Private equity firms are increasingly profiting from cleaning up climate disasters in the US, while failing to better protect workers and often also investing in the fossil fuels that are causing the climate emergency, new research has found.

The demand for skilled disaster restoration or resilience workers, who are mostly immigrants and refugees from Latin America and Asia, is soaring as greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels heat the planet, provoking more destructive storms, floods and wildfires.

As the disaster industry has become more profitable, at least 72 companies that specialize in disaster cleanups and restoration have been acquired by private equity firms since 2020, according to the research by the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PSEP) and Resilience Force, a labor rights organization with thousands of members.

Wage theft, lack of protective clothing, and other unsafe conditions are rampant across the industry at the expense of workers, communities and climate, according to the report, Private Equity Profits from Disasters, shared exclusively with the Guardian.

At risk are tens of thousands of resilience workers, traveling from disaster to disaster cleaning up and rebuilding American communities while facing hazards such as unstable buildings, ash and other toxins, and water-borne diseases.

Researchers found that an increasingly complex web of franchises, contractors and subcontractors, insurance providers, labor brokers and agencies and mostly temporary jobs makes it difficult for workers to know who is ultimately accountable for violations.

“Disasters have become more intense and destructive, and rebuilding has become more profitable. As the money started pouring in, companies started consolidating, and private equity started circling and buying up these companies,” said Saket Soni, director of Resilience Force. “Wage theft and health and safety violations are deeply endemic … and private equity is failing to establish higher standards.”

Read the full article about private equity and disasters by Nina Lakhani at The Guardian.