long before a project comes to be.

In TNC’s experience working on renewable energy projects, the timeline to build relationships can take years between project milestones and community capacity building to participate in engagement processes. While much of the emphasis in community engagement resources is on early engagement, it’s just as important that it is consistent, durable engagement over the life cycle of the project.

Effective partnership also depends on making information accessible and actionable. To participate meaningfully in decision making, communities need clear, understandable explanations of project timelines and benefits, as well as tradeoffs of different decisions. This includes translating technical data into plain language, providing clear points of contact and ensuring transparency throughout the process. Consider that identifying and working with local partners including community-based organizations, local governments, workforce institutions and others who bring critical insight and relationships, is an ongoing process—not a one-time stakeholder mapping exercise.

A central element of partnership is codeveloping outcomes. Communities should have a meaningful role in shaping how projects deliver benefits, whether through workforce opportunities, reduced energy costs, land use strategies or other community-defined priorities. Tools such as community benefits agreements and other legally negotiated and enforceable frameworks help formalize these commitments and ensure accountability. Just as importantly, integrating community knowledge into decision making through inclusive, participatory processes and validation of data ensures that planning reflects real conditions on the ground.

Getting clean energy projects on the grid is key to tackling climate change, but done right, they can also maximize benefits to nature and people. Maps can help give direction, but only partnership with community will create more durable and locally supported projects.

Sources

1. Nilson, R., Rand, J., Hoen, B., & Elmallah, S. (2024). Halfway up the ladder: Developer practices and perspectives on community engagement for utility-scale renewable energy (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Report No. LBNL‑XXXX). Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. https://emp.lbl.gov/publications/halfway-ladder-developer-practices
2. Besse, H., & Rojas‑Rueda, D. (2025). Environmental justice mapping tools in the United States: A review of national and state tools. Science of The Total Environment. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896972500083X
3. Rojas-Rueda, D., Besse, H. Enhancing the effectiveness of EJ mapping tools: a framework for improved reporting and presentation. Discov Environ 3, 61 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44274-025-00247-1