Engagement: The Missing Infrastructure in Australia’s Clean Energy Transition

The Engagement Institute has made a formal submission to the Productivity Commission’s Interim Report on Investing in Cheaper, Cleaner Energy and the Net Zero Transformation. Our message was direct: you can’t deliver faster, cheaper, cleaner energy without putting people at the centre of decision-making.

Why we spoke up

The Commission’s interim report is focused on streamlining approvals and unlocking investment in new energy infrastructure. That’s important. But our experience—and international evidence—shows the fastest way to get projects moving is also the simplest: earn trust early.

When engagement is genuine, transparent and well-resourced, communities back projects, governments hit their policy targets, and delays drop away. Our NextGen Engagement research found that projects with robust early engagement are up to 30% more likely to proceed on schedule than those where engagement is rushed or sidelined.

The opposite is equally true. Poor or late engagement has triggered disputes, legal challenges, reputational damage and costly project cancellations.

Engagement as social infrastructure

We described engagement in our submission as the social infrastructure of the clean energy transition. Just as transmission lines carry electricity, engagement carries trust.

This transition is not only about technology and finance—it is reshaping landscapes, industries and communities. People need to be partners, not afterthoughts.

That includes First Nations communities. We’ve called for enforceable standards to ensure First Nations leadership is embedded in national laws and properly resourced.

Our recommendations

To make the transition smoother and fairer, we urged the Commission and government to:

• Embed engagement in legislation: make it a legislated requirement in environmental assessments—not as red tape, but as a core driver of faster and more durable outcomes.

• Set national engagement standards: co-designed with practitioners to ensure consistency and credibility.

• Prioritise engagement in regional planning: so communities shape projects from the outset, reducing duplication and consultation fatigue.

• Expand access to social risk data: put community knowledge on the same footing as environmental and heritage data.

• Lift capability across agencies and projects: embed engagement expertise in priority roles so that practice is professional, consistent and effective.

Why this matters now

Australia is undertaking the biggest infrastructure shift in a generation. Transmission lines, renewable energy zones, new industries and the retirement of coal assets will reshape livelihoods and landscapes.

The stakes are high. Get engagement right, and projects will move with community support, confidence and speed. Get it wrong, and we face disputes, delays and fractured trust—costs the country cannot afford.

At the Engagement Institute, we’ll continue to champion engagement as an indispensable part of national policy and project delivery. Because when people are genuinely at the table, transitions don’t just happen faster—they happen better.

Read our submission here.