When asking social scientists what a sustainable society is, they give one clear answer. A sustainable society is one that is built justly.
“The concept of sustainability includes the idea of justice. Often, the debate on sustainability revolves around technological innovation. But a sustainable life on Earth requires first and foremost a profound change in structures and lifestyles. In making such a big change, we need to listen to the hopes and concerns of different groups of people,” says Suvi Huttunen, Professor of Social Sciences at LUT University.
Nowadays, however, the sustainability divide threatens to aggravate the confrontation between those who benefit from it and those who suffer from its disadvantages. At the same time, demands to stop eating meat or to reduce the use of internal-combustion engines, for example, are easily seen as interfering with individual freedom. Such questioning of lifestyles can provoke strong emotional reactions in people.
Therefore, making a difference requires new ways of engaging with different groups of people and involving them in the debate. It is also an opportunity to make visible the challenges people face in their daily lives and to think about ways to overcome them.
“Organising citizens' councils to support policy-making, for example, is a concrete way to get different people to think together about acceptable ways to achieve change,” Huttunen says.
Fortunately, the challenges of transition are beginning to be recognised. Equity has become an increasingly important part of sustainability policy-making. At the same time, social science research at LUT and elsewhere is exploring ways to understand the dimensions of sustainable development from the perspective of different groups of people and societies.
The resigned sense of agency makes people see themselves as prisoners of Google
Minna Vigren, Assistant Professor of Global Communication and Climate Change at LUT, examines the sustainability transition and sustainable society from the perspective of digitalisation. Although technology is at the core of her research, she agrees with Suvi Huttunen that technological innovations alone will not solve climate change.
“Digitalisation and new technologies, including artificial intelligence, have been offered as a solution for a sustainable society. However, they can only work as solutions if the sustainability of technologies – such as energy consumption, emissions, raw materials and waste management – is taken into account.”
Vigren's research focuses in particular on the so-called eco-digital agency of ordinary people in building a more sustainable society.
“The starting point for my research is the observation that we often share a so-called resigned sense agency. As one of my subjects put it, 'I wouldn't want to be a prisoner of Google, because Google rules the world, but that's just the way it is.'”
Vigren aims to find out how to help people move away from resigning towards active and hopeful agency. Key to this is the ability to step out of the present and imagine an alternative world.
“When we can imagine a world where we should be heading to, we can also act in a way that takes us towards it. This gave the young people in my study a lot of hope in the midst of climate anxiety. They felt their thoughts and concerns were being seen.”
Vigren points out, however, that in the end, transformation is not about individual choices and actions. The fundamental change has to be systemic. However, individuals can demand change, and it is therefore important that there are alternatives to the current reality.
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Forest machine entrepreneurs are caught in the crossfire of the polarised forest debate
Asko Huisman, a Junior Researcher of Social Sciences at LUT, is working on a forthcoming PhD thesis on the sustainability transition from the perspective of forest machine entrepreneurs. Huisman says he is interested in forestry as a research topic because it is one of the focal points of a socially polarised debate in Finland.
The livelihood and lifestyle of forest machine operators are strongly linked to the forest. For example, their work is directly affected by tighter regulation. However, Huisman has noticed that their voice is not heard in the debate over forests.
Huisman's research topic proved to be timely. While the research was already well underway, a single forest machine operator unexpectedly became the focal point of the sustainability debate when one of Finland's most significant populations of freshwater pearl mussels was significantly damaged during logging operations commissioned by Stora Enso. The machine operator employed by the forest machine entrepreneur handling the logging site had driven the machine several times over a river and, at the same time, over the endangered mussels.
“The case illustrates the contradictory position of forest machine entrepreneurs in the wider sustainability debate and also in the transition itself. They must operate under the cross-pressure of working forestry companies, forest owners and environmental requirements.”
For forest machine entrepreneurs, the forest is a refuge and the future uncertain
The relationship forest machine entrepreneurs have with the forest is unique because of their profession. They spend a large part of their time in the forest and often feel like they are a part of the forest’s life cycle.
“The entrepreneurs witness the forest grow at close range. The time and work spent in the forests also unite different generations. This creates a sense of permanence in a changing world.”
It is thus the volatility of the sustainability transition that burdens forest machine entrepreneurs. The forest sector does not yet know how to make the transition, which means the entrepreneurs do not know how it will affect their work. At the same time, Huisman states, the entrepreneurs are working with constantly changing sustainability requirements and, in the worst case, are being held responsible for things over which they have no control.
“In the sustainability transition, power is being wielded also by the big forestry companies, whose passivity has increased forest machine entrepreneurs' uncertainty about their future. In the case of the mussels, for example, it turned out that the logging plan between Stora Enso and the landowner did not have any instructions for the machine operator regarding the mussels. This plan is an indication of a broader disregard that can be difficult for the entrepreneur to challenge.”
Huisman stresses that a justly implemented sustainability transition starts with recognition. If particularly vulnerable groups of people are not identified in the transition, their position cannot be influenced, for example through policy. If this is the case, justice will not be achieved.
More information:
Suvi Huttunen
Minna Vigren
