The Great Plains Institute’s “Louisiana Decision Support Tool“ (Decision Support Tool) for carbon management offers a way for community members, project developers, and regulators to delve into social and environmental data to learn more about local factors to consider when locating energy projects.
Industry, power, and direct air capture companies in Louisiana frequently announce new carbon management projects with ambitious climate objectives aimed at reducing the state’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. These announcements often spark questions from communities about how project locations are chosen and regulated. To help answer these questions, GPI has created an innovative tool designed to encourage community dialogue and give Louisianans a better understanding of carbon management development in their state.
In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at what the Decision Support Tool is, how the tool works, and how the tool could help shape the future of carbon management in the region.
Key takeaways
- GPI chose Louisiana to pilot the development of the Decision Support Tool because of the state’s potential for carbon management, the number of announced projects, and the need for robust community engagement.
- The tool contains three interactive maps measuring social, environmental, and comprehensive factors, respectively. Broadly, the social map includes demographic data, the environmental map includes data about protected and developed areas, and the combined map includes data from both the social and environmental maps in one comprehensive map.
- The tool was shared in four community engagement sessions in Louisiana, where residents of different regions of the state shared their views on carbon management and the potential usefulness of the tool. GPI learned that each community has unique perspectives about carbon management and the energy transition and incorporated community feedback into the design of the tool where possible.
Louisiana’s potential
All eyes are on Louisiana as the state leads the country in carbon management project announcements. Recognizing Louisiana’s importance in the carbon management landscape, GPI chose the state as the initial launch site for the Decision Support Tool.
As communities, regulators, and project developers evaluate projects, the Decision Support Tool can help shape the conversation around the social and environmental information that everyone in the state should consider when thinking about the best locations to build carbon management projects. (Check out the “Louisiana” section of the Decision Support Tool to find more information about why we chose the state).
Purpose of the Decision Support Tool
The main purpose of the Decision Support Tool is to serve as a central place for the public, project developers, and regulators to learn about the social, environmental, and legal factors that influence carbon management project development in Louisiana.
The tool uses maps to show areas of Louisiana in a way that’s easy to interact with, including a search function to zoom in on specific locations. This tool was developed through careful teamwork between GPI’s Carbon Action Alliance initiative, GPI’s state and regional carbon management staff, and SWCA, an environmental consultant group, aiming to encourage strong community conversations and help people gain context on carbon management in the state.
Decision Support Tool has unique features to aid decision-making
While several social tools from state and federal government can pinpoint areas affected by or sensitive to environmental injustices—such as sensitivity to climate change and socioeconomic indicators—the Decision Support Tool is unique because it not only highlights these areas but also sheds light on the common environmental and legal obstacles that developers typically encounter. This added feature provides a deeper understanding of the decision-making process.
Ideally, this tool will (1) enhance transparency in project siting discussions, (2) foster collaboration between communities, developers, and regulators, and (3) ultimately lead to mutually beneficial project outcomes, enhancing the overall well-being of a community.
When communities, regulators, and developers consider where a potential project may be located, the Decision Support Tool can help all these groups assess the community’s suitability for the project based on local environmental and social factors. These insights can facilitate productive conversations, ensuring suitable project locations and aligning community values and project goals.
In particular, this tool can empower communities to actively engage in discussions with developers, enable regulators to identify development-related issues, and provide project developers with valuable insights into community values when setting up introductory meetings and crafting initiatives such as a community benefits plan.
Using the tool
The tool can be found within a StoryMap, which is a dynamic web page featuring maps and resources. Users can scroll through the StoryMap to easily access the three interactive maps that comprise the tool. This StoryMap setup starts with conversational language to help users understand the basics of carbon management and Louisiana’s laws and regulations related to carbon management.
After providing that context, the StoryMap explains the data used in the tool’s three interactive maps. It also includes helpful instructions on using each map and provides information about the community engagement process used to gather feedback on the tool.
Social map
The first part of the tool is an interactive Social map, which offers information about various social data in census tracts across Louisiana. This map includes data related to demographics, exposure to climate change, health, proximity to environmental hazards, and public service gaps. We chose to use census data because it is the most consistent, publicly available dataset at this scale for all factors considered.
Many of these categories are related to environmental injustices, which should be taken into consideration when selecting locations for carbon management projects to prevent disproportionate environmental impacts on marginalized communities.
This part of the tool could be used to provide both community members and decision-makers with access to critical social information in areas where a carbon management project could potentially be located. For example, in community-developer conversations, a community could explore topics such as additional pollution reduction measures within a community benefits plan for areas with higher asthma rates. A developer could use this tool to proactively consider what locations may already be overburdened or to understand where they may be able to provide value to a community.
View the social factors map.
View the table of social factors.
Environmental map
The tool looks beyond the social factors and examines environmental and legal factors in census tracts across Louisiana. When finding suitable spots for carbon management projects in Louisiana, both project developers and state and local governments must consider laws and regulations that protect the local environment. This map displays data at a higher resolution than a census tract.
The Environmental map includes protected land, water, wildlife, and the built environment. These factors are standardized to help gauge the environmental risk of placing a project in a particular area. This map helps ensure community members and developers alike can easily identify landscapes and habitats that are protected and locate potential projects in other areas.
In developer-community conversations, this knowledge can help build a shared understanding of existing development barriers. Using this map, a community could understand why a project developer might advocate for transporting CO2 along a nearby area of existing development and why they’re restricted from developing near certain wildlife areas.
This map also offers a valuable opportunity for these discussions to address community values around areas that fall within the intermediate development spectrum, such as agricultural zones or certain wetlands, with regulators providing insight about these areas as well.
View the environmental map
View the table of environmental factors
Combined factors
The comprehensive map combines the social and environmental information from the previous two maps. This third interactive map is covered in hexagons about 10 miles wide. In this map, a score of 50 or lower indicates that the social and environmental considerations of that region pose fewer obstacles for project development. A score higher than 50 indicates areas of greater concern for a location’s suitability for development.
Unlike the social and environmental maps, this map focuses on equal-sized areas rather than individual census tracts. This map also includes tools that allow community members to outline a specific area and get the score for that area. Once an area has been clipped, it can be shared with neighbors or used to advocate for a specific project route.
View the comprehensive map
Community engagement
At GPI, we’re actively exploring and learning about what tools and information are helpful to communities, regulators, and the public for carbon management and the broader energy transition. As we developed the Decision Support Tool, we visited four communities around Louisiana in late spring of 2023 to speak with them about carbon management and gain insight into the tool’s usefulness and functionality. All attendees were compensated for their participation.
Each meeting followed a consistent structure, starting with a presentation on carbon management, followed by a tutorial on the Decision Support Tool. Facilitated discussions from our partners at Franklin Associates gave attendees the opportunity to share their perspectives.
Throughout the discussions, attendees were encouraged to ask questions and engage in open dialogue, creating a safe space for expressing concerns and seeking clarification on carbon management. The communities selected for these roundtables are locations with proposed carbon management projects, leading to many questions and opinions about the technologies.
The latter half of these discussions was dedicated to gathering feedback that could directly contribute to improving the Decision Support Tool. Specifically, we asked for feedback on ranking the social factors used for the social map and incorporated those preferences into the final version of the tool. We quickly learned that perspectives on each of the categories varied by community. This reinforced our knowledge that community engagement is necessary to identify the unique perspectives, questions, and concerns each community holds about carbon management development. For a short summary of our outreach, read our Louisiana Decision Support Tool Outreach two-pager.
During the roundtable sessions, our partners at Carbon Solutions observed the meetings to accurately capture community feedback. Their goal was to assess which aspects of the roundtable were most successful and which needed improvement. If you’re curious about these findings, read their report, Advancing Community-Driven Deployment of Carbon Management Technologies, Evaluation of Carbon Management Roundtables in Louisiana and Lessons for Future Engagement, which provides an overview of the roundtable discussions.
Next steps
As GPI plans to expand the Decision Support Tool in other states, we welcome your feedback. Carbon management projects are proposed throughout Louisiana, and there are many ways to get involved with this tool and outreach.
Please feel free to share the tool and other resources on carbon management widely with people in your community. If you are interested in getting involved, please reach out to us and provide feedback on the tool’s design and functionality.
This feedback will be crucial in continuing to build a tool that will provide recommendations for managing carbon emissions in a way that benefits all Louisiana communities.
