Stakeholders and Hydrogen: Insights from a Cross-Country Dialogue on Social Acceptance

The workshop “Social Acceptance & Public Engagement of Green Hydrogen in the Energy Transition” was organised as part of the Benelux Hydrogen Knowledge Exchange event, held on November 18th, 2025, in Groningen, the Netherlands. The event was jointly hosted by LuxHyVal and HEAVENN to strengthen cooperation across the Benelux (Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands) hydrogen ecosystem, encouraging knowledge exchange, networking, and collaborative learning. The workshop provided a space for participants from different countries and professional backgrounds to engage with current challenges and practical approaches to fostering social acceptance and public engagement regarding green hydrogen. Methodologically, the workshop combined interactive quizzes, lightning talks, and a World Café format, demonstrating the value of mixed participatory approaches for exploring stakeholder perspectives. The findings show that social acceptance and public engagement are perceived as dynamic and context-dependent processes, linked to trust, perceived risks, communication quality, fairness, and socio-economic benefits. These dynamics appear particularly fragile at the local level, where proximity to infrastructure intensifies safety concerns and the role of perceived risk. At the same time, cross-national differences underline the importance of international exchange and mutual learning for understanding how institutional settings and political cultures play a role in acceptance and engagement processes. Beyond documenting workshop outcomes, this report provides empirically grounded, practice- relevant insights to support policymakers and project developers in advancing socially accepted hydrogen deployment.