Tags:biofuels, biomethane, market uptake, public perceptions and societal aspects
Abstract:
The goal of the GreenMeUp: "Green biomethane market uptake" European Horizon project (2022–2025) is to promote the increased market uptake of biomethane in the European energy and transport sectors by enhancing the market in countries with less efficient market development policies, through stakeholder engagement involving relevant actors representing all stages of the bioCH4 value chain, and tools for dealing with citizen misconception issues. The project includes the exploration of social perspectives on the socio-political, community, and market dimensions. A literature analysis will be performed, followed by the elaboration of a conceptual model, presenting all the identified determinants and their interconnections. Based on this, a qualitative study will be performed on the socio-political and market level, focusing on targeted policy and market stakeholders. The study’s scope will be to discover their different perspectives on bioCH4 for energy and transportation purposes. In parallel, these levels of societal perspectives will be explored through a quantitative survey using questionnaires. The questionnaire will address issues affecting socio-political and market perspectives, including awareness, perceived benefits & risks, biofuel types, feedstock types, biofuel prices, environmental and energy safety concerns, sustainability certification and biofuel availability. On the community level, semi-structured interviews will be applied to explore social perspectives and their determinants, including a) knowledge, b) risks and benefit perceptions, c) trust in institutions, d) procedural & distributional justice, proximity to inhabited areas and f) personal beliefs concerning bioCH4 and relevant value chains aspects that affect the local society. The outcomes of the above studies will enable the development of policies targeted on the market uptake of bioCH4, and the creation of tools addressing citizen misconception issues.
Examining the Societal Perspectives Toward Biomethane in the Context of the GreenMeUp European Project