Institutional Position of Food4Sustainability CoLAB on the Intensive Occupation of Rural Land by Energy Infrastructure

Food4Sustainability CoLAB (F4S) recognises the urgency of the energy transition and the unequivocal need to accelerate the decarbonisation of the Portuguese and European economy. Mitigating climate change is a civilisational imperative and demands substantial investment in renewable energy, technological innovation, and the strengthening of energy sovereignty.

However, F4S considers it equally essential to ensure that this transition does not reproduce models that are territorially extractive, socially imbalanced, or ecologically regressive.

In this context, F4S holds that the intensive occupation of rural, agricultural, or ecologically functional land by large-scale energy structures must be the subject of far deeper and more integrated technical, scientific, and territorial reflection.

F4S’s position does not constitute blanket opposition to solar energy or to renewable energy projects. On the contrary: we advocate an energy transition that is intelligent, regenerative, and territorially balanced. We are concerned, nonetheless, by the proliferation of implementation models that:

• Artificialise extensive areas of natural and rural landscape;
• Reduce essential ecosystem services;
• Fragment habitats and ecological connectivity;
• Compromise the multifunctionality of the territory;
• Occupy soils with significant productive and ecological potential;
• Generate little local technological integration;
• Create low regional added value; and
• Fail to secure structural socio-economic benefits for affected communities.

F4S finds it particularly troubling that many of these projects are presented under a narrative of sustainability and regeneration without any transparent assessment of their net territorial impact across the project life cycle.

Decarbonisation cannot be assessed through the reduction of carbon emissions alone. Territorial sustainability equally requires safeguarding natural capital, functional biodiversity, landscape quality, ecological resilience, and the future productive capacity of rural territories.

We maintain that the interior territories must not be regarded merely as physical platforms for energy production destined for external consumption, but rather as living, multifunctional ecosystems whose valorisation should generate:

• skilled employment;
• the retention of economic value;
• local technological development;
• ecological regeneration;
• food and energy sovereignty; and
• the strengthening of the community fabric.

To that end, F4S considers it a priority to promote more balanced and territorially intelligent alternatives, namely:

• genuine agrivoltaic models;
• local energy communities;
• the priority use of already-artificialised or degraded land;
• the integration of national technological value chains;
• decentralised models of energy production; and
• mandatory mechanisms for economic and ecological return to the territories.

F4S will remain available to contribute, in a constructive, scientific, and independent manner, to the public debate on the future of the energy transition in Portugal, always upholding the principles of territorial regeneration, ecological integrity, and intergenerational justice.

The Board of F4S CoLAB