Renewable Energy Industry Also Violates Human Rights, Report Says

Eleven years ago, a human rights violation complaint arrived at the Business and Human Rights Resources Center (BHRRC), a London nonprofit that monitors the activities of more than 10,000 companies around the world and receives complaints about abuses every day, Maria Paula Rubiano reported for Grist magazine.

Photo Insert: 200 allegations of human rights violations linked to the renewable energy sector.

But this one was different: For the first time, the grievance involved a renewable energy project. Soon after, similar complaints began trickling in year after year. They warned that solar, wind, and hydroelectric companies were taking over land, restricting access to water, violating Indigenous people’s rights to prior and informed consent, and denying decent wages for workers.

Between 2010 and 2021, the center received more than 200 allegations of human rights violations linked to the renewable energy sector. “It became concerning,” said Mark Hays, a BHRRC senior consultant.

Last year, Hays and his colleagues established a way to analyze and score the “human rights policies and practices” of 15 of the world’s biggest renewable energy companies. They found that on average, the companies scored just 22 percent for their human rights practices across their supply chains.

Last week, the group released its second analysis, saying the findings “should set off alarm bells.” Although there was a slight increase in the average score to 28 percent, that number still “implies major human rights risks for communities and workers,” the report says.

“Abusive business models, and the loss of trust they generate, put at risk the much-needed energy transition our futures depend on.”

The abuses include land rights disputes in places like Chile and Ethiopia, and the killings of Indigenous activists opposing a hydroelectric power plant in Guatemala. Others involve violations of the right to prior and informed consultation with Indigenous communities in Kenya, Mexico, and Morocco, legal harassment against wind turbine opponents in Taiwan, and reports of underpaid migrant employees in offshore wind farms in Scotland.

Seven out of 15 companies scored more than 50 percent for their human rights policies, and 11 improved their performance compared to the first report.

Iberdrola, the second-largest wind energy company globally, along with hydro, biomass, solar, and thermal energy producer Acciona Energy and Portugal-based utility company EDP, scored more than 80 percent in these basic indicators.

NextEra, the world’s largest wind and solar energy company, state-owned Power China, and Georgia-based utilities company The Southern Company scored the lowest –all of them with less than 5 percent.

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