Windpower and sustainability – Systematic assessments to support fruitful windpower dialogues

Wind power is seen as a promising alternative to more climate impacting energy technologies. Its expansion has, however, often been questioned by different actors in Sweden and elsewhere. A need is seen for improved dialogue between stakeholders before decisions on wind power expansion. Currently, the basis for these dialogues do seldom cover sustainability sufficiently nuanced and broadly.

Aspects include which human values that are at stake, care for biodiversity and effects of future technologies.

By producing clear information on Swedish on-shore wind power from a systematic sustainability perspective and by providing further integrated analysis methods that can be adapted to different contexts, the conditions for the dialogues can be improved through.

The method is based on integrating social and environmental life cycle assessment, including consideration of impacts during the use phase of wind power and the effect of future technology development on sustainability performance.