Companies committing human rights abuses for renewable energy minerals have surged

A human rights research group has linked major mining companies to a surge in human rights abuses, environmental harm, and community conflict. In its latest annual analysis, the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre has uncovered the staggering scale of these abuses that the global rush for transition minerals to power the clean energy transition is fanning.

Transition minerals: linked to human rights abuses and environmental harms

Notably, corporations including Glencore, Grupo México, Codelco, Georgian American Alloys, China MinMetals, Sinomine Resource Group, and South32 all crop up in numerous allegations.

The Centre has recorded some 834 allegations since 2010. These involve environmental harm, water pollution, land grabs, unsafe working conditions, and attacks on Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

It found a staggering 156 allegations of abuse connected with the mining of key minerals essential for electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and wind turbines in 2024 alone. These included minerals like nickel, lithium and zinc.

Despite the widespread allegations, less than half of companies involved have a human rights policy in place. It means they are missing the opportunity to create a just transition, rid their projects and supply chains of abuse, and build sustainable business models that are attractive to workers and investors alike.

Mining giants meting out abuse in the Global South

Key findings from the new research on transition minerals included:

• The top three minerals it most frequently linked to abuses since 2010 were: copper (44% of cases); copper-cobalt (12%); zinc (10%)
• The top three environmental impacts in 2024 were: impact on clean, healthy and sustainable environment; water pollution; violation of environmental standards.
• Some 595 allegations caused at least 853 different impacts on local communities and their environment.
• Just five firms – Georgian American Alloys, China Minmetals, Codelco, Grupo México, and Sinomine Resource Group – were linked to nearly a quarter of allegations.
• South America was the region with the highest number of allegations (48) in 2024. Projects in Peru and Chile accounted for almost one in five allegations in 2024.
• Europe and Central Asia’s emergence as a new hotspot for transition minerals extraction and supply coincides with a 50% rise in allegations in the region.
• Hazardous working conditions led to 10 deaths in 2024.
• Attacks on Human Rights Defenders in the mining sector accounted for just under 8% (12) of last year’s allegations and 20% since 2010.

The Resource Centre calls on policymakers, business leaders, and investors to urgently embed human rights protections into the transition mineral supply chain. This would be in order to ensure they build an energy transition on a corporate duty of care for the rights of communities and workers. That means fair negotiations, and a commitment to shared prosperity.

A transition built on exploitation is not just

Head of just transition and natural resources at the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre Caroline Avan said:

The urgency of the energy transition is real. But it cannot be used to justify an unprincipled scramble for transition minerals. This is driving widespread human rights abuse, environmental destruction and growing community conflict which slows the transition.

A transition built on exploitative supply chains of minerals is not simply unjust – it is unstable, unpredictable, and ultimately unsustainable – and this should deeply concern investors, governments and downstream users of minerals in the renewable energy space.

If companies and States continue to pursue minerals recklessly, they risk undermining the very future they claim to support. We urgently need a reset. One that seeks to curb global demand through mineral recycling and delivers shared prosperity in the necessary mining. In doing so, this will embed human rights at the centre of the clean energy economy, builds trust and shared prosperity with affected communities and protects the environment on which we all depend. The path to net zero cannot be paved with more injustice and global inequity. A just transition will be one that is fast but also fair.

Featured image via the Canary