Green Extractivism and Corporate Accountability: Assessing the Potential and Limitations of ESG for Just Energy Transitions

Abstract

Renewable energy transitions are transforming not only how energy is produced but also how renewable energy development is governed. As corporations assume an increasingly influential role in this transformation, corporate accountability has become central to broader debates surrounding governance and justice. Among the institutional frameworks shaping these developments, Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) has emerged as a leading approach through which corporations organize, communicate, and evaluate responsible corporate conduct. Existing scholarship has primarily examined ESG through reporting, disclosure, and investment practices, with comparatively less attention given to its broader role as an institutional framework of corporate accountability. This Major Research Paper interprets ESG as an institutional framework of corporate accountability and examines its potential and limitations for advancing a just energy transition through an interpretive qualitative case study of EDF Renewables' proposed Gunaa Sicarú wind project in La Unión Hidalgo, Mexico. Adopting an interpretive qualitative case study design, the research comparatively analyzes a documentary corpus comprising corporate reports, environmental and social impact assessments, consultation records, legal proceedings, NGO reports, and international accountability mechanisms. These materials are interpreted through an analytical framework integrating green extractivism, the Capability Approach, and ESG governance. The findings demonstrate that ESG functions as an institutional framework through which corporate accountability is organized, communicated, and evaluated across renewable energy governance. Using mechanisms such as due diligence, stakeholder engagement, disclosure, reporting, and transnational accountability, ESG expands the institutional architecture for organizing, communicating, and evaluating responsible corporate conduct. At the same time, these mechanisms do not necessarily resolve broader governance and justice questions concerning participation, territorial authority, and community self-determination. Rather than representing equivalent objectives, corporate accountability and justice emerge as related but analytically distinct dimensions of renewable energy governance. By interpreting ESG as an institutional framework of corporate accountability, this research contributes to broader discussions of corporate accountability, renewable energy governance, and just energy transitions. It argues that strengthening institutional accountability is an important component of renewable energy governance but should not be understood as synonymous with advancing justice, which depends on broader governance processes beyond the institutional boundaries of corporate accountability.