Cooperative Participatory Evaluation of Renewable Technologies on Ecosystem Services (CORPORATES).

Driven by ambitious, legally binding targets for increased use of renewable energy, the expansion of offshore wind energy has become a key policy issue in the UK, and is attracting substantial investment from businesses. However, the use of large areas of the sea for wind farms can impact on marine ecosystems and on the many species that depend on these ecosystems, from sandeels to seabirds, and the important services these ecosystems provide, such as fisheries and recreation. As a result, many stakeholders might be affected by new wind farms, including commercial, government, nature conservation and community interests. Depending on where wind farms are located, different trade-offs between these benefits will need to be made. Ecological researchers have developed oceanographic models that can predict how the addition of 100s of large gravity based windmills will change the movement and accumulation patterns of bottom sediment and in what locations there will be hydrographic changes sufficient to affect the amount of plankton (the base of the marine food chain) produced. From previous research, we can predict the consequential changes in the distributions of sandeels, seabirds and marine mammals.
Economists and social scientists have developed ways of assimilating ecological evidence to assess the ecosystem services impacts on stakeholders of large scale changes, such as in agricultural practices (Bateman et al. 2013 Science 341:45-50). Together they evaluate how changes in ecosystem services in terrestrial settings are viewed socially, culturally, economically and legally. However, in the marine environment, and because of the infancy of large offshore developments, marine renewable energy industries do not currently have an established or standardised process to evaluate the ecological, economic and cultural trade-offs inherent in alternative locations of offshore windfarms.
This project brings together leading ecological, economic, social-cultural, and legal experts from the University of Aberdeen, the Scottish Association for Marine Science, the James Hutton Institute and Marine Scotland Science with 3 marine renewable energy companies; Seagreen, Repsol & MainStream RP. Together, this group will co-develop a decision-support system to assess large scale changes in ecosystem services in the marine environment. Using a case study of the wider Firth of Forth, Scotland, where there are plans for a Marine Protected Area in the same location as the windfarms, these partners will bring together a wide range of stakeholders (fishing industry, marine wildlife NGOs, local community leaders and environmental businesses) to map out different types of evidence, discuss their different and shared values and evaluate different spatial wind farm scenarios to inform decisions. At the core of the projects there will be 2 workshops; the first of which uses the rich amount of existing data for this area to develop a common understanding of the social-ecological system. The 2nd will explore ecosystem service trade-offs under different wind turbine configuration scenarios. This project will facilitate the rare opportunity of providing the interaction needed to enhance business's and stakeholder's understanding of ecosystem services in the context of a real situation at just the right time for immediate implementation.
The CORPORATES project will produce a user's guide on how to run this process, so that it can become a standardised tool for the industry. This can bring substantial benefits to industry, as business plans can be better aligned to different stakeholder interests and communal values, increasing support for plans, reducing the risk of conflict and improving the reputation of the company. The project will also help businesses take better account and understanding of the value of the many services that ecosystems provide us and the benefits they bring to human wellbeing, leading to more sustainable use of the marine environment.

Who will benefit from this research?
This project will enhance planning and decision-making in the marine environment, with particular relevance to the marine renewable energy industries (MREI) through better understanding of how decision makers and stakeholders perceive trade-offs between ecological, economic and socio-cultural values of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES). Taking stakeholder priorities and perceived ES trade-offs into account will ultimately be beneficial to MREI development and policy implementation, as it will reduce risk of conflicts and resistance to the development of marine renewable energy. Therefore this project will directly benefit the following range of groups:

Energy Industry: Marine Renewable Energy Industry (reduce risk of conflict)
Marine Businesses: Fishing Industry, Tourism (increase understanding of spatial ES)
Policy: Government Regulators, Government Advisors, Policy-makers (national and international) (increase certainty in planning and defining policy)
Legislative implementation: Law (bring clarity to economic trade-offs between ocean users)
Society /Stakeholders: NGOs, local government, environmental consultants (bring clearer understanding of ecosystem services trade-offs)
Researchers: Social, Ecological, Anthropological, Methodology (understanding service flows from marine biodiversity)

How will they benefit from this research?
There is a clear demand for a framework that balances ease of application with the ability to deal with complex social-economic-ecological issues. A decision-support tool that incorporates stakeholder valuation of measurable ecological changes and enabling effective deliberations can enhance Business, Policy & Legislative Implementation, as it increases the understanding of how the ecological trade-offs will effect economic and cultural values.

Better joint understanding and cooperative learning of what will change by the Energy Industry and Society/Stakeholders will reduce risk of conflicts and resistance to the development of marine renewable energy. This will allow increased confidence in the planning process potentially leading to increase use of offshore renewable energy. Certainty of regulatory and legislative policy concerning the offshore wind farm developments could have positive knock on effects to increasing the certainty in similar policies for fledgling wave and tidal offshore developments which could see the UK emerge as the major European provider and world leader in these Industries.
This project will develop the capacity for industry, business, policy makers, community level stakeholders, and Researchers to share experiences in ES evaluation, make use of new and innovative methodologies, technologies and developing data sets of functional relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem services.

This project will develop expertise and exchange knowledge across all participants. Due to the multi-disciplinary nature of the project, the opportunity will provide the ability for the transfer of expertise and knowledge across a range of highly skilled researchers and experienced people within industry, business, government and NGOs. This experience will provide a host of skilled and experienced researchers and key stakeholders who can export their knowledge across the globe due to the universal needs of most countries for knowledge exchange about offshore renewable development. The creation of the decision-support system will improve planning and policy development, explore new technical platforms and collaborate with industry to manage risk and maximize potential from understanding service flows from marine biodiversity.