I-SEE Sustainable Energy & the Environment Webinar
‘From ‘Not in my back yard’ to an ‘industrial village’: Understanding the crucial ‘where’ dimension of energy infrastructure deployment
Professor Patrick Devine-Wright, Director of ACESS (Advancing Capacity in Climate and Environment Social Science), University of Exeter
How can we better understand the crucial ‘where’ dimension of low carbon infrastructure deployment?
In his social science talk, Professor Patrick Devine-Wright took a geographical perspective on infrastructural change in energy systems, with a specific focus on the challenge of community engagement. For several decades, there has been growing awareness that siting large-scale energy infrastructures, from wind farms to grid powerlines, is more than a technological issue, involving direct impacts to people, places and landscapes. Yet, consensus and clarity on how to approach this crucial ‘where’ dimension of infrastructure deployment has been lacking to date. He outlined several social science concepts that can assist with this goal, ideas that capture emotional, experiential, knowledge and justice aspects of people-place relations. Following this, he presented empirical research findings from several recent projects that he had been involved in, conducted in the UK and Sweden, on community objections to shale gas, the decarbonisation of industrial regions using technologies such as Hydrogen and CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage), and conflicts over the siting of transmission power lines. Finally, referencing his work as Director of the ESRC-funded ACCESS network (Advancing Capacity in Environment and Climate Social Science), he concluded with a discussion about the (social) science/policy nexus, and made suggestions for ways to increase the visibility and impact of social science in policy making. https://accessnetwork.uk/
Patrick Devine-Wright is an environmental social scientist with a primary interest in social dimensions of low-carbon energy transitions. He leads the £6.25m ESRC-funded ACCESS (Advancing Capacity for Climate and Environment Social Science) leadership team for environmental social science that aims to increase the visibility and impact of social science contributions to tackling environmental problems. With expertise spanning human geography and environmental psychology, he was cited in the top 1% of social science scholars globally by Web of Science in 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. In 2025, he was elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. In AR6, he was an IPCC Lead Author on social aspects of climate mitigation. He has acted as Chair of the Devon Net Zero Task Force and Exeter Community Energy. He is an Adjunct Professor in Geography in Trinity College, Dublin, an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Liverpool, and has received a Distinguished Visiting Scientist award from CSIRO, Australia and an Achievement award from the Environmental Design Research Association.