Exploring governance for sustainability in contexts of violence: the case of the hydropower industry in Colombia

Abstract

Background: The hydropower industry in Colombia is developing in contexts of violence because of armed conflict. The companies that drive hydropower development are usually large and benefit today from lessons that have been learned around the world. However, there is little understanding of how these good management practices are addressed in contexts of violence. This paper contributes to the filling of a knowledge gap between the energy business practices and the local implications of the armed conflict. Large companies would have to incorporate a holistic view of the power generation business that connects financial performance with both environmental protection and social equity. The governance of business sustainability is analyzed within violence, drawing upon a case study from the hydropower industry to explore emergent issues, dominant players, and tools that may provide solutions. Methods: The case study method is based on the hermeneutical analysis of 16 in-depth interviews with employees from the energy sector, the public municipalities, and local leaders. The interviews were coded and occurrence rates were used as ranking criteria. Two co-occurrence matrices were constructed in order to estimate the ranking of the interests of the players and the tools of action they prefer. Results: The results exhibited conventional problems such as climate change, dwindling biodiversity, and the deteriorating condition of natural resources, in addition to the characteristic difficulties of armed conflicts, such as illegality, distrustfulness, and lack of opportunity for local populations. In view of both the weakness of the state and the scarcity of social capital, energy companies emerge as a central player in association with nongovernmental organizations. The tools used are more geared toward planning than they are toward joint action and evaluation. Conclusions: It was concluded that the management of hydropower stations in the contexts of violence requires companies to orient their actions toward results and evaluate the impact of its management. Such management must be based on transformational relationships aimed at reducing the existing asymmetry between players and distributing the costs and benefits of the hydropower station more equitably.

Good living of communities and sustainability of the hydropower business: mapping an operational framework for benefit sharing

“…Next, we arrived at conclusions that, based on theoretical reflection, allowed us to cross-check, compare, validate, broaden and contextualise the information surveyed to organise the expected operational framework. Lastly, we estimated the frequency of occurrence and co-occurrence of the codes [77]. The former was used to calculate the order of importance of the codes and the latter the potential relations between them.…”

How Management Efforts of a Large Hydropower Firm Impact Sustainability in the Colombian Andes: A Multivariate Analysis of Society’s Perceptions

“…We rely on the categories previously defined by Polanco [20], which are as follows: the environmental category (Env) concerns climate change, biodiversity, and the condition of natural resources, water, and soil; the social category (Soc) refers to building social capital, trust, relationships, and organizational networks; the environment-economy category (Env-Eco) is related to the economy of natural resources (supply and demand), pollution of the environment, and basic sanitation; the economy-society category (Eco-Soc) is associated to activities for subsistence, food security, production organization, and commercialization of farm products; and the environment-society category (Env-Soc) entails training, consciousness, and environmental culture in the territory. Noteworthy, the economic dimension of sustainability was not addressed here since it was studied in deep by Polanco et al [51].…”

“…The sustainability of the hydropower sector in Colombia has gained increasing awareness and financial support [44]. In recent years, sustainability issues related to hydropower in Colombia has been assessed, i.e., the management of sediments [45], [46], the sediments generation according to the land use [47], the payment for ecosystem services [48], the benefit sharing scheme [35], the governance for sustainability in a context of violence [20], the equity and sustainability of water allocation [49] and the political events that have led to social conflicts related to hydropower [16]. Other authors have modelled different scenarios and proposed policies to aid in the decision-making process [50].…”

Corporate Governance-Based Strategic Approach to Sustainability in Energy Industry of Emerging Economies with a Novel Interval-Valued Intuitionistic Fuzzy Hybrid Decision Making Model

“…The focus on sustainable energy production has switched the attention of both scholars and practitioners to renewable energy due to a great amount of potential as well as economic considerations. Sustainable energy production is seen as a way to respond to previous conflicts [19].…”

“…The IVIF DEMATEL method is applied for weighting the criteria of the board of directors promoting sustainable energy production in energy industry. For this purpose, the computation process of IVIF DEMATEL is considered, respectively, by using Equations ( 6)- (19). Tables 8-10 illustrate the results of extended method for the criteria and dimensions.…”