Analyze

New social and environmental obligations are now imposed on transnational companies. They are now responsible for the concrete implementation of these obligations and are developing a set of practices to measure, prevent and remedy their environmental impact. These “corporate transition policies” (Lhulier & Tenreira, 2023) are at the frontier of law, management and natural sciences (mapping, indicators, thresholds), thus constitutive of a new co-produced scientific-normative space. A qualitative Science & Technology (STS) analysis on the basis of corporate documents and other collective practices is useful in order to describe this “corporate assemblages” (Tenreira, 2023), especially using Jasanoff's four-tiered analysis. The case study analysis reveals that the firm Decathlon refers to the 9 planetary limits ("experts/identities" N°1). It also refers to "institutions" (N°2) such as Sciences Based Target. The analysis of the "discourses" (N°3) shows that Decathlon's commitment actually appears largely declarative. The firm falls short of adopting concrete methodologies for calculating its ecological footprint, thereby highlighting a gap between rhetoric and action. This discrepancy presents a unique "representation" (N°4) of science, which permits the company a considerable degree of latitude in employing or constructing scientific indicators according to its “discretion”. At this stage of the analysis, it is thus possible to “problematize” (Laurent, 2022) corporate objects as corporate assemblages. The next steps of the analysis would nevertheless require other methodological approaches to “assess reflexively” these assemblages regarding an “rhizomatic ecological reality”.

Image : Tomas Saraceno, "Galaxies Forming along Filaments, Like Droplets along the Strands of a Spider’s Web", 2009, in Bruno Latour

Tenreira, Luca. 2023. "The construction of an episteme of objectification of corporate practices in the field of transition." In 4S Paraconference X EiJ: Building a Global Record, curated by Misria Shaik Ali, Kim Fortun, Phillip Baum and Prerna Srigyan. Annual Meeting of the Society of Social Studies of Science. Honolulu, Hawai'i, Nov 8-11.

In March 2021, the company Greenfield Louisiana LLC has proposed to build a new grain elevator, and has received air pollution permits. The project has raised concerns about grain dust emissions (Parker 2021). Further, Joy Banner, co-owner of the Fee-Fo Lay Cafe has pointed out the grain terminal's adverse effects on predominantly Black neighborshoods and nearby cultural heritage sites, including the Whitney Plantation. 

This initiative by the ICC to ground the history of Environmental Justice in Newark, while creating resilience through education and powerful messages.

They wanted to make the waters cleaner and help the enviroment get better. 

The source of resilence was local knowledge and community that wanted to see a difference from companies dumping trash in the water.