The CARES community benefits toolkit builds on the strategic overview presented in the Scottish Government’s Good Practice Principles for Renewable Energy Developments. It provides guidance to communities looking to secure, set up and deliver community benefits that achieve maximum impact and are managed in an accountable way.
The toolkit is made up of six separate but linked modules. This module:
- Sets out the value in creating a community action plan
- Introduces the key elements of, and the practicalities involved in developing, a community action plan.
In line with the Good Practice Principles, the term renewable energy business is used throughout this document to mean the project owner.
This toolkit is relevant to communities being offered or managing packages of community benefits. Renewable energy businesses may also find it useful.
The previous prevailing model for community benefits has been the setting up of annual funds and as such many of the examples used within the toolkit relate to this. We expect to provide updated versions of the toolkit with new examples as further models are developed.
This document was commissioned by the Scottish Government and Energy Saving Trust. It was developed and written by Foundation Scotland and was produced by Local Energy Scotland. It was last updated in 2019.
