Research Paper

Balancing Renewable Energy Growth and Biodiversity

A new study, Cumulative barriers to renewable energy development: Can we adjust our perspective and approach to benefit biodiversity?, highlights challenges in balancing renewable energy expansion with biodiversity conservation. Jointly led by Dr Elizabeth Masden, Research Fellow at the Environmental Research Institute (ERI), and Dr Aonghais Cook and the research warns that overly cautious cumulative impact assessments (CIA) may hinder sustainable energy progress due to insufficient data.

The authors call for standardised assessment frameworks, improved data collection, and a shift in focus to long-term wildlife impacts. Without these changes, meeting renewable energy targets sustainably could become impossible.

Read the full study here: https://doi.org/10.1002/2688-8319.70010.