The studies show that, when specific nonself-evident criteria are met, the offering of host community compensation has the potential to ease the process of siting facilities. The type of compensation offered matters (e.g., contrary to what many local government authorities believe, citizens prefer compensation funds and measures to improve the local economy over monetary compensation). Also, responses to host community compensation are not a simple matter of balancing the cost/benefit aspects of the proposed developments.

Social aspects play an important role (e.g., the perceived corporate social responsibility and trustworthiness of the players involved). Consultation of members of an affected community in the process of deciding about compensation is perceived as fair and communicates that the company takes its social responsibility serious. Before this project, there was little empirical research on the effectiveness of host community compensation and very little was known about psychological factors and how compensation mechanisms work. The knowledge acquired allows project developers and governments to utilize more effective compensation strategies in complex siting projects.

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