Ethical and social dimensions of Green Hydrogen: insights from systems thinking and stakeholder engagement between the Global North and the South

Green hydrogen is widely promoted as a cornerstone of the global low-carbon transition. Yet, while its technical and economic potential has been extensively studied, the ethical, social, and governance dimensions remain underexplored. The increase in Green Hydrogen deployment across diverse contexts, particularly through the Global North-South supply chains, risks reproducing the existing inequalities, extractivist practices, and governance challenges. Addressing these risks is necessary to ensure that Green Hydrogen not only contributes to climate change mitigation but also to socially just, sustainable development. This paper integrates a systematic literature review, an exploratory stakeholder survey, and systems thinking through causal loop diagrams (CLDs) to examine the justice implications of Green Hydrogen transitions. The literature review identifies that there is a gap in region-specific and theoretically-grounded analysis of social and ethical impacts of Green Hydrogen production. The survey results highlight high energy intensity, land-use conflicts, investment costs, and fossil fuel job displacement as key challenges in the Green Hydrogen sector. The CLD analysis highlight that reinforcing and balancing feedback loops that link production, community well-being, and governance structures, as revealing leverage points for more equitable transitions. This study is among the first to explicitly integrate energy justice frameworks, stakeholder perceptions, and systems thinking through CLDs in the context of Green Hydrogen transitions, thus offering an original interdisciplinary contribution to the literature. The findings demonstrate that Green Hydrogen transitions are not purely technical or economic but also involve socio-ethical transformations. This study emphasises the importance for embedding distributive, procedural, and recognition justice across the Green Hydrogen value chain to avoid reinforcing inequalities. Participatory, transparent, and inclusive policy mechanisms are necessary to enhance social legitimacy. By bridging social science insights, stakeholder perspectives, and systems analysis, the paper contributes to ongoing debates on how hydrogen can serve not only as a decarbonisation tool but also as a pathway toward just and sustainable energy futures.