Enabling a Just Transition: Integrating Respect for Human Rights in the Emerging Green Hydrogen Sector

Private sector actors are paying more attention to their negative impacts on climate, nature, and biodiversity. CCSI engages with private sector initiatives, frameworks, and benchmarks in this area to ensure the core corporate responsibility to respect human rights is prioritized and addressed.

Green hydrogen refers to hydrogen that is generated using renewable energy technologies. With its reliance on renewable energy, the emerging green hydrogen sector will be a critical tool for reaching global net zero emissions, especially in hard-to-decarbonize sectors. Despite their  transformative potential, green hydrogen projects risk causing adverse human rights impacts. As part of the ALIGN initiative, CCSI has published resources highlighting the importance of and strategies for respecting the human rights of project-affected communities and Indigenous Peoples, and has been engaging with the private sector on this issue to promote a rights-respecting approach to renewable energy project deployment.

In September 2022, CCSI’s Hansika Agrawal, Sam-Szoke Burke, and Noah Mardirossian provided comments on the Green Hydrogen Organization (GH2)’s draft guidance on land acquisition and use in the context of green hydrogen contracting. This guidance intends to support project developers and governments in designing sustainable legislation and contracting practices for green hydrogen projects.

Bringing in insights from CCSI’s Business Guide and Legal Risk Primer for Commercial Wind and Solar Project Deployment, CCSI provided feedback on several key tenure and human rights issues. Subsequently, GH2 published their final Green Hydrogen Contracting Guidance on Land Acquisition and Use, which incorporated several points raised by CCSI. Thanks to CCSI’s submission, GH2’s guidance now:

1. Emphasizes the importance and need for companies to respect rights of project-affected communities and peoples, and includes human-rights aligned standards on free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) and respect for human rights in land use, acquisition, resettlement, and compensation processes;
2. Highlights the application of human rights and corporate responsibility standards across the entire value chain of green hydrogen companies and projects, including the generation of renewable energy that green hydrogen projects use;
3. Emphasizes the importance of conducting comprehensive environmental and social impact assessments (ESIAs) to mitigate and address rights impacts;
4. Recognizes the broad range of tenure rights that may be affected by green hydrogen projects, and emphasizes the requirement to respect all legitimate tenure rights in project deployment in line with the UN Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure;
5. Includes guidance on resettlement that aligns with standards from the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development Based Evictions and Displacement.

GH2’s guidance also refers to CCSI’s Business Guide and Legal Risk Primer as additional resources for guidance on FPIC and community engagements, as well as to illustrate various risks, tools and examples associated with community rights impacts of renewable energy deployment.

This guidance was launched in January 2023, where CCSI’s Hansika Agrawal shared insights on how land can be accessed for green hydrogen projects in ways that do not undermine community rights and interests (see full webinar recording here). Since the launch, GH2’s contracting guidance has been disseminated among project developers and governments, especially those in emerging and developing economies, and GH2’s own network of more than 600 global actors which includes governments, industry and civil society.

Building on this engagement and CCSI’s 2023 Briefing for Policymakers on Protecting Human Rights in Renewable Energy Projects, CCSI was invited to lead a training session for government officials around land access and acquisition for green hydrogen projects as part of a Policy Accelerator Training Course organized by GH2 in Cairo, Egypt, in 2024.

Authors

Hansika Agrawal

Legal Researcher

Themes

• Energy Transition
• Land Governance
• Sustainable Business

Tags

• Consultation & consent
• Human rights