Page 25 - Infinity Power Report

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Infinity Power 2023 Sustainability Report 25

Responsible land use

A significant challenge we often face in building large scale

renewables projects is the use of land. In rural areas where

our assets are located, land is often used for agricultural

purposes, with farmers relying on it for their income.

We navigate this challenge through extensive and

transparent consultations with community representatives
in the planning phase – as our goal is to cause no negative

impact to land users. Our dedicated community liaison

officers are on hand to communicate information and

respond to feedback from stakeholders and ensure all

grievances are dealt with promptly. Where it is not possible

to avoid adverse impacts, we set up livelihood restoration

programmes for people affected by our projects (see box).

RESTORING LIVELIHOODS IN SENEGAL To do this we: • offered business skills training to all families to enable

• presented options for the livelihood restoration programme them to strengthen their earnings
In 2018 we began developing the first utility-scale
to local communities through consultation sessions, • provided additional support to vulnerable households,
wind power project at Taiba N’Diaye in Senegal. We
which were unanimously supported by local people including those with a high dependency ratio, female
recognised that communities local to the project site
• developed an irrigated gardens project to restore heads of household, and those with limited physical
would be affected and some people’s livelihoods would be
livelihoods for those losing more than 20% of their land mobility
negatively impacted. Over the last five years we’ve worked

to restore livelihoods and improve people’s economic • provided full and equal compensation to both

prospects. landowners and land users, in some cases ‘double Since establishing the irrigated garden project, we have
compensating’ affected households, and ensuring continued to listen to and engage with the community

We ran an extensive community engagement project to renters also benefitted over the last five years, led by our EHS manager in Senegal.
listen to concerns of the 415 affected people. Together • gave everyone affected the choice between cash We have set up comprehensive monitoring and evaluation

we sought solutions to protect and enhance people’s compensation and or replacement land - everyone systems to ensure the project achieved positive outcomes.

incomes. We went beyond international standards and opted for the cash compensation We’ve applied lessons learned to roll out further successful

regulatory requirements and offered multiple options to • provided the full replacement cash value and two livelihood programmes to new areas to reach more

improve the livelihoods of those affected. replacement trees for every lost tree to farmers that people, beyond those directly affected by the wind farm

relied heavily on fruit trees to generate income, in cases construction. This includes solar-powered water boreholes

where we had removed trees during construction for more farmers (see page 29).