The base game heavily and explicitly results in creating an environmental wasteland. You can choose to be more environmentally-friendly—I did a playthrough like

The base game heavily and explicitly results in creating an environmental wasteland. You can choose to be more environmentally-friendly—I did a playthrough like that—but the only benefit is fewer attacks by the natives, which isn’t much of a benefit from a gameplay perspective. The game is heavily moddable, though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a mod that made the gameplay more to your taste. It’s a very fun game and worth trying. FWIW, the code balancing mechanic in the game is “pollution makes enemies attack and grow stronger” so it’s possible for the game to have been about the dangers of exploitation. But that aspect of the game is poorly fleshed out compared to the rest of the game. Judging from the concept art they shared, that may be something they’re fixing with the expansion.