Community Benefits Agreements

The report examines Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) as legally binding contracts between developers and communities to ensure equitable outcomes in energy transitions. Through nine case studies and an analysis of DOE, DOT, and EPA guidelines, it identifies critical failure points—such as lack of representative stakeholders and poor enforceability—and proposes best practices for planning, negotiation, and monitoring to better align project development with community needs.

• Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) are legally binding contracts between private developers and community-based organizations that can reduce project opposition and increase competitiveness for federal funding, particularly under the Justice40 Initiative.
• Enforceability is a recurring failure in CBAs, often caused by vague terminology like "make commercially reasonable efforts," the absence of independent compliance monitors, or the lack of successor clauses that allow agreements to be voided when a project changes hands.
• The effectiveness of a CBA depends heavily on the representativeness of the negotiating coalition; projects like Atlantic Yards failed because they excluded local organizations or used hand-picked groups, leading to widespread community opposition.
• Federal agencies including the DOE, DOT, and EPA provide guidance on CBAs, but these resources lack consistency in definitions and specific, practical steps for implementation, such as how to engage communities without established organizations.
• Successful CBAs often include a diverse range of benefits tailored to local needs, such as affordable housing, local hiring, infrastructure, and environmental protections, as seen in the Staples Center and Longfellow cases.
• The Department of Energy (DOE) requires Community Benefit Plans (CBPs) for all Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding applications, though it encourages rather than mandates the use of legally binding CBAs within these plans.
• Case studies demonstrate that tying a CBA to a specific developer rather than the land parcel or project itself creates risk; in the Longfellow case, a developer's bankruptcy led the successor to refuse to sign the formal agreement.

APA

Lavine, S., Pecego, A., Shen, W., & Yang, B. (2023). Community Benefits Agreements. Clean Air Task Force. https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/30172616/community-benefits-agreements-case-studies-federal-guidelines-best-practices.pdf

Chicago

Lavine, Samuel, Ally Pecego, Weiyi Shen, and Biyu Yang. Community Benefits Agreements. Clean Air Task Force, 2023. https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/30172616/community-benefits-agreements-case-studies-federal-guidelines-best-practices.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Lavine |first1=Samuel |last2=Pecego |first2=Ally |last3=Shen |first3=Weiyi |last4=Yang |first4=Biyu |title=Community Benefits Agreements |publisher=Clean Air Task Force |date=November 2023 |url=https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/30172616/community-benefits-agreements-case-studies-federal-guidelines-best-practices.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{lavine2023community, author = {Lavine, Samuel and Pecego, Ally and Shen, Weiyi and Yang, Biyu}, title = {{Community Benefits Agreements}}, institution = {Clean Air Task Force}, year = {2023}, month = nov, url = {https://cdn.catf.us/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/30172616/community-benefits-agreements-case-studies-federal-guidelines-best-practices.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }