Biodiversity Impacts of Renewable Energy

Haozhou Gong, Chen Lin, Zacharias Sautner and Thomas Schmid

No 20846, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: Renewable energy (RE) is vital for addressing climate change, but the land use of hydro, solar, and wind plants can negatively affect biodiversity through habitat destruction. By combining spatial biodiversity data, satellite imagery, and asset-level information on 40,911 RE plants, we develop a novel measure of RE’s biodiversity impact around the world. We find that solar plants cause the greatest negative impact overall, while hydro plants are located in the most biodiversity-sensitive areas. The biodiversity impact of RE has grown substantially over time, driven by increased land use and siting in more biodiversity-sensitive locations. This impact is highly concentrated, with the top 1% of plants and owners being responsible for the majority of impact. Three finance applications of our measure show that plants with private or financial owners and those that are project financed have lower biodiversity impacts.

Keywords: Renewables; Biodiversity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-11
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