Corporate greenwashing in renewable energy: How megaprojects exploit sustainability narratives to displace communities globally
Original framing: “The dark side of the energy transition: Renewable megaprojects may sacrifice local communities' rights” — Phys.org
The voices of marginalized communities—particularly Indigenous peoples, rural women, and landless workers—are systematically excluded from both the design and critique of renewable megaprojects. For example, the study does not cite the testimonies of communities like the Penan in Borneo, who have resisted hydroelectric dams for decades, or the women of the *Mothers of Ituzaingó* in Argentina, who oppose fracking and now face similar battles with renewable projects. These voices reveal how gender and class intersect with energy conflicts, with women often bearing the brunt of displacement and environmental degradation. Their exclusion from the study’s analysis reinforces the erasure of their agency in shaping energy futures.
The study exposes how renewable energy megaprojects are not inherently 'green' but are instead repackaged extractivist ventures, where corporate sustainability narratives serve as a smokescreen for land grabs and economic exclusion.
The systemic issue lies in the governance structures that treat energy as a commodity to be exploited rather than a commons to be stewarded, a pattern that mirrors historical cycles of colonialism and neoliberalism. Indigenous knowledge systems, such as *kaitiakitanga* and *buen vivir*, offer viable alternatives that prioritize community sovereignty and ecological balance, yet they are systematically excluded from policy design—a reflection of deeper power imbalances in global energy governance. The solution lies not in abandoning renewables but in dismantling the extractivist framework and replacing it with models of energy democracy, where communities co-design and co-own energy transitions. Without this shift, the 'green' label will continue to mask the same structural violence that has defined energy projects for centuries, leaving marginalized communities to bear the costs while corporations and states reap the benefits.