Understanding the roles, limits, and best practices for community benefit agreements in U.S. offshore wind development

Offshore Wind (OSW) development in the U.S. receives broad public support, but individual projects often face challenges including opposition from communities hosting or potentially impacted by OSW infrastructure. Local support may improve if communities anticipate receiving benefits from OSW development. Mechanisms designed to procure community benefits can include agreements between a developer and community actor, such as Community Benefit Agreements (CBA), Good Neighbor Agreements (GNA), Host Community Agreements (HCA), among others. How these agreements are viewed by signatories, their efficacy in ensuring fair and equitable distribution of benefits, and whether they do in fact reduce public opposition are not well understood. We reviewed available academic and grey literature focusing on CBAs and similar agreements in OSW development to better understand (A) the motivations, participants, and processes involved in their development, (B) the efficacy and ability to enforce such agreements, (C) potential “best practices” for developing these agreements to fulfill their intended purpose, and (D) outstanding challenges, knowledge gaps, and uncertainties. We propose four initial best practices for CBA development and implementation in U.S. OSW, including (1) Determine contextual specificities, (2) Engage in early and long-term discursive co-development, (3) Recognize communities as hosts, and (4) Ensure follow-through and accountability. Existing gaps include better understanding long-term outcomes, developing regulatory tools that allow for contextual flexibility, and engagement with other energy industries and academic fields. Specifically, drawing from marine spatial planning, marine justice, and energy equity frameworks may inform improved community engagement and policy development for community benefit mechanisms in U.S. OSW development.