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.

Educating young people in Indigenous Ways of Knowing, and about Indigenous approaches and relationships with the natural environment, has a potential multiplicative advantage in the context of environmental justice. At Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) in particular, where learners will graduate and immediately take on leadership roles within the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), presenting learners with harmonious, non-extractive environmental philosophies has huge potential benefits. As educators, we labour with the objective that our classroom efforts will carry over into our learners’ individual spheres of influence during their military careers and in their civilian lives, when they are deployed across Canada from coast to coast to coast. Considering the arguably poor track record of the CAF in interacting respectfully with the environment, educating officers into symbiotic environmental philosophies may serve to motivate institutional change in the CAF, the Department of National Defence, and the Government of Canada, leading to more sustainable and respectful environmental relationships. (Image: Stainless steel pans of maple sap boiling over an open fire during an urban land-based learning/outdoor classroom session with RMC learners. Kingston, Ontario, Canada, February 2023). 

Lussier, Danielle and Gregg Wade. 2023. "Environmentally sensitive education at Royal Military College of Canada." 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.

Kingspan workers: Two workers from Kingspan, Lucas Hernandez and Israel Maldonado, detailed both their unsafe working conditions at Kingspan and the response from the company when they submitted complaints. Note that this conversation was moderated with questions from Ms. Meredith Schafer. 

Dr. Shahir Masri: Dr. Masri oversaw the air pollution monitoring at Kingspan. He used worker-collected pollution data to quantify PM2.5 levels at the plant. 

Rev. Terry LePage: Rev. LePage spoke on behalf of CLUE, a faith-based organization that has helped with Kingspan unionization efforts and written letters to Kingspan re: the pollution and safety hazard complaints.

Jose Rea: Mr. Rea spoke on behalf of MPNA-GREEN, a community group that donated the AtmoTubes used for air pollution data collection. 

Before this event I hadn’t known much about faith-based community organizing (such as CLUE), and would like to investigate more about the role of these types of organizations in local EJ efforts.

The lack of importance that Kingspan has placed on employee complaints about safe work environments suggests a lack of inbuilt methods (e.g., regular strict evaluation of workplace standards) of holding a company like Kingspan accountable for the health of their workers, despite the existence of workplace standards.

This event showed the very real ways in which large corporations directly profit from cutting corners in ways that hurt the health of their lowest-wage workers. The effort it takes to hold a company accountable for the health of their workers is immense, and while the groups present at this event are clearly making it happen, this accountability is not systematically enforced and requires individuals and relatively small organizations to impose justice.

• The need for multiple agents to commit to EJ changes like this, including many not directly affected by it. 

• The power of both local and global community organization networks in creating change. 

• Civic responsibility as a necessary catalyst for political change and attention to certain issues.

Dr. Masri presented data collected by the Kingspan workers that clearly showed levels of air pollution at the plant that were much higher than EPA allowable levels during working hours. 

The event was primarily focused on efforts by Kingspan workers and supporting parties to get Kingspan to improve working conditions, especially indoor air pollution at the plant.

Attendees included: city council members, Kingspan workers, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, Climate Action Campaign. Notably, all the primary facilitators were white. One of the Kingspan workers required a Spanish-speaking interpreter. It was implied at one point that the workers were paid minimum wage, but I am not 100% sure of this.