It’s Not Just Communities Under Pressure. Our People Are Too

Confession time.

Every now and then, I find myself lurking in Facebook groups that are deeply sceptical, if not outright hostile, towards renewables and transmission projects.

While some are national, most are fiercely local. And while you’ll always find a few keyboard warriors with tinfoil hats and an axe to grind, that’s not the full story.

A lot of the people in these groups are simply worried.

About their land. Their town. Their future.

They’re asking: What will this project mean for my farm? My view? My fire risk? My soil? And often in their minds, they’re asking in a vacuum. Because they don't know where to get the answers. Or at least, not in a way that they can hear.

And let’s be brutally honest with ourselves.

Our sector has not traditionally been a model student in community engagement. There are still a few cowboys out there selling dreams and delivering dust. And the memories of cowboys past linger long and deep.

We’re trying to roll out renewables and transmission network on a scale not seen before, and we’re doing it in communities that sometimes feel like the bulldozer is heading straight through their lounge rooms.

To be fair, this issue is well acknowledged and changes in engagement models are being made.

The industry is better at engagement today than it was yesterday, and yesterday they were better than the day before.

Everyone is trying their best.

However, another side of this really hit home for me on the weekend.

I came across a Facebook recording of a town hall meeting where a respected industry colleague, one of the good ones, was fronting up to a community forum. He was hit up before he entered the building by a couple of locals. They were reasonably calm and respectful, but clearly agitated. They were holding placards and wanted to be heard.

This industry collegue did a bloody solid job. Calm and polite. But it was an understandably tense situation. These locals were upset. They were pleading for the project to be scrapped.

And then came the gut punch.

They said farmers were taking their own lives over this.

Pause and think about how you would respond to that?

How do you keep talking about corridor routes and that you are there to listen when someone’s telling you they’ve lost a neighbour?

There are two things that keep my mind spinning after seeing that Facebook clip.

First, our story is not landing. I've written plenty about this before.

Those of us in the industry understand the "why" part.

Coal is leaving the system and the cheapest way to replace it is with renewables. Then we overlay the climate story. Energy security. Jobs.

We tell people that "....this is the fastest and lowest cost way to keep the lights on for everyone".

But beyond our little renewable energy LinkedIn bubble, that story is bouncing off like rain on a tin roof.

How do we tell this story better? Who is best placed to tell it?

How much of our story did these protesting locals understand? Is it even the right story?

Are we having the right conversations?

"Community Benefits" seems to be the buzz words of the day. Should they be?

The tough reality is that we need a willingness to sit in the discomfort of these conversations with communities.

And most people hate difficult conversations. Humans tend to avoid conflict. What impact are these chats having on our industry folk?

I remember maybe 6 or 7 years ago speaking to a senior industry executive. I told him that a local family wanted to speak with him about a proposed transmission route through their land.

His response? “Just tell them this is the most economically prudent solution.”

We’ve come a long way from that. But we are still miles away from good.

Second, we need to take better care of people.

That includes the community, yes, but also our own.

Those in the line of fire, running engagement sessions, fronting town halls, fielding abuse online, turning up again and again to try and build bridges.

These activities wear people down.

Some of our best people are burning out quietly behind polite LinkedIn updates and "I'm all good mate" text messages. They have to be.

I don’t pretend to have the answers. I’m no mental health expert.

But at the very least, checking in on the people in these conversations, on both sides of the fence, seems like a good place to start.

On reflection I don't do it nearly enough.

I naturally focus on those in my business. I've been lazy with checking in with others more broadly.

We talk a lot about the transition. Let’s not forget to talk about those who are carrying the stresses of it.

It is not just the communities who are doing it tough.

Part of the solution is probably giving out more hugs. I'm all for that.