written by Marko Ulvila, photos by Jere Nieminen

The bi-annual Nordic Environmental Social Science Conference took this year place in Tampere, Finland with the theme HopefulNESS. It gathered together more than two hundred academics mainly from the Nordic countries for three intensive days of sharing and discussion. The programme included five key-note presentations from distinguished scholars and more than a hundred presentations in thirty working groups.

The conference started with the keynote presentation by prof. James Meadowcroft from the Carleton University, Canada. In his talk on confronting the limits of the environmental state Prof. Meadowcroft drew on his vast expertise on political sciences and energy and environmental policies. He presented three structural elements that pose fundamental constrains to what modern states can do to manage environment:

– economic foundations with the growth compulsion in capitalism

– international system with competition of profoundly unequal nation states

– national political systems with the limits of representative democracy

Though all these dynamics contribute to increasing critical environmental harm, prof. Meadowcroft argued that there is no need for desperation. For example in the context of climate there has been clear progress during the quarter of the century. In summing up, he pointed that the three constraints pose significant structural obstacles, but are not absolute. Given sufficient time it is possible to mitigate structural obstacles and find solutions to particular environmental problems. Therefore one should push the idea and practice of environmental state further so that such solutions would be developed and applied.

The second keynote presentation by Dr. Josephine Mylan from the University of Manchester (UK) discussed sustainable consumption in transition. She applied a reconfiguration view on consumption  in contrast with reformist of revolutionary perspectives on the topic. Key elements in the reconfiguration view are interest in ordinary practices and multiple drivers moving the agency of consumers.  Thereby also role of firms becomes interesting.

Her three cases illustrated the dynamics and challenges in the field of sustainable consumption. Over the years the environmental impact related to packaged orange juice has increased due to the emphasis on freshness. This is not only a matter of consumer choice, but also a lock-in caused by investments in certain kind of plantations, packaging, transport and retail systems. Shifts to low-temperature laundry practices demonstrates a case where detergent companies have promoted a more sustainable practice with positive results. This has required a process or co-evolution and reconfiguration by many actors, including machine vendors, regulators and cultural norms. The case of meat is in early transition, with vegetable based products on a rise but no decrease of meat consumption yet visible in statistics.

On the second day the first keynote was delivered by prof. Esther Turnhout from the Wageningen University (NL).  Her talk on politics of knowledge in the context of biodiversity started with the observation how knowledge is performative and plays out in the service of making order and defining what is normal. One outcome of such definitions and classifications is that they and reality become mutually aligned and constituted. Biodiversity science is an example of such urge for classification. There the shifts from morphology to DNA analysis recreate how species are grouped and related, even in botanic gardens. In biodiversity conservation classifications produce for example categories of endangered species and hot spots of vulnerability and value.