Responsible Energy Initiative: Insight Log 3 | Diving deeper

This is the third entry in the Responsible Energy Initiative India insight log. We are diving deeper into understanding the renewable energy system in India and are excited to share our insights.

We are producing these insight logs at regular intervals as a way of sharing our learning in a timelier manner, being transparent about what we are experimenting with together, and inviting everyone to learn and collaborate with us. We are firm believers that to go far, we have to go together.

Log entry #3 shares what we learnt from our collective diagnosis and building an understanding of the underlying barriers.

What’s been happening?

We’re full steam ahead! We have 25 pioneers and experts onboard to run the collaborative inquiry and a team brimming with experts. We know that it is crucial for us to look below the surface of patterns and events to understand the renewable energy system — actors, relationships, structures, mindsets and power dynamics. This would enable us to build a picture of the barriers that might prevent a deep transformation to a responsible energy system and how we might turn these barriers into opportunities.

The ‘Understand’ stage has been designed to explore the nuances of justice, equity, inclusion and conservation through the renewable energy lens. We held diagnosis sessions with the participants to understand the root causes of the issues we are seeing across the value chain to put together building blocks of principles of responsible renewable energy.

Understanding the renewable energy ‘Iceberg’

Only 10% of an Iceberg’s total mass can be seen above water — the remaining 90% exists below the waterline.

By their very nature, sustainability challenges are large, complex and interconnected, many times all of these are not evident, they are ‘under water’. Often innovation approaches focus through a single issue (the event or pattern) and develop technical solutions rather than seeing it as an interconnected issue. Using the Iceberg helps see how we might design solutions that address the immediate issue, while also addressing some of the deeper levels as part of their design and process. As a consequence it can help to avoid designing innovations that are in reality perpetuating the status quo.

Read more about the Iceberg Model and other tools that can help design more systemic change with the School of System Change here.

Source: School of System Change

What did we learn from the diagnosis?

That the renewable energy system is complex, dynamic and rapidly evolving. The Iceberg Model helped us identify six barriers that we resist a deep transformation to a responsible renewable energy system.

Source: The Responsible Energy Initiative

We are witnessing several developments that make it increasingly crucial to enable responsible renewable deployment. These include preference for utility-scale renewable energy projects, easing of environmental clearance requirements, increasing reports of human rights violations across the value chain and stories of social exclusion of communities and women. There is a high tolerance of various stakeholders to negative social and environmental impacts, and more fundamentally, an absence of a common understanding of a ‘negative’ impact on its thresholds. We know these are ‘events’ that we are seeing on the surface; Underlying patterns, structures and mental models contribute to these developments.

These patterns are influenced by structural factors that may also explain the dynamics between the various components. These structural factors include (a) a compulsion to prioritise business interests over minimising negative impacts, b) weak and missing accountability mechanisms to address the negative impacts in a value chain that already struggles with transparency, and c) unequal power dynamics between various types of stakeholders involved in the clean energy transition that contribute to the perpetuation of these patterns that make the recognition and addressal of negative impacts challenging.

These factors are all based on the notion that renewable energy generation must be accelerated at all costs, and concerns pertaining to negative impacts must be considered as collateral damage. We realised through our deliberations that the central question for our responsibility energy initiative was whether the clean energy transition can contribute to positive social transformation.

What have we learnt about moving towards responsible energy?

The diagnosis helped us put together the building blocks of the principles of responsible renewable energy — on how we might turn the barriers into opportunities. These building blocks consider:

• Environmental impacts: Minimise negative environmental impacts and actively ensure ecological conservation and restoration.
• Social impacts: Sustainable and equitable mechanisms to include marginalised voices across the sector value chain in a meaningful manner to mitigate negative impacts on them, and to enhance their agency in decision-making.
• Rights-respecting approach: Recognise, respect and uphold the rights of individuals and communities who are negatively impacted by decisions across the renewable value chain. These rights are specific (but not limited to) labour, land, community rights. These stakeholders must also commit to redressing any past and current non-compliance of upholding these rights.
• Governance: Multi-scale and multi-sector governance mechanisms across the clean energy value chain with strong incentives for compliance to support a just and regenerative future. Mechanisms can be driven by a) public institutions, b) accessing or deploying finance to accelerate clean energy adoption, and c) business contracts with upstream and downstream vendors.

These emerging principles cannot be interpreted in a mutually exclusive manner, and need to be understood in relation to each other. They are applicable across the entire clean energy value chain: investment, raw material extraction and sourcing, equipment manufacturing, project planning and siting, transportation and installation of the systems, generation, operation and maintenance of the system, transmission and distribution of electricity, and recycling and disposal of expired electricity components. They apply beyond the location where the technology is installed, and beyond the life cycle of a project.

What have we learnt about the process?

While all aspects discussed are significant, land and finance has been a consistent refrain in consultations across stakeholder categories. They hold the potential to transform the sector, but for the very same reason, may also be the aspects exposed to most risk within the transition. While we continue to strive to make the voices of marginalised groups more prominent in these conversations, we are yet to land on the most effective approach.

Therefore, we must prioritise understanding land relations and land being sites where the negative impacts most prominently manifest, and understand how finance can be made a vehicle of accountability towards greater accountability, rather than tie the industry, especially small scale renewable energy developers through contradictory priorities. Here, public regulation, if directed suitably, holds the potential to create a more level playing field for those stakeholders who are committed to upholding these principles of responsibility.

Consensus building and patient deliberation are important to strengthen the ownership among our cohort members. We do not perceive these principles as checklists for limited compliance, but as a stepping stone towards achieving stronger accountability towards a responsible energy sector.

We are keen to connect with others who are also exploring similar questions or working in a related area, so do reach out to the programme manager, Saksham Nijhawan at s.nijhawan@forumforthefuture.org.

— Written by Uttara Narayan, Manager for Energy Governance, WRI India