Green technology is not automatically just

It is tempting to divide technology into green and not green. But a solar panel has a supply chain. A battery requires minerals. A cloud service runs in physical data centres. Calling a technology clean without looking at its materials, energy use, labor conditions and end of life is not clarity — it is a marketing shortcut.

The Deep Research is especially strong on this tension. It points to the environmental and social costs of mining for renewable-energy supply chains, and to the risk that a fast transition merely exchanges one form of damage for another. This does not mean abandon renewable energy or useful computing. It means reduce demand where possible, design for longer use, recover materials and account for trade-offs publicly.

For a small technology company, the first obligation is humility. We cannot solve the mining paradox with a slogan. We can choose not to treat every use of AI as necessary, avoid claims we cannot measure and make our products more legible so people can decide whether they are worth the cost.

This is the difference between a solarpunk aesthetic and a solarpunk practice. One sells the image of a flourishing future. The other accepts responsibility for the material path toward it.

Progress is not a color palette. It is a record of who benefits, what is consumed and what can be restored.

— SolarPunkWorks Pvt Ltd