Rights groups demand end to forced displacement in the name of clean energy

By Jag Jivan 

Over sixty human rights, environmental justice, and Indigenous Peoples’ organizations have endorsed a new policy proposal calling for a rights-based approach to community participation in investment projects affecting their lands and livelihoods. The proposal, authored by Inclusive Development International (IDI), warns that the rush to scale up renewable energy must not perpetuate forced displacement and other injustices historically associated with extractive industries.

The document, available here, is being launched ahead of the World Bank Group Annual Meetings this week. Signatories are urging the International Finance Corporation (IFC) to integrate its key principles into the forthcoming update of its Sustainability Framework—one of the most influential standards shaping development finance and corporate conduct worldwide.

The proposal stresses that while a rapid transition to renewable energy is essential, large-scale infrastructure and mineral extraction projects driving that transition are highly land-intensive. Current practices, it warns, often replicate the same displacement and rights violations seen in fossil fuel projects.

“Unless the major industries involved—including mining companies, their downstream buyers and the development banks and other financial institutions backing them—adopt a fundamentally different approach to how communities are treated when their land is needed for investment projects, we will replicate the injustices of the extractive, fossil economy we are trying to leave behind,” said David Pred, executive director of Inclusive Development International.

The proposed framework advocates moving away from the paradigm that views displacement as inevitable “in the way of development.” It calls for genuine participation by affected communities, supported by independent technical and legal resources, and emphasizes designs that avoid displacement wherever possible. It also insists that expropriation occur only under exceptional circumstances and in line with international human rights law—including the Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) of Indigenous Peoples.

The proposal also promotes enforceable community-company agreements through courts or human rights-compliant arbitration mechanisms such as those outlined in the Hague Rules on Business and Human Rights Arbitration. It calls on financiers and investors to provide resources for community-led processes and to ensure accountability throughout project cycles.

The IFC began a multi-year update of its Sustainability Framework in April 2025, offering what advocates see as a rare chance to embed stronger rights protections. “This moment requires more than tinkering on the edges of the IFC Sustainability Framework,” said Natalie Bugalski, IDI’s senior legal and policy director and lead author of the proposal. “It calls for a wholesale new approach that recognizes affected communities not as passive stakeholders but as rights-holders with agency over decisions that shape their lives.”

Inclusive Development International works globally to help communities defend their rights against harmful corporate and development projects. For further information or interview requests, contact Mignon Lamia, Communications Director, Inclusive Development International.