Community Benefits Tools and California Clean Energy Projects (CLEE, 2024): Provides an overview of policy drivers and tools that can be employed to deliver community benefits and outlines examples of successful Community Benefits Agreements, often considered the “gold standard” among various community benefits tools.
Community Benefits Overview and Materials (ReImagine Appalachia): Webpage provides a brief overview of CBAs and their relevance to federal climate investments followed by a continually updated collection of community benefits materials. The materials direct viewers to a wide range of resources spanning CBA “basics,” specific CBA components, case study examples, guides/toolkits, and the agreements’ application to rural communities.
A Guide to Community Benefits in Southwestern Pennsylvania (FairShake Environmental Legal Services, RiverWise, 2024): Documents findings and resources from a year of reflection among community stakeholders in the Southwestern Pennsylvania region interested in community benefits. Emphasizes the need for adequate community representation and empowerment, and aims to “provide actionable insights for stakeholders,” corporate and government entities to properly engage community perspectives.
Community Benefits Agreements: Making Development Projects Accountable (Julian Gross et al., 2005): Handbook that provides a comprehensive overview of CBAs. Begins by outlining CBAs’ basic components and implications, then highlights existing examples and specific provisions – including labor standards and environmental protection.
Community Benefits Templates and Resources (Fairshake Environmental Legal Services): A collection of accessible CBA guides based on PowerSwitch Action reports. Includes various handouts and 1-pagers intended to provide knowledge and direction for community advocates and leaders to navigate the CBA development process.
Template Community Benefits Agreement Template (WE ACT for Environmental Justice, Sabin Center): Provides various community advocacy materials including a CBA template and fact sheets with background information relevant to CO2 pipelines, carbon capture and storage, liquid natural gas terminals, and natural gas pipelines.
Common Challenges in Negotiating Community Benefits Agreements & How to Avoid Them (PowerSwitch Action, 2016): Identifies four guiding principles for effective CBA negotiation and implementation. Also provides a detailed account of failure to execute these four principles, including case study examples of ineffective CBAs.
Delivering Community Benefits Through Economic Development: A Guide for Elected and Appointed Officials (PowerSwitch Action, 2014): A guide intended to help local government officials advance community benefits in their jurisdictions’ development projects. Key strategies discussed include enacting baseline community benefits provisions in ordinances and policies and incorporating community benefits into land use planning and policy – among several others.
Community Benefits: Practical Tools for Proactive Development (PowerSwitch Action, 2008): Introduces a set of 5 key tools involved in the community benefits approach to economic development – including community benefits agreements and institutionalized community benefits. The paper also briefs a few case studies and highlights key facts about CBAs.
See also resources available at ReImagine Appalachia
Offshore Wind & Community Benefits Agreements in California: CBA Examples (Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, 2024): CLEE’s report highlights the community-oriented measures and CBAs in California’s existing offshore wind leases and presents select CBA examples and community benefits provisions from the real estate and manufacturing sectors, as well as from east coast and UK wind farm projects. These examples can provide important models and lessons for offshore wind development in California.
Common Challenges in Negotiating Community Benefits Agreements & How to Avoid Them (PowerSwitch Action, 2016): Identifies four guiding principles for effective CBA negotiation and implementation. Also provides a detailed account of failure to execute these four principles, including case study examples of ineffective CBAs.
Community Benefits Agreements: Case Studies, Federal Guidelines, and Best Practices (CATF 2023): Highlights CBA case studies alongside best practices and federal agency insights with an aim to “bridge federal guidelines, developer understandings, and community priorities” in the development of equitable CBAs. Best practices are categorized into different stages of CBA development (e.g., Planning and Engagement, and Negotiation and Adoption, among others).
Community Benefits Agreements Database & Guide (Columbia Law School Sabin Center): This webpage provides a database of existing CBAs that have been executed as part of development projects. Agreements span a wide range of states and project types (e.g., offshore and onshore wind energy, solar, transportation, and several others).
Detroit’s Community Benefits Ordinance: Lessons Learned About the Community Engagement Process and Its Outcomes (World Resources Institute, 2024): Draws from interviews with community-based organizations, city officials, and members of neighborhood advisory councils to evaluate Detroit’s community benefits ordinance (CBO). Includes CBO successes, shortcomings, and lessons learned, and provides a series of recommendations to strengthen the CBO and broader community engagement measures.
Offshore Wind & Community Benefits Agreements in California: CBA Examples (Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, 2024): CLEE’s report highlights the community-oriented measures and CBAs in California’s existing offshore wind leases and presents select CBA examples and community benefits provisions from the real estate and manufacturing sectors, as well as from east coast and UK wind farm projects. These examples can provide important models and lessons for offshore wind development in California.
CA Offshore Wind Community Benefits Agreement Timeline (Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, 2024): Drawn from CLEE’s April 2024 report, Offshore Wind & Community Benefits Agreements in California: CBA Examples, this figure maps an ideal CA offshore wind CBA process timeline against key project events, with reference to phases in BOEM’s Offshore Wind Timeline
Wind Energy Community Benefits Guide (NREL Wind Exchange, 2023): Discusses community benefits in the wind energy development project context. The guide focuses on CBAs and related funds and investments that developers may voluntarily “utilize to provide additional financial and/or nonfinancial benefits for communities impacted by wind energy projects.”