Material #49: Sufficient
Adani corruption case points to the need for new ways of building
India looked like it was making good progress on expanding renewable energy. But things don’t look so rosy now that Gautam Adani, the billionaire head of India’s conglomerate Adani Group, is alleged to have been involved in an enormous bribery scheme to secure solar deals.
Corruption - including bid rigging - repeatedly raises its head in all regions, with material implications for the planet and for people: from misaligned and stalled projects, to poor construction practices. That’s why it’s so important that efforts to make progress on climate change and human rights happen in close tandem with efforts to improve transparency, accountability, and governance.
And in the rush to solarize and build out other forms of renewable energy, there’s the contradiction that fossil fuel use is on the increase at the same time. While the proportion of renewables is growing, the whole energy pie is growing too.
This has always been the case with shifts in energy sources, a point unpacked in the new book by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, “More and more and more - An all-consuming history of energy”. (Adani Group itself is one of the world’s biggest developers of coal, through its ports and energy infrastructure in India, Indonesia and Australia).
There needs to be far more emphasis on sufficiency. This doesn’t have to mean deprivation, but instead fairer distribution and prioritization. I was delighted to encounter this perspective from Henry Longbottom, a good friend of mine who became a Jesuit priest in 2019, quoted in a recent article by David Ness:
“A truly ecological approach is also inherently social – an approach that simultaneously hears the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor…
Reverence for nature is only authentic if we have compassion for fellow humans”.
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Through 2024, It’s Material is sharing one use of the word “material” each week, on Tuesdays
For more on the connection between corruption and human rights in the built environment see pages 44-45 of my 2019 report for IHRB, “Dignity by Design”