Citizen Participation: key to building public support for the energy transition

Final event of the APPROVE Interreg Europe project. The objective of APPROVE (Advancing Public Participation and stakeholdeR engagement fOr the improVement of renewable Energy policies) is to improve the policies for the promotion of Renewable Energy Sources (RES) in four very distinct European regions: Lapland in Finland, Epirus in Greece, Normandy in France, and Castilla y León in Spain.
The regional authorities involved in the project have shared and transferred experiences and knowledge to improve their energy policies. This has been taken forward through a process of interregional cooperation and with the support of advisory partner Poliedra (a consortium of Politecnico di Milano). Experiences in APPROVE regions show that increased awareness, capacity building, citizen participation and community engagement in RES projects have resulted in substantial added value in terms of local acceptance and mitigation of the environmental impacts. That also supports building resilient regional and local communities.
Representatives from the interregional communities, networks and agencies will join the debate about the benefit of the collaboration between the regions in the clean energy transition. The regions can gain a lot from the networks and communities by being active in sharing experiences and joining the interregional initiatives.