How are sustainability considerations integrated into the planning, execution, and monitoring of wind park projects: A multiple-case study in Scotland

Abstract

This paper has investigated the ways in which environmental, social, and economic sustainability factors have been incorporated into the planning, execution phase, and monitoring of several wind park projects in Scotland and the issues and trade-offs encountered. It has utilized a qualitative multiple-case study approach, selecting 4 projects for analysis: Berwick Bank Wind Farm, Neart na Gaoithe Wind Farm, Viking Wind Farm, and Cairn Duhie Wind Farm. The empirical material used was planning and Environmental Impact Assessment documents, and consultation reports. Led by Sustainable project management, the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) and the perspective of project lifecycle, the research employs abductive thematic analysis to investigate sustainability across environmental, social, and economic areas, as well as planning, execution, and control phases. The results show that the project documentation seems to capture primarily the integration of sustainability at the project planning stage. The environmental dimension is most elaborated, while the social dimension is mostly covered with the initiative taken for the stakeholder engagement, and the economic dimension is less clear. Integrating sustainability is obscured during the execution and the monitoring strategies, where an action is mainly reported as being planned. Trade-offs are central to the findings. The analysis identifies conflicts between renewable energy development and environmental protection, national versus local stakeholders, and formal commitments and realities. Overall, the integration of sustainability principles is patchy across dimensions and phases of the lifecycle, and is constrained by regulatory and project-specific factors.