Green Transition or Green Conflict: Renewable energy and its ecological footprint – Where do we draw the line?

As Europe accelerates its renewable energy goals, are we overlooking the environmental costs? This blog explores the unintended consequences of the green transition, focusing on the ecological impact of renewable energy, especially wind farms, on bird species and protected areas.

It’s a warm Sunday afternoon and I have decided that there will be no better time to start writing my story for this blog series than today. So first, I decided that what I needed was a walk to help me clear my head and get inspiration. However, regardless of my lengthy walk and all the thinking I did, I forgot the most important part. How do I start this blog? I never thought that finding those first words to spark your writing will probably take half of your time. Now it is already a bit dark, but at last, I have the short intro I needed and hopefully your attention -or maybe not-, so now I can continue to the next part of my story.

I want to first introduce myself. My name –for those of you that skip this part– is Constantina Georgiade. I come from Cyprus, a small island in Europe, and I have been in Finland since July 2024 as a doctoral researcher. My PhD position is co-funded by EU and the “UTU-GreDiT: Solutions for Green and Digital Transition”. My project targets to disentangle the effects of renewable energy on Finnish wildlife, in my case birds. However, I am not here to bore you with my research, but since the project is somehow related to the title of my funding programme, I wanted to write and share some thoughts I had while wandering around in the sunny streets of Turku –just a few days after it snowed.

Let’s take it from the start though.

What is Green Transition and why is it important?  

Most of you probably already know or heard about this term, but just to refresh everyone’s memory and prevent some of you from opening a new tap and googling it; here is one definition of it. When referring to the green transition we talk about the “transition towards ecologically sustainable economy and growth”. In other words, it aims to maintain and improve welfare, while shifting from extractive to sustainable use of natural resources. The reason for this transition is simple, and very profoundly known; it is to tackle climate change. The EU has set a target to reach climate-neutrality by 2050 –the European Green Deal– by creating sustainable industries and transportation, reducing pollution and fossil fuel consumption and boosting the economy through green technologies. So, how can we achieve this green transition? Among the many goals listed in the Green Transition of the European Commission, one of their targets/goals is to design and implement the development of renewable energy to support the decarbonization of electricity systems; and here it comes the connection with my project.

What is the role of Renewable Energy?

I assume that everyone has an understanding on what renewable sources are, but just so we can all be on the same page. Renewable energy is energy generated from natural sources that are replenished/renewed at a higher rate than they are consumed, and that’s the reason why they are preferred over other nonrenewable energy sources, like fossil fuel. Renewable energy sources, like wind, hydro, solar –to name a few– play a crucial role in mitigating climate change by reducing the overall energy footprint and lowering CO2 emissions.

The development of renewable energy has already started to be implemented in many European countries, but the impact of climate change is accelerating to a greater extent, increasing the need for “urgent and efficient” solutions. So, one of the ways to catch up and prevent further adverse effects from happening is to “speed up” by expanding the renewable energy share among countries; as it was stated in the Renewable Energy of the European Environmental Agency in 2024 – “Although already underway, the transition towards a clean and renewable energy system needs to speed up.” However, . . .

What will be the consequences of this acceleration in the Renewable Energy development?

No one can deny the importance of renewable energy when battling climate change. Especially over the last years, there has been a significant reduction of the fossil fuel total consumption in Europe due to the rise of wind and solar generators. Unfortunately, despite its benefits, green energy transition has also led to some negative effects on the environment. Some of the effects that we already know include habitat and/or species population changes – I will explain more in detail below. Considering this, it makes me wonder – Where do we draw the line, when it comes to renewable energy development? Can our environment sustain this continued expansion of renewable energy plants or will it cause more implications?

Before answering these questions –if there could be a simple answer– I want to start with a story. Some of you that already know me, you may have heard this story before, so, please do not spoil it. I remember a few years back, during an “Environmental and sustainability” course, while still on my Bachelors, I had to take part in a team debate series. My team’s topic was “We should encourage the construction of wind farms near a nature protected area”. I thought the answer was very clear and straightforward to everyone –in favour of protected areas; for those of you wondering, stay with me– but unfortunately my team and I had to find arguments that support the construction of the wind farms near these important areas. I cannot remember any other time that I have been more torn over a statement. Basically, I had to find arguments that defeated my own beliefs. I have to admit that it was difficult and we ended up losing the debate and the chocolate price – and I do not know which of the two disappointed me the most.

So, now maybe you are wondering why I am telling this story to you. Well, first of all, it is relevant to what will come next and second, because that day – technically a week – made me think that not everything is black or white, it’s a spectrum, and the answer we are looking for might lay somewhere in between. Okay, I know, this sounded a bit too obvious to some of you and maybe you are wondering why it took me so long to see it. Well, I definitely believe that everyone at some point in their life –consciously or not– have faced something similar; supporting one side of an argument –due to personal or other reasons– completely neglecting the opposing side. So, it makes me wonder; does this not make us a bit biased sometimes without realizing it? How can our biases influence our decisions or the outcome of our actions? That day made me see that we can’t just simply sacrifice/ignore the opposite side for the sole benefit of the side we support, especially for matters that are of significant importance, like climate change.

Coming back to my question – Can our environment sustain this continued expansion of renewable energy plants? 

Despite the possible improvements we are witnessing, we need to take a moment and think that everything we do, all our actions, have a reaction –a response if you prefer. Like I briefly mentioned above, the rapid expansion of renewable energy over the most recent years has not only led to the reduction of fossil fuel consumption, but at the same time has been the source of adverse effects on the environment. Effects that include deforestation, habitat fragmentation and degradation (= here I refer to changes in the natural landscape that reduce the quality and quantity of resources or prevent species movements). These are in addition –of course– to pollution like light, noise or other discharges a renewable energy facility can emit. The disruption of the connectivity and functionality of the environment is important to consider, when striving for an overall sustainable/ green transition. Disruptions like that can have short or long-term effects on biodiversity, ecosystem services etc.

This trade-off between climate change and the environment is a green-on-green conflict. It refers to cases where the solution to cope with climate change –in this case, renewable energy–can also be harmful for the environment itself. So, where do we draw the line, when it comes to renewable energy development?

All these concerns are linked to my project; with the research I was selected to do for the next 4 years –now it is already less than 3 and a half. My project, like I mentioned in the beginning, involves the effects of renewable energy and more specifically, wind energy on different bird species, by also accounting for species interactions and trophic cascade. I remember during my interview for this PhD I was asked questions like “What do you hope to find in your project? or “Would it be better to find that wind turbines have a negative effect on birds’ population, or not?”. To be honest, I do not really remember what I answered, but I believe that one thing to be true. The answer to these questions is not pretty straight forward. In order to answer these questions, you will need to take a side, but how can you take a side without being prejudiced? After the interview I asked myself –Do I want to find an effect or not?

Wind Energy and wind turbines

Since my work involves wind energy, I thought that it would be nice if the last part of this blog is on wind energy. I am not yet an expert on the topic, but I strive to get as much experience as I can.

Before I start telling you another story – YES, another one – I decided since I am running out of words and as they say one picture is worth a thousand words, to only show you two pictures of wind turbines (below) – you can do the math. The pictures were taken in September, when I visited a Finnish wind farm. The picture on the right shows the construction face and the one on the left an operational wind turbine.

The effects of wind turbines, I believe, are quite known for many of you, with the most obvious one being the collision (= hit, strike). However, I am not here to summarise my project. If you want to learn more you can follow me on social platforms (BlueSky, LinkedIn; check at the top). Mini pause for this self-promotion.

Wind turbines and protected areas

Okay, now back to my story. In the first part of the story, I introduced a debate on “wind farms next to protected areas – yes or no” – you know how it ended. I briefly mentioned where I was leaning more towards, and maybe I might have left some of you wondering why. Protected areas are sites that aim to protect the most valuable and threatened species and habitats. In Europe we have the Nature 2000 network of protected areas that is designated under the Birds and the Habitats Directives. The placement of wind farms even near those areas, within a close proximity, can still affect areas where many species forage (= look for food), breed or move. However, important areas might not always be under this network of protected sites. For this reason, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) prior to the construction of the renewable’s farm is mandatory to decide whether the wind farm will pose a threat to the surrounding area.

An example from my home country in Cyprus –unfortunately recent– talks about the illegal construction and erection of wind turbines within a Nature 2000 protected area. Despite ministerial orders, a new project inside a Nature 2000 protected area was not only planned, but also its construction started in November 2024. This area is important for a number of bird species, especially for a particular Buzzard –the Long-legged buzzard, for my bird friends. The slower reproduction of birds of prey, like this buzzard, puts them at high risk of population declines when facing an increasing risk of deadly turbine collisions. This example highlights how poor environmental impact assessment can pose a threat for the environment and that sometimes people can ignore or violate protocols when there is some profit involved.

Start/Stop project

However, this is not common among different countries. In many countries, research focuses on how to bridge this conflict by achieving green transition with the least possible environmental impact. A really admirable example comes from the Netherlands, where a PhD student in 2022 delivered a model that predicts the arrival of migratory birds in the North Sea based on weather –two days in advance. This model gives enough time to temporarily shut down wind turbines during bird migration and minimize the impact of turbines.

“This is an international first, nowhere in the world are wind farms at sea shut down to protect birds during massive bird migration. We want to keep the impact of wind farms on nature as small as possible…”, said by Rob Jetten, the Dutch Minister for Climate and Energy Policy.

And with this last positive part I want to FINALLY –and I think I speak for everyone when I say that– end my blog. My blog wasn’t here to give you any answers, I figured that it would be better to just simply end it, without any final conclusions or take-home messages. I wrote this, so can people take what they want from it and make their own interpretations. I hope you bear with me until the end.

Follow Constantina on LinkedIn and BlueSky!

Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor REA can be held responsible for them.