Equitable voices in responsible renewable energy

An energy system cannot be responsible unless it acknowledges the human rights impact projects have on communities, whether that is the mining site, project site or throughout the value chain.

The Responsible Energy Initiative has been busy over the last several months. While the cohort was working collaboratively to solidify our vision and principles, there were parallel conversations running in what we coined the Equitable Voices Group (EVG).

Members of the EVG team — Hansika Singh, Forum for the Future; Annie Khan, Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC); Pinaki Halder, Landesa; Apoorva Santhosh, WWF-India; Rushabh Soni (and previously Uttara Narayan), WRI India; and Mini Govindan and Rashmi Murali, TERI — have been meeting weekly since the beginning phases of REI India.

The main objective of the group is to try to:

1. Hold the picture of the marginalised voices in the renewable energy sector;
2. Develop deeper understandings of what perspectives are necessary to be brought in for an adequate representation of realities on the ground and;
3. Weave in the issues and challenges facing marginalised groups throughout the initiative so that the transition to — and scaling up of — renewable energy can truly be just and equitable.

As part of this process, we started reaching out to experts who have worked directly with communities affected by large-scale RE projects to help bring their story to the fore. We conducted 1–1 or 2–1 discussions with them to capture the main challenges they have seen in their work, and the steps they believe must be taken by companies to ensure responsible and rights-respecting action is a priority while deploying and scaling up RE.

Why every voice matters, equitably

We believe an energy system cannot be responsible unless it acknowledges the human rights impact projects have on communities, whether that is the mining site, project site or throughout the value chain.

While achieving a net-zero carbon economy is the ultimate goal, one must recognise that the development of new technology to achieve it often comes at a cost. For instance, minerals like cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, nickel and zinc are required in large quantities to produce renewable energy technologies — from wind turbines and solar panels to electric vehicles and battery storage.

As part of my own work at BHRRC, we are aware that demand for these minerals is expanding as companies race to produce the technology needed to support the energy transition. But mining companies’ human rights due diligence is not keeping pace with expanding exploration, increasing the risk that the transition fuels further abuse in this already troubled sector. Communities and civil society organisations are bearing the brunt of the abuse, with almost two-thirds of all allegations concerning human rights being faced by them.

In 2022, BHRRC released an update to the Transition Minerals Tracker, which examined the human rights and environmental impacts of 103 companies with majority market share of six key commodities vital to the clean energy transition.

Minerals like cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, nickel and zinc are required in large quantities to produce renewable energy technologies — from wind turbines and solar panels to electric vehicles and battery storage. Demand for these minerals is expanding as countries race to produce the technology needed to support the energy transition. But mining companies’ human rights due dilligence is not keeping pace with expanding exploration, increasing the risk that the transition fuels further abuse in this already troubled sector. Communities and CSOs are bearing the brunt of the abuse, with almost 2/3 of all allegations concerning human rights abuses against them.

Some key findings included:

1. The highest abuses were against local communities;
2. CSOs and their leaders comprised nearly two-thirds (63%) of the allegations, and 1/3 of all allegations were attacks on HRDs;
3. 32% of HRD attacks were against Indigenous defenders.

A snapshot of the data in the Transitions Minerals Tracker, where you can find companies that mine transition minerals and identify whether it has a human rights policy, and if its activity has been linked to human rights allegations or attacks on human rights defenders.

What’s next for the equitable voices group?

We were lucky enough to finally meet in person in April as a cohort and spent the day diving deep into the issues that are critical to creating a responsible renewable energy system in India. Some of the experts from our focused EVG consultations in prior months joined us to share their stories from the ground with the larger group which proved to be impactful and moved us from hypothetical examples or scenarios towards realistic challenges being faced today.

We learnt that there exists a dearth of information and knowledge of on-ground human rights realities and impacts in the discussions around RE. While environmental impacts are sometimes more easily grasped, human rights ramifications are seemingly still not fully understood, and there is still much work to be done.

As our newly launched vision lays out, principle 1 clearly states: “We respect, uphold and promote the human rights of individuals and communities who are impacted by decisions across the renewable energy value chain. Importantly, this means aligning to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights across the renewable energy value chain… We commit to avoiding activities that may contribute to or cause human rights infringements. Where possible and appropriate, we will enable access to remedy where there is evidence of infringements.”

This post was written by Annie Khan, Acting Asia Regional Manager & South Asia Researcher and Representative from Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, one of the expert partners of the Responsible Energy Initiative (India).