Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

In the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Report 2021, Sweden was ranked 2nd highest in the world with an 85,61% level of achievement towards the Sustainable Development Goals (Sustainable Development Report, 2021). In other words, Sweden wants to be seen as a forerunner on sustainable development. And yet, mining projects with major sustainability challenges continue to find strong government support. How is it possible to understand Sweden’s high ambitions in sustainability with the practice of mining expansions? This study seeks to explore the perceived gap between environmental policy rhetoric and implementation through stories of sustainability in a case study of Cementa’s limestone quarry, where the Swedish Government after a heated debate made a temporary change in the environmental code to give the Company Cementa a prolonged permit to quarry limestone. This is done by conducting a discourse analysis based on Maarten Hajer’s argumentative approach to discourse analysis. The findings are later compared to overarching environmental discourses previously identified in Sweden. The results show that there were two dominating storylines put forward by an influential discourse coalition. The storylines largely go in line with overarching environmental discourses previously identified in Sweden, with ecological modernisation being the dominant discourse coupled with green governmentality.