THE BUSINESS & HUMAN RIGHTS RESOURCE CENTRE HIGHLIGHTED THE TERRɅ INITIɅTIVE IN AN INTERNATIONAL REPORT ON THE ROLE OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES IN THE JUST ENERGY TRANSITION

London, United Kingdom | October 24th, 2024

On October 15, the Business & Human Rights Resource Center [BHRRC], an international NGO dedicated to promoting human rights in business and eradicating abuse, published the report “Exploring Shared Prosperity: Indigenous Leadership and Partnerships for a Just Transition”, which was co-authored with Indigenous Peoples Rights International [IPRI], a global indigenous NGO focused on the protection of indigenous peoples’ rights. To prepare the report, BHRRC, whose research team is distributed in more than 17 countries on 5 continents, led extensive international research for more than 6 months, which has included a thorough evaluation of government and corporate policies, indigenous co-ownership models, clean energy projects in indigenous territories, and over 40 interviews with indigenous people, investors, academics, consultants, NGOs, and renewable energy companies from around the world.

Throughout the report, the authors focused on delving into the most relevant aspects around the distribution of benefits and the co-ownership of indigenous communities in Renewable Energy [RE] projects, highlighting the main challenges, risks, and opportunities entailed in the advancement of the energy transition in the different indigenous territories of the planet, which cover roughly a quarter of the Earth’s surface. As the study points out, indigenous shareholding in RE projects is a trend that has been experiencing significant growth in recent years, highlighting that although it is more evident in Canada and Australia, it has also begun to show in the United States and New Zealand. In the same way, it is also mentioned that this type of models are less common in the Global South, where considerable socio-economic inequalities affect their development, differentiating TERRΛ INITIΛTIVE in Colombia as an example that has managed to consolidate itself in this context. The report includes an overview of the solar initiative developed by Greenwood Energy [GWE] and the Arhuaco People of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, highlighting the traditional construction of new indigenous villages, the community’s participation in solar revenues to finance their program of acquisition and preservation of ancestral lands, and the transfer of the entire project to the Arhuaco People after the first 25 years of operation.

The TERRɅ INITIɅTIVE stands out as the largest solar energy project in Latin America developed in collaboration with an indigenous community, reaching a total capacity of 156 MWp distributed across three sites located on the periphery of the indigenous territory of the Sierra Nevada. The first phase of the initiative, ‘TERRɅ Site I’, is located in the Municipality of El Copey, Department of Cesar, and consists of 52 MWp of solar plants connected to the National Interconnected System and a new traditional indigenous village, which has been cosmogonically designed by the Arhuaco People and will provide housing, education, health and sustainable development for over 400 community members [1,200 between the three phases]. Among its various benefits, the project also includes the technical training of the community in solar energy, so that the inhabitants of the ‘TERRɅ Towns’ can access qualified jobs related to the operation and maintenance of the solar plants adjacent to them, and secure the knowledge required for their operation after the plants are transferred to the community. In this regard, the report highlights the importance of education and training of indigenous communities participating in RE projects, in such a way that fair and equitable agreements are guaranteed, as well as a greater understanding of the operational mechanics and implications of their ownership in these projects. “The Arhuaco People have numerous university professionals, but the vast majority have specialized in law, political sciences and social sciences; all topics related to what they have historically needed most. They don’t have electrical engineers or business administrators, at least not in volume, because what they have needed most is to defend their territory with legal tools in court. Now, since the development of TERRɅ, they are going to need engineers, business administrators and economists, and they already have that very much in mind,” commented Guido Patrignani, Chief Executive Officer of GWE, in the report.

The research carried out by the BHRRC and IPRI has contributed to the identification and analysis of the most relevant aspects of benefit distribution and co-ownership of indigenous communities in RE projects, nourishing the report with valuable conclusions and recommendations that serve as a guide for governments, investors and companies seeking to advance this type of projects. Among its main conclusions, the report recognizes that there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ model for indigenous co-ownership applicable to all cases, given the diversity of social, economic and cultural contexts in the world. Therefore, the report focuses in sharing a comprehensive and well-founded approach which provides a compelling and responsible pathway for the development of RE projects with indigenous communities, in which their rights are respected and positive impacts secured. Regarding the latter, Patrignani shares in the report the company’s experience in the development of TERRɅ, explaining how at GWE “we have designed the transmission line for the first TERRɅ Site with our engineering team and external contractors and, as we had agreed with the Arhuaco People, we have coordinated a 3-day project site visit of a delegation of Mamus to ensure that no sacred sites were affected along its route. They returned with a comprehensive report with an alternative route for the transmission line. Interestingly, the route proposed by the Mamus reduced the cost of the line by 20%, because due to their ancestral knowledge and vision, they intuitively calculated more efficiently than a large team of engineers.”

The valuable contribution of BHRRC and IPRI, captured in the report “Exploring Shared Prosperity: Indigenous Leadership and Partnerships for a Just Transition”, represents a thoughtful and insightful perspective on a topic of growing interest to investors, companies, indigenous communities, and governments around the world. The Just Energy Transition is a shared global goal in full evolution, making this type of reports play a crucial role in building a robust basis of understanding for the advancement of more sustainable, inclusive, and equitable projects.

 

The complete “Exploring Shared Prosperity: Indigenous Leadership and Partnerships for a Just Transition” report is available for download at: https://bit.ly/3Yw6ZW0

 

About the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre

Founded in 2002, the BHRRC is an independent non-profit organization registered in the UK and the USA, dedicated to amplifying the voices of the vulnerable, and human rights advocates in civil society, media, companies and governments. Tracking the human rights policy and performance of more than 10,000 companies in over 180 countries, the BHRRC also leads a website news platform in eleven languages ​​with more than 415,000 monthly visitors, and a weekly newsletter with more than 14,000 subscribers. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/

 

About Indigenous Peoples Rights International

In 2019, IPRI was established with the goal of protecting Indigenous Peoples’ rights, leading and coordinating a global initiative to address and prevent criminalization, violence, and impunity against Indigenous Peoples. The NGO was founded by two renowned indigenous activists and human rights advocates from the Philippines: former United Nations [UN] Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, and UN’s “Champions of the Earth” awardee, Joan Carling. IPRI is registered as a non-profit organization in the Republic of the Philippines and the USA. https://iprights.org

 

[*] Representative image of the report generated with AI.