| 1. |
- Bauer, Fredric, et al.
(författare)
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Climate innovations in the plastic industry: Prospects for decarbonisation
- 2018
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Plastics are efficient materials for many purposes, e.g. packaging and construction, but are also associated with significant problems. These span from littering in forests and oceans, toxicity of additives, to the fundamental dependence on fossil resource for the production of the plastic material. This report aims to give an overview of the challenges for decarbonisation of plastics, i.e. moving away from a dependency on fossil resources for the production. Firstly, it identifies different possible development pathways for the industry towards decarbonisation and the key arguments for and against these pathways – reduced use of plastics, recycled plastics, and bio-based plastics. Secondly, it presents an analysis of structural characteristics of the industry that affect the potential for low-carbon innovation. This includes identifying and understanding the potential that traditional as well as new types of agents have to affect the direction of development. The report presents decarbonisation initiatives and engagement throughout the system of plastics, i.e. not only by primary production firms but also by knowledge organisations, intermediary firms, consumer groups etc. As the development pathways are contested and challenged both on technological and other grounds, the issue of power becomes pressing. The formation and use of coalitions to support and/or counteract certain developments is important, as political regulation of this highly globalised and diffuse sector has previously been difficult. The interaction between geographical particularities and scales must be given due consideration. Finally, the aspect of materiality is a key concern for the development of a system of specific materials. This relates of course to the limits of different types of feedstocks and material properties, but also to other resources and their exploitation within a system that is deeply entrenched in a system with capital invested in technologies and facilities adapted for processing fossil resources into fuels, plastics, and other products. Despite the strong carbon lock-in that the plastics industry is in, the identified pathways show that there are possibilities for decarbonisation. New types of actors are creating pressure for the sector to move towards a future plastic sector that is both circular and independent of fossil resources.
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| 2. |
- Chertkovskaya, Ekaterina, et al.
(författare)
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Assembling a Zero-Waste World : From situated to distributed prefiguration
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Ingår i: Organization Studies. - 1741-3044.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The concept of prefiguration is drawing increasing interest as a lens to study the collective dynamic and transformative potential of alternative organizing. We introduce an analytical distinction between two modes of prefiguration. Situated prefiguration emphasizes affective bonds and direct struggle taking place in bounded organizational spaces, while distributed prefiguration manifests in wider socio-spatial formations. While situated prefiguration has been studied substantially, distributed prefiguration has so far not been adequately theorized. To conceptualize more spatially dispersed forms of prefiguration, we approach prefiguration from a relational perspective, drawing especially on assemblage thinking, which reveals a different way of thinking about how prefigurative practices are spatially organized. We demonstrate different socio-spatial forms of prefiguration in action through an empirical investigation of the zero-waste phenomenon. Our empirical material is built on site visits to zero-waste stores, interviews with zero-wasters and conventional retailers and online sources related to zero-waste. We find that zero-waste stores transcend situated prefiguration by being part of a zero-waste assemblage that aims to radically transform the food and retail system through distributed prefiguration.
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| 3. |
- Chertkovskaya, Ekaterina, et al.
(författare)
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Plastic turbulence: illusions of containment, clean-up, and control, and the emergent promise of diverse economies
- 2023
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Ingår i: Global Environmental Politics in a Turbulent Era. - : Edward Elgar Publishing. - 9781802207149 - 9781802207132 ; , s. 25-36
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global ecosystems are currently buckling under the weight of “plastics turbulence:” the condition of ubiquitous plastic entanglement within all human and non-human natural systems. This chapter argues that “global plastics governance” - the fragmented and variable political and institutional response to the plastics crisis - suffers from strategies that are doomed to fail because they miss what is at stake. We criticize current initiatives as falling prey to illusions of containment, clean-up and control. These initiatives all assume that plastic turbulence can be addressed without altering our core, economic relationships to plastics. To dispel the illusions, the chapter suggests an alternative path forward that is defined by “diverse economies,” which recognize the diversity of economic activity that operates beyond or outside the profit motive. The chapter gives three brief examples of such diverse economies and reflects on their potential to address the plastics crisis.
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| 4. |
- Hasselbalch, Jacob A.
(författare)
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Framing brain drain : between solidarity and skills in European labor mobility
- 2019
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Ingår i: Review of International Political Economy. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0969-2290 .- 1466-4526. ; 26:6, s. 1333-1360
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- How do crisis perceptions interrelate with the emergence and re-constitution of policy problems? By using a novel combination of interviews with a content and network analysis of hand-coded parliamentary questions, this article maps the emergence of brain drain as a policy problem at the level of the European Union and follows the evolution of the issue over the last four parliamentary periods (from 1999 to 2019). I identify a skills storyline (emphasizing reform of vocational and educational training to address skills mismatches) and a solidarity storyline (emphasizing worker conditions, rights, and wages) as the main contending narratives that define the contours of the debate. The article analyzes how each of these storylines interacted over time with changes in the perception of crisis urgency facing the European Union in ways that run counter to what we would expect. I explain this by examining the capacity of each storyline to problematize or de-problematize the movement of labor, as well as their institutionalization over time. The article contributes to the study of the political economy of labor mobility with an original case study from the EU’s Single Market, and challenges conventional wisdom regarding the role of framing during times of crisis.
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| 5. |
- Hasselbalch, Jacob, et al.
(författare)
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Organizing for transformation: post-growth in International Political Economy
- 2023
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Ingår i: Review of International Political Economy. - 1466-4526.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The global political economy is organized around the pursuit of economic growth. Yet scholars of International Political Economy (IPE) have been surprisingly slow to address its wide-ranging implications and, thus, to advance debates about post-growth alternatives. The premise of the article is that for IPE to deepen its grasp of the escalation of contemporary socioecological crises both analytically and normatively, it needs to put the growth question front and center. To problematize the pursuit of economic growth from an IPE perspective, we bring together research on green growth, post-growth/degrowth, sustainability transitions and socioecological transformation. More specifically, we develop an analytical framework that revolves around four pathways of reorganization toward socioecological sustainability: (1) modification, (2) substitution, (3) conversion and (4) prefiguration. We use illustrative examples from the plastics and food sectors to show how the post-growth pathways of conversion and prefiguration could interact to trigger change for sustainability. Notably, our discussion reveals that conversion, which requires a strong state for developing post-growth institutions, is the least traveled pathway in both sectors. This insight points to a strategic priority for post-growth proponents and an urgent research agenda for IPE scholars.
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| 6. |
- Nielsen, Tobias D., et al.
(författare)
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Politics and the plastic crisis: A review throughout the plastic life cycle
- 2019
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Ingår i: Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Energy and Environment. - : Wiley. - 2041-8396. ; 9:1, s. 1-18
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article surveys the politics of plastics through a reading and analysis of more than 180 scientific articles in the fields of environmental science and environmental studies. Despite the many benefits of plastics, the global plastic system is increasingly being recognized as the source of severe environmental problems. Rather than orient the investigation around specific venues, levels, or architectures of governance, our survey first follows plastic through its life cycle, and then considers the major categories of plastic objects addressed in the current literature, and the different approaches taken to each category. The politics of plastics is a growing field of inquiry, with the most rapid expansion in the areas of marine pollution and microplastics. Our consideration of plastic flows reveals increasing politicization towards the latter end of the life cycle, that is, plastic as waste and pollution. Turning to plastic objects, we observe different forms of mobilization, and varying connections between flows and objects, which allow for multiple interpretations of what is at stake. In the closing section, we consider two recent trends in the plastic governance discussion that take a more holistic view of the plastic crisis: attempts to construct (a) a circular plastics economy and (b) global plastics conventions or treaties. We end the paper by highlighting the need for studies to further investigate the norms and practices that maintain the role of plastics in society, as well as the political and economic arrangements that secure its overabundance and low price.
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| 7. |
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| 8. |
- Palm, Ellen, et al.
(författare)
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Narrating plastics governance : policy narratives in the European plastics strategy
- 2022
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Ingår i: Environmental Politics. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0964-4016 .- 1743-8934. ; 31:3, s. 365-385
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The European Union (EU) aspires to be an important global agenda-setter on how to treat and regulate the growing plastics problem. We present an analysis of the plastic policy narratives shaping European plastics governance, in particular through the European Commission’s Plastics Strategy. Our aim is to first uncover the policy narratives at play, and then examine how actors make use of those narratives through strategic construction. Based on interviews with key stakeholders and document analysis, we identify four narratives: fossil feedstock dependency, resource inefficiency, pollution, and toxicity. We find that the resource inefficiency and pollution narratives figure most prominently in European plastics governance, and that the circular economy is being advanced as a policy solution that cuts across the different narratives. However, surface agreement on the need for ‘circularity’ hides deeper-lying ideological divisions over what exactly the circular economy means and the different directions this implies for plastics governance.
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| 9. |
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| 10. |
- van Veelen, Bregje, et al.
(författare)
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Power and politics in plastics research : A critique of ‘Whither plastics? petrochemicals, plastics and sustainability in a garbage-riddled world’
- 2020
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Ingår i: Energy Research and Social Science. - : Elsevier BV. - 2214-6296. ; 61
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The article ‘Whither Plastics?—Petrochemicals, plastics and sustainability in a garbage-riddled world’ discusses a number of recent issues around plastics, including plastics’ dependence on fossil fuels, its contribution to ocean waste, and its possible impact on human health [M. Jefferson, “Whither plastics?—Petrochemicals, plastics and sustainability in a garbage-riddled world,” Energy Res. Soc. Sci. 56 (2019)]. Despite these multiple ways in which plastics are framed as (potentially) problematic, the author is clear in his recommendations: the most important form of action is behavioural change. While we strongly welcome social science research into plastics, we have several issues with the study in question which we deem significant enough for us to write this response. At the heart of our concern is the paper's handling of extant research. There are three aspects to our critique: (1) conflations and misrepresentations of the data presented; (2) disregard of academic social science research on plastics; and (3) the resultant promotion of over-simplistic solutions to a complex set of problems.
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