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Workforce understanding is critical to the success of decarbonisation for inward-facing (commitment to the programme and required changes to practice, leveraging local knowledge) and outward-facing (local community membership) reasons. As with other net zero programmes, we are attempting major restructuring and infrastructure change on a scale not attempted in the 21st century. Unlike previous similar changes (e.g. canal, road and railway construction; electrification; gas plumbing; sewerage) we are in an age when people expect to be consulted and included in decision-making that affects their lives, work opportunities and neighbourhoods. However, consultation does not guarantee agreement, and sometimes objections remain even when countered with clear, rational argument. One recent example of such a failure to gain a social licence to operate can be seen in the withdrawal of plans for Whitby to be a hydrogen village.

CCS Futures: exploring workforce imaginaries to improve organisational learning seeks to use the collective knowledge of industry-based workers to identify practical, sociocultural and economic challenges and opportunities in place- and sector-specific decarbonisation. By first thinking about past changes to local lives and landscapes, we will engage people employed in organisations in the Scottish Cluster in a process of imagining how implementing Carbon Capture and Storage in their own industries might change lives and landscape in the future – that is, their “CCS imaginaries”. As well as revealing aspirations and fears, this process will also help to bring to light and expectations and misconceptions that may need to be addressed before a social licence will be possible.