Renewable energy megaprojects are failing the communities they displace

The global rush to build renewable energy is, according to a new international study, systematically violating the claims and livelihoods of local communities across the planet. Researchers led in part by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) examined how large energy corporations use corporate sustainability discourses to legitimise wind, solar and hydropower projects that, in practice, exclude communities from just economic and financial returns and ignore their social and environmental impacts. The finding strikes at a tension that has quietly grown as governments and investors pour money into decarbonisation: the infrastructure meant to save the climate can, on the ground, reproduce the very injustices that the energy transition is supposed to leave behind.

The study, published in the scientific journal Ecological Economics, focuses on the major Italian group Enel, one of the largest electricity utilities globally and majority owner of the Spanish energy company ENDESA. The research team analysed 15 cases of social conflict around renewable energy projects, spanning solar, hydro, wind and geothermal power, in the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, India and Western Sahara. In addition to ICTA-UAB, the study involved researchers from the Università Ca’ Foscari of Venice, the Universitat Ramon Llull and Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona, and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London.

At the centre of the analysis is a corporate concept that Enel has promoted as a novel way of doing business: “Creating Shared Value”, an approach presented as a way to benefit both companies and local populations. Despite following this framework, the company is still being confronted by local communities for infringing their rights. The authors argue that the corporate narrative works as a moral upgrade of corporate social responsibility, in which corporations unilaterally define what counts as “value” in the energy transition, leaving out the fundamental values of affected communities, such as cultural ties to land, food sovereignty, health, and autonomy over their natural resources.

The authors also warn that Enel’s green and social washing is not an isolated case but a global pattern transferable to the renewable megaproject model worldwide, in which climate urgency is used to accelerate energy infrastructure building that reproduces profit-making logics over territorial well-being. Consequently, the results cast doubt on the willingness of large corporations to genuinely meet due diligence and human rights benchmarks. In other words, the problem the researchers identify is structural: the same urgency that justifies rapid decarbonisation can also be deployed to fast-track projects over the objections of the people who live beside them.

“The energy transition is urgent, but it cannot be built on the suffering of communities whose values are left out of the equation,” says Daniela Del Bene, researcher at ICTA-UAB and Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. “Understanding what ‘values’ are meaningful locally is a precondition for a transition that is truly just and sustainable over time. For example, it is contradictory to provide hydropower to the mining industry and claim you are using green energy, when the affected communities have been cheated, forced to move, and have lost their means of livelihood and community bonds, as happened in Chile.”

The evidence base for these conclusions was built through a counter-reporting exercise and interviews, drawing on the long-standing work of social movements, organised communities, journalists and international NGOs that have exposed violations of agreements and of basic human rights principles. Through this material, the research discusses five dimensions of impacts: environmental, socio-economic, health-related, ontological and political. Among the grievances documented are the flooding of protected reserves, loss of biodiversity, and incomplete environmental impact assessments. Added to these are the forced displacement of populations, disruption of traditional economies, and noise-related health issues in wind energy areas. Communities also face growing stress, inadequate economic compensation, lack of transparent information, and the systematic dismissal of spiritual or relational values in non-self-governing territories and conflict areas.

Impacts on flora and fauna appear in every case, often alongside grievances over incomplete or fragmented environmental impact assessments. The case material illustrates how these harms play out in specific places. At the El Quimbo hydropower dam in Colombia, sources report that more than 8,000 hectares flooded, largely within a protected area, and that over 30,000 people were affected. In Brazil’s Cumaru region, where the company’s wind energy parks are located, residents have denounced noise-related illnesses and even cases of depression, alcoholism, migration and suicide, effects linked by community members to the loss of land and community ties. A similar situation can be found in the Thar Desert in the Indian state of Rajasthan, where large solar farms are being built, while in Western Sahara serious issues linked to that territory’s non-self-governing status have also emerged.

“Our cases show that the form of harm changes between dams, wind farms and geothermal or solar parks, but the underlying logic does not: community relationships to the territory are subordinated to the logics of profit-making,” notes Roberto Cantoni from Ramon Llull University. That observation captures one of the study’s most striking conclusions: the technology matters far less than the governance model around it. Whether a project floods a valley for a dam, occupies desert land for solar panels, or places turbines beside villages, the researchers found a recurring pattern in which decisions about land, water and livelihoods are made far from the communities that bear the consequences.

“The discourse of corporate responsibility changes over time to accommodate pressing concerns around the social sustainability of large-scale development projects,” indicates Antonio Bontempi, researcher at ICTA-UAB. “The problematic modus operandi of transnational corporations does not. And the idea of ‘creating shared value’ is an example of this contradiction.” On this reading, the vocabulary of corporate responsibility has evolved, absorbing the language of sustainability and shared benefit, while the operational realities documented in the fifteen cases have remained stubbornly consistent.

The publication calls on governments and institutions to build energy governance on plural values. To achieve this, the authors propose shifting from consultation only to real co-decision power for affected communities. They also call for impact assessments that recognise relational and spiritual values, including in relation to non-human species; collectively decided benefit-sharing; and strong support for community-run energy systems. As the world accelerates the build-out of wind farms, solar parks and dams in the name of climate action, the study’s message is that the speed and scale of the transition cannot be separated from the question of who decides, who benefits and who pays. A transition that is truly just, the researchers argue, must begin by understanding what values are meaningful to the communities on the ground.

Subject of Research: Social conflicts and community rights violations associated with corporate renewable energy megaprojects

Article Title: The dark side of the energy transition: Renewable megaprojects sacrifice local communities’ rights

Article References: The dark side of the energy transition: Renewable megaprojects sacrifice local communities’ rights. Original publication (Bibliographic details unavailable.)

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: renewable energy, energy transition, Enel, corporate sustainability, just transition, hydropower, wind energy, solar energy, human rights, social conflicts, Ecological Economics, ICTA-UAB