ABSTRACT
Siting acceptance is one of the most critical problems in wind energy. Whereas the open discussion is mainly on “impact on landscape” versus “climate protection”, we argue, that quite some personal “hidden arguments” influence the discussion. After discussing some basic assumptions on multistakeholder debates a 4-step approach is proposed which diminishes the impact of negative arguments while strengthening the positive ones. Step one is to act proactively and to avoid building up negative attitudes within a community. Step two is to understand and analyse all opposing stakeholders. The next step is to turn opponents into proponents by individual action plans, and finally we have to look for win-win-situations where all major players can profit by the wind energy project.
