Renewable Energy Transitions: Sustainability Metrics and Systemic Risks

Land-based renewable energy expansion has redefined the physical and economic geography of the global energy transition, but the ecological and social costs remain systematically underestimated. Solar and wind farms now transform millions of hectares of cropland and semi-natural habitat, driving up land values, fragmenting ecological corridors, and undermining the functional redundancy of food systems. Standard impact assessments obscure persistent soil degradation, compaction, and organic carbon loss, while short project cycles mask cumulative watershed impacts and trophic cascades that destabilize pollinator and predator-prey networks. Material supply chains (anchored by rare earths, polysilicon, and battery metals) are concentrated, toxic, and vulnerable to geopolitical shocks, embedding social and environmental liabilities far beyond project boundaries. Waste streams from PV panels, batteries, and turbine blades have outpaced recycling innovation, straining nascent circular economy policies and exposing regulatory blind spots. Performance-linked subsidies and ESG disclosure frameworks routinely externalize ecosystem losses, favoring headline capacity metrics over long-term stewardship or community resilience. The resulting spatial, ecological, and economic externalities challenge the credibility of “green” infrastructure and demand a new standard of integrated assessment-one that internalizes landscape-scale disruption, waste risk, and social license as core pillars of energy economics.