Extensive evidence says that renewables are widely popular, but why doesn’t it feel like that and what can we do about it?
With card shops up and down the country festooned in saccharin pink, and restaurants inflating their prices in the hope of making up for the January blues, it must be coming up to Valentine’s Day. But if love is in the air, I can’t help feeling that public and political ardour for renewables is not what it should be for a long and happy relationship.
All pertinent research indicates that renewables are popular. One of the most recent surveys, by the National Centre for Social Research NatCen Comms in November 2025, shows that 70% of respondents support the construction of more onshore wind farms. Wave and tidal, offshore wind and solar energy are even more popular, with approval ratings typically over 80%, according to UK Government research.
Renewables is widely recognised as a cornerstone of our future low-carbon energy system and directly employs over 70k people across the UK (ONS green jobs estimate), approximately 11k in Scotland. When indirect jobs are included, those numbers leap to 150k to 200k nationwide, or c50k in Scotland. That’s considerably more than, say, shipbuilding, which retains a totemic status.
Yet you do not get the sense that the public, politicians or the media really have high affection for an industry that should be so eminently loveable. Perhaps that is a reflection of a wider sense of political disaffection caused by the still very real cost of living crisis, but where is the disconnect?
I suggest that there is a critical difference in levels of support for the theory of renewables – clean energy soundsgood – and the actual experience of deployment that impacts landscapes and seascapes.
The question to be considered is “when is the price to pay worth paying?”.
We know that renewables have been slow to deliver on the early hype – not helped by political sound bites and overblown rhetoric. There is a revealing statistic from a question in YouGov research on behalf of Friends of the Earth (Britain’s renewables expansion backed by overwhelming majority of people | Friends of the Earth) in August 2025: 76% of Brits would support the renewable energy industry using more UK-made components.
“Expanding training and job opportunities in green industries – such as the offshore wind sector – and greater investment in UK manufacturing of wind turbines, were two policies also popular with the public, with 81% and 70% of people indicating their support respectively” (Friends of the Earth).
Acceptance and support have a cost, and perhaps the renewables industries have not done all that they could to gain unconditional affection.
So, what can be done about it?
Increasing deployment in the coming years, driven by supportive policy, presents an opportunity to address the challenge and perhaps ignite a new passion for renewable energy. However, a change in results requires a change in approach: big industry cannot continue to be the sole messengers of the positive social and economic impacts.
Those directly involved and benefitting from the increasing investment – the supply chain companies, the workers, communities and trainees – need to be converted into proactive advocates and ambassadors for the sector. Many small voices will have a far greater impact than a few big ones.
To achieve this, there is a critical supporting role for those big companies. Communications resources and expertise are typically in short supply in cash-strapped SMEs, community councils or schools. Nor is it their priority.
To bring these voices to the fore, could industry look to more proactively provide the communications support to encourage direct engagement with elected representatives, media and wider stakeholders? It needs to provide the overall leadership and representation to government, and the ammunition in terms of the econometrics and policy requirements, but I suggest it also needs to be prepared to get closer to the coal face (wind front?).
Developers and larger manufacturers could facilitate the groundswell in popular support by more actively encouraging and helping potential ambassadors to tell their stories. With a ready supply of materials such as press release and letter templates, supportive quotes and rapid approvals, contact details for MPs and MSPs, media lists and imagery, increased awareness of an industry delivering on its long-awaited promise will start to positively influence political and media perceptions.
Further, as industry increasingly invests in growing the supply chain, why could it not apportion a small percentage of the funding to communicating the impact? Surely that investment would better leverage the total funding by helping smaller companies to optimise their messaging and widen their audience, attracting further investment and supporting their continued growth.
Would it be a step too far to suggest that public funding through central government, enterprise agencies and Innovate UK could adopt a similar approach? Current requirements for ‘dissemination’ against R&D funding are rarely effectively utilised and enhancing the awareness of the positive impact of the investment made is a win-win: the recipients raise their profiles and the funders gain vital evidence of return on investment.
For renewable energy to really win hearts and minds, we need to get better at illustrating its benefits. It must be more widely recognised as going far beyond its environmental impacts, providing deep social and economic value that provides a foundation for sustainable, prospering communities. The statistics and corporate messaging can only go so far in achieving that; we need to let loose a whole army of people across every constituency in the country shouting “we do love renewable energy – and you should too”.