Green Hydrogen Risks Repeating Inequalities Without Justice, Study Warns

Green hydrogen is widely promoted as a cornerstone of the global low-carbon transition, but a new open-access study argues that its ethical, social and governance dimensions remain underexplored, and that rapid deployment through Global North–South supply chains risks reproducing existing inequalities, extractivist practices and governance challenges. The research, published in Energy, Sustainability and Society, combines a systematic literature review, an exploratory stakeholder survey and systems thinking to examine the justice implications of green hydrogen transitions.

Methodologically, the paper integrates three approaches. The systematic literature review identifies a gap in region-specific and theoretically grounded analysis of the social and ethical impacts of green hydrogen production. The exploratory stakeholder survey highlights high energy intensity, land-use conflicts, investment costs and fossil fuel job displacement as key challenges facing the sector. The authors then translate these findings into causal loop diagrams, a systems thinking tool that maps reinforcing and balancing feedback loops linking production, community well-being and governance structures. According to the study, these loops reveal leverage points for more equitable transitions.

The authors, Anthony Halog, Freya Yang and Gábor Kovács, report that the analysis shows green hydrogen transitions are not purely technical or economic but also involve socio-ethical transformations. They emphasise the importance of embedding distributive, procedural and recognition justice across the green hydrogen value chain to avoid reinforcing inequalities, and argue that participatory, transparent and inclusive policy mechanisms are necessary to enhance social legitimacy. The study is described as among the first to explicitly integrate energy justice frameworks, stakeholder perceptions and systems thinking through causal loop diagrams in the context of green hydrogen transitions.

Because the work is an early-release, peer-reviewed accepted article whose final version of record is still pending, its findings should be read as an interdisciplinary contribution to ongoing debates rather than a definitive assessment.

Subject of Research: Ethical, social and governance dimensions of green hydrogen transitions examined through literature review, stakeholder survey and causal loop analysis

Article Title: Ethical and social dimensions of Green Hydrogen: insights from systems thinking and stakeholder engagement between the Global North and the South

Article References: Halog, A., Yang, F., & Kovács, G. (2026). Ethical and social dimensions of Green Hydrogen: insights from systems thinking and stakeholder engagement between the Global North and the South. Energy, Sustainability and Society. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13705-026-00611-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s13705-026-00611-w

Keywords: green hydrogen, energy justice, systems thinking, causal loop diagrams, stakeholder survey, Global North and South, energy transition, social legitimacy, land-use conflicts, just transition, Ethical, social