New mines for clean energy face a hidden problem: whose values count?
A new study reveals that mining permit decisions hinge on competing definitions of sustainability rather than objective facts. As companies and regulators justify new mines as essential for climate transition, critics who adopt the same language may win battles but reinforce flawed evaluation systems—a trap with major implications for energy transition planning and project finance.
Originaltitel: The valuation of a mine – values, facts and contested notions of sustainability in the prospecting for new mines
<p>With the current technology-based transition strategy, prospecting for new mines has increased, and the extractive damage involved in mining is justified as a means of protecting the climate. The mining permit process involves fundamental trade-offs between values and goals (environmental, social, and economic) relating to global security and local livelihoods, as well as conflicting understandings of sustainability. These value conflicts and dilemmas lie at the heart of sustainable transformation. Drawing on pragmatic sociology and the orders of worth established by Boltanski and Thévenot, this paper illustrates that competing standpoints claim legitimacy by referring to different modes of judging what is good, right, and sustainable. The analysis shows that institutionalized ideals about legitimate forms of proof constrain and limit the possible ways of justifying a position, and this shapes the way nature is valued, as well as how contestation is formulated. When critics adopt legitimate forms of justification, they might win the case, but at the same time, strengthen the dominance of specific ways of ascribing value. The paper concludes that active engagement with diverging ways of ascribing worth, and thus different forms of proof, may enable governance that leads to more just and sustainable futures.</p>