Community Perspectives on CCUS: The ConsenCUS Evaluation Workshop in Aberdeen
From 8 to 12 September 2025, a group of 14 participants from Denmark, Greece, and the Netherlands got together to evaluate the ConsenCUS project. The participants had diverse backgrounds in their knowledge and experiences with Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) technologies. While some had been involved in previous ConsenCUS community engagement activities, for others this workshop was their first interaction with the project.
The workshop was facilitated by Research Fellows Dr. Jacob Nielsen and Dr. Kostas Stavrianakis from Robert Gordon University, alongside Senior Lecturer Dr. Yi Zhu (Zoe) from the University of Sheffield, who led the Lego Serious Play activity.
Below is a brief description of the workshop days.
Day 1: Introduction and Values
The workshop began with a brief overview of the ConsenCUS project and an introduction to the Lego Serious Play methodology. Participants engaged in exercises to identify and express their personal and collective values, linking these to the evaluation of ConsenCUS as a climate change project. The day came to an end with a discussion of challenges and opportunities associated with the project.
Day 2: Project Insights and Alignment with Values
On the second day, participants engaged with the technical and innovative aspects of ConsenCUS, reflecting on the outcomes achieved over the past four years. Building on the values identified during Day 1, participants explored how these values aligned with the project’s findings. The session ended with the formulation of key questions that could not be answered within the workshop and were forwarded to the project manager for answering.
Day 3: Critical Reflection and Recommendations
The third day focused on critically appraising and contrasting the outcomes of the ConsenCUS project with the participants shared values. Discussions explored which elements of the project supported or hindered these values. Participants then developed a set of recommendations to inform the design and implementation of future projects in the CCUS field. Participants had access to the project manager’s answers from Day 2.
This three-day evaluation workshop provided valuable insights into how community perspectives and values intersect with the technical and societal outcomes of the ConsenCUS project. By combining participatory methods such as Lego Serious Play with structured discussions, participants expressed challenges, identified opportunities, and generated recommendations that could contribute to shaping future climate change and CCUS initiatives.
Preliminary findings:
- Better communication is needed from ConsenCUS to the wider audience.
- Networking amongst European communities is essential to build a common platform.
- Challenges should be shared with the communities.
- ConsenCUS creates more questions than community members had before; that is seen as positive.
- Ethical matters and political directions were raised amongst the participants.
- Society participation in the project should have taken place throughout the four years of the project.
- Part of the project’s results are classified, while the project is funded by EU citizens taxes.
- Better definition of private industries’ contribution is needed.
- Concerns about industrial partners interfering with the research conducted at ConsenCUS.
