Ørsted: Co-Creating a People Positive Framework for the Renewable Energy Transition

by Dara O'Rourke, Robert Strand
01 Oct 2025

While the world needs to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030 to meet climate goals, community opposition has become a top cause of project delays and cancellations. To reduce community opposition and act as a good corporate citizen, renewable energy leader Ørsted has implemented many project-by-project community benefit initiatives. Despite these efforts, Ørsted still faces community opposition. The company now seeks to establish an industry-wide framework for “People Positive” renewable energy development. The case presents the key challenges and options for designing such a framework, including how to measure success, engage stakeholders effectively, and create incentives for industry-wide adoption.

Learning Objectives

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1. Understand the complex challenges of implementing renewable energy projects in a way that benefits both the climate and local communities.

2. Analyze the tradeoffs between standardization and local flexibility in developing industry-wide frameworks for social impact.

3. Evaluate approaches to stakeholder engagement and community benefits that balance local needs with scalable solutions.

4. Analyze how companies can lead industry-wide transformation through coalition building and framework development.

5. Explore the relationship between environmental and social justice in the context of climate solutions.

6. Assess how companies can build coalitions to address complex sustainability challenges that exceed their individual capabilities.

Details

Pub Date: October 1, 2025

Discipline: Social Responsibility

Keywords: Climate change, Co-creation, Community relations, Corporate social responsibility, Economic development, Energy, Environmental responsibility, Social responsibility, Stakeholders, Sustainability

Product #: B6072-PDF-ENG

Industry: Energy & Natural Resources, Electric Power Generation

Geography: Denmark, United States, United Kingdom

Length: 11 page(s)