Greening the economy? - Critical dialogues on energy transitions in the Bothnia region.
There is a scientific consensus that we need to abandon fossil fuels and to transition away from polluting energy sources to deal with the climate emergency. The question is what this transition will look like.
The current societal debate on green transitions tends to focus on technological solutions that would reduce carbon emissions without questioning the values, norms, and lifestyles that depend on continuous material and economic growth. Without taking these broader societal issues into account, there is a risk that green technologies will lead to new problems such as the destruction of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity, and environmental conflicts with affected communities.
In this webinar series, we invite sustainability researchers and practitioners to engage in a cross disciplinary dialogue that takes these issues seriously. The series will use international and historical perspectives on green extractivism, colonialism, environmental justice and conflicts to reflect on the contested topics of green economy and energy transitions – and how these developments play out in the context of Northern Sweden and Western Finland. Together, we try to make sense of the current crises and to imagine alternative post-growth and regenerative futures.
The webinar series is a collaboration between the Research Institute for Organization and Business in Sustainable Transitions (ROBUST) at the Umeå School of Business, Economics and Statistics (Sweden) and Hanken School of Economics in Vasa (Finland).
The series has received support from the Umeå Transformation Research Initiative (UTRI).