Green Dreams, Grey Realities: The Hidden Costs of the Energy Transition

Between the climate emergency and global justice: risks and limits of due diligence in minerals for the energy transition

The energy transition is often presented as a story of technological solutions that will enable the decarbonization of the European economy. However, when attention shifts to the territories where the essential minerals for this transition are extracted, a landscape of social and ecological vulnerability emerges that challenges the dominant green narrative. Various authors invite us to interpret due diligence not as a mere procedure for managing reputational risks, but as a legal instrument that should place human rights and the environment at the center of this new extractive context.

Human rights and environmental risks

The risks associated with so-called green minerals are not qualitatively new; they reproduce patterns already identified in other extractive industries. Three dimensions are particularly relevant for the energy transition.

First, environmental degradation and the impact on community livelihoods. A United Nations report shows that around 50% of cases of direct abuses affect local communities, and that in 40% of these cases environmental damage is identified that negatively impacts health and livelihoods, with recurring effects on water sources. The contamination of aquifers by heavy metals, acid drainage, and soil degradation are not abstract phenomena: they result in the loss of farmland, the disappearance of water resources, and diseases that undermine the rights to health and food.

Thus, the obligation to provide remedy becomes urgent.

In the context of transition minerals, this perspective allows us to interpret green extractivism as a form of erosion of ecological capital which is, at the same time, a material condition for the exercise of basic human rights, thereby revealing a paradox.

Second, the violation of the rights of Indigenous peoples and rural communities. United Nations data, once more show that a significant proportion of the cases studied affect communities through impacts on land, natural resources, and participation in decision-making. The text emphasizes that companies not only cause harm directly, but often benefit from abusive actions by states or third parties, revealing the existence of structural complicity.

Finally, labor exploitation and new forms of slavery in value chains. The United Nations report concludes that business activities affect the full spectrum of labor rights (from freedom of association to the right to a safe working environment), and that a high percentage of indirect abuses occur among suppliers located in regions such as Africa or Latin America.

In the field of transition minerals, these forms of exploitation are particularly visible in artisanal and small-scale mining, often integrated into global supply chains through intermediaries and traders that largely escape public scrutiny. The mismatch between the economic power generated by the energy transition and the precarious conditions of those who extract the minerals constitutes one of the deepest blind spots of the current decarbonization model.

The European due diligence regime

At the European level, due diligence in sustainability matters has been shaped as a risk management process that goes beyond mere corporate image strategies.

Directive (EU) 2024/1760 on corporate sustainability due diligence (CSDDD) is a central element, as it requires integrating due diligence into corporate policies, monitoring activities that pose high risks to human and labor rights, designing climate plans, and ensuring access to remedy, including a civil liability regime.

From a theoretical perspective, this framework could also address risks associated with critical minerals: the

are recognized as particularly exposed to disruptions and social, environmental, and governance risks, and there is a call to strengthen their resilience by integrating sustainability into corporate governance. The analogy with other sectorial instruments also shows that the EU has already used due diligence as a tool to link trade in natural resources with environmental protection, although the focus has so far been mainly on the agro-industrial sector.

However, when moving from this potential reading to a critical analysis, several limitations emerge. The ECCJ, in its analysis of the directive proposal, highlights that the subjective scope remains narrow: the instrument focuses on very large companies, ignoring that size and turnover are not reliable indicators of a company’s capacity to negatively impact human rights and the environment. This is particularly problematic in sectors such as mineral trading, where companies with few employees but high turnover can play a decisive role in shaping abusive practices.

Regarding material scope, the ECCJ points out that the definition of environmental impacts is limited to a reduced list of violations of international norms, in a context where the existing patchwork of conventions does not cover all possible harms. It explicitly calls for the inclusion of “all types of environmental harm,” including greenhouse gas emissions and the climate impacts of value chains.

Finally, it should be noted that the European regime offers a strong conceptual and legal framework to address the risks of critical minerals, but its current design (in terms of scope, depth, and enforcement mechanisms) does not yet guarantee that communities affected by green extractivism will effectively see their rights protected.

Proposals

From an academic and normative perspective, two complementary lines of improvement are proposed.

First, reorient the scope of the CSDDD and other European instruments toward a genuine risk-based approach, especially in extractive sectors. This would involve:

• establishing specific criteria to include all actors operating in critical mineral value chains;

• explicitly incorporating climate change and biodiversity loss as impacts to be identified, prevented, and mitigated, as proposed by the ECCJ, so that emissions associated with the extraction, processing, and transport of minerals become a direct object of due diligence obligations;

• strengthening civil liability, ensuring a more equitable distribution of the burden of proof and facilitating access to remedy through collective mechanisms and support for victims.

  
  

Second, placing community participation and the protection of defenders at the center of due diligence processes. The Escazú Agreement, for example, provides a rights-based framework (access to environmental information, public participation in decision-making, and access to justice) that is particularly relevant for extractive projects in vulnerable territories.

Applied to critical minerals, this would involve:

• establishing clear obligations of prior, free, and informed consultation with Indigenous and rural communities before authorizing mining projects, granting these communities real veto power, among other measures;

• creating complaint and remedy mechanisms co-designed with affected communities, with specific safeguards for human rights and environmental defenders;

• requiring traceability and transparency processes that disclose the origin of minerals and essential information on impacts and mitigation measures, in line with ECCJ recommendations on meaningful communication and value chain mapping.

  
  

These proposals do not aim to replace the existing regulatory architecture, but to deepen it in a direction consistent with the UN Guiding Principles: due diligence as a continuous, participatory, and remedy-oriented process, rather than a formal compliance exercise.

Final reflection: climate urgency and non-negotiable limits

In this context, two urgencies often presented as opposing are brought into tension: the climate and the social.

The question of whether it is legitimate to accelerate the extraction of critical minerals can only be answered by affirming that the climate emergency does not justify the creation of new sacrifice zones.

The energy transition will not be just if it is built on the denial of the rights of communities living in resource-rich territories. The only coherent path within a rights-based approach is to recognize that decarbonization must be accompanied by a reduction in material demand, changes in consumption and mobility patterns, and robust due diligence ensuring that, wherever mineral extraction is unavoidable, it respects ecological limits and fundamental human rights.

Ultimately, a strengthened due diligence approach only makes sense if we understand that climate and human rights are not two objectives to be traded off, but two simultaneous criteria of legitimacy for any energy transition policy.