On March 29, we held an expert workshop in the region of Catalunya in Spain to better understand the regional barriers to wind energy. The practical insights provided by the diverse experts from industry, policy, NGOs and community groups will help adapt the socio-environmental ENBIOS modelling tool to simulate regional on- and offshore wind energy realities. We’d like to thank all our participants for sharing their insights and especially congratulate our partners Institute of Environmental Science and Technology – Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) and Renewables Grid Initiative (RGI) for organising the workshop.

The acronym NIMBY refers to the English phrase "Not in my backyard" and it is defined in The Oxford English Dictionary as: "an attitude attributed to people who object to the siting of something they consider harmful or dangerous in their own neighbourhood, while implicitly not objecting to similar developments elsewhere"[1]. Not only do wind farm projects not escape this definition, but they are also projects where public opinion is in favour of sustainable power generation, yet local communities are often opposed to such developments. This is due to the fear of potential negative impacts they may have on the local community and rights-holders. Such concerns are generally referred to as health concerns, potential negative landscape and environmental risks, land value and impact on tourism and economic activity in general. WIMBY, WENDY and JustWind4All are all European projects that aim to change [...]