Humanitarian NGOs are increasingly committing to their green transition: solar panels, electric vehicles, and reducing their carbon footprint. But this transition relies on the large-scale extraction of natural resources, particularly critical minerals (cobalt, lithium, rare earth elements, etc.), the impact of which on the populations and ecosystems of the Global South is devastating. Sometimes, this occurs in the very places where our organisations operate. This paradox resonates directly with the REH’s Declaration of Commitment, revised in January 2026, which now places environmental and social justice at the heart of their transition.
This Forum aims to explore this tension head-on: in seeking to ‘green’ our practices, are we unwittingly perpetuating an extractivist mindset? And if so, what can we do about it?
Programme
- 14:00 – 14:20: The REH’s last three months and the approval of the REH’s new governance structure
- 14:20 – 15:00: Presentation by Margaux Maurel, PhD student in International Affairs at HEC Montréal and author of the article in The Conversation “Paradoxes of the global energy transition: between green ambitions and intensive mineral extraction” (in French)
- 15:00 – 15:50: Presentation by CCFD-Terre Solidaire (to be confirmed) and one of its partners.
- 15:50 – 16:00: The REH’s next three months