Community benefits

Too often, the benefits from new climate or energy projects are vague and undefined.

The context of de-industrialization means that jurisdictions often compete to give tax breaks to companies, complicating traditional means of delivering benefits to communities (i.e. through taxing companies).

The idea of “community benefit agreements” has been suggested as one way of making sure that communities can capture more benefit from new developments. A community benefit agreement (CBA) is a legally binding contract between a community coalition and a developer.

The Department of Energy has a Community Benefit Agreement toolkit, as well as resources on Community Benefit Plans for federally funded projects (the plans are oriented to work towards community benefit agreements).

Data for Progress put together a Community Benefits Resource Guide.

Clean Air Task Force also has a Community Benefits Resource Inventory, with a curated list of resources.

RMI has a Community Benefits Catalog with examples.

The Institute for Energy Justice wrote a June 2024 white paper about the opportunities and downsides of these efforts, Community Benefits Policy and Energy Justice.

The National Academies hosted a workshop on Community Benefits in May 2024.

Columbia University’s Sabin Center has a database of community benefit agreements.