An intersectional reading of circular economy policies: towards just and sufficiency-driven sustainabilities

ABSTRACT

Transitions to a circular economy (CE) have, in recent years, emerged as a popular approach to deal with the challenges related to the systemic crises of the Anthropocene. However, mainstream CE discourses have been critiqued for being ecomodernist and for focusing too much on managerial issues, at the expense of justice and social aspects, and thereby risking not leading to the systemic changes so direly needed. Given this backdrop, as well as cities key role in responding to sustainability challenges, this article adopts a posthumanist intersectionality-perspective to explore the transformative potential of a municipal policy in which CE has been adopted as a key strategy for achieving change. A critical policy analysis of the City of Gothenburg’s new Environment and Climate Programme reveals that, apart from a focus on efficiency, the Programme also includes a politics of sufficiency and decreased consumption, thus potentially taking a first step within Swedish public sector towards an outspoken post-growth paradigm. The analysis, moreover, provides insights into what notions of citizens (or Gothenburgians), justice, responsibility, and nature–human relations the Programme is underpinned by. Drawing on these findings, the article proposes practical implications for urban policymakers and avenues for further research.

KEYWORDS:

• Circular economy
• climate policy
• intersectionality
• posthumanism
• justice
• sufficiency
• Gothenburg

Introduction

The circular economy (CE) is increasingly gaining traction as a solution for transitioning into a sustainable future. From being a somewhat peripheral approach promoted by some activist circles and academic disciplines, it has moved to the centre of mainstream discourses. Its momentum can be witnessed by the increasing number of CE policy initiatives across the globe, such as the European Green Deal and its CE Action Plan (EC 2020) and, in the Swedish context, Sweden’s national strategy for achieving a CE (Government Offices of Sweden 2020).

However, the mainstream CE discourse is often critiqued for being too focused on the technical, fiscal, managerial, and organisational dimensions of CE implementation (cf. Hobson 2016), while lacking critical analysis (Korhonen, Honkasalo, and Seppälä 2018) and neglecting its social dimensions. As Schulz, Hjaltadóttir, and Hild (2019) argue, this “technological fix” approach, at least implicitly, “denies the need to question current consumption patterns, global inequalities and persisting negative externalities” (2). A critique that also motivated this very special issue; the neglect of issues of power, equity, and justice in CE research and practice.

Yet, the CE concept can also encompass more radical and progressive approaches so that the CE becomes not just “another reboot of past [failed] sustainability frameworks” (Hobson 2021, 163). In particular, such approaches tend to shift attention to sufficiency rather than focusing solely on efficiency (cf. Schulz, Hjaltadóttir, and Hild 2019). The notion of efficiency can be seen as the fundamental principle of weak ecological modernisation theory (Christoff 1996), which is increasingly criticised for not having been able to prompt a decoupling of material intensity and productivity, or, in more general terms, between global resource exploitation and economic growth (Gibbs and O’Neill 2017). In contrast, sufficiency-oriented approaches profoundly challenge the predominant growth paradigm, including the way economic development is measured and evaluated (Schneidewind and Zahrnt 2014; Schulz and Bailey 2014; Krueger, Schulz, and Gibbs 2018). Often, these approaches include ideas of degrowth, i.e. ways of thinking about the economy that are not growth oriented, but instead focused “on the redistribution of wealth and living within [or with] the Earth’s ecosystems” (Krueger, Schulz, and Gibbs 2018, 569). “Degrowth” is sometimes called “post-growth” to suggest new trajectories more explicitly. This school of thought aims for radical political and economic reorganisation and social transformation leading to reduced resource use as well as redistribution of wealth. There is thus a clash with different takes on the CE, where some proponents see CE as an opportunity to keep production and consumption up while becoming more resource-efficient as a way of producing and consuming within the means of the planet, while others also highlight the need for decreased consumption.

This article builds on previous research that has argued that sufficiency-oriented politics can be helpful for creating politics and public policies for more sustainable and just transformations and societies (cf. Schneidewind and Zahrnt 2014; O’Neill et al. 2018; Rijnhout et al. 2018; Spangenberg and Lorek 2019; Callmer and Bradley 2021). It also suggests that further attention to power, equity, and justice can help to move efficiency-oriented approaches within CE towards sufficiency and strong sustainability frames like degrowth and post-growth (as similarly argued by e.g. Schröder et al. 2019; Mathai et al. 2021). To further attend to power, equity, and justice and thus contribute to a more holistic and comprehensive approach to the current environment and climate crisis – an understanding that transcends narrow “sustainable growth” (EC 2010) or “green economy” (UNEP 2011) approaches – this paper applies an intersectional lens inspired by posthumanism (further described in the Theory section). Such an approach can bring to light the socio-ecological inequalities driving climate change and unsustainable production-consumption patterns built into the organisation of our global political economy, which, as Mathai et al. (2021) argue, remain largely overlooked. In other words, it is an approach that understands climate change as a product of social and economic inequities and therefore does not separate equality from its socio-economical and bio-geophysical context. Instead, such an approach urges for a non-anthropocentric take on justice, i.e. justice for all humans as well as a responsibility and ethics of care for living (and non-living) beings and things.

Employing such an approach, this article performs a critical policy analysis of the new Environment and Climate Programme of the City of Gothenburg (City of Gothenburg 2020), a municipality in western Sweden that arguably has acted as a pioneer in Sweden by incorporating a so-called consumption perspective into its climate policies. The aim of the article is to assess the transformative potential of this (and thus comparable CE policies at the local level): what strengths and weaknesses exist in the Environment and Climate Programme, and what can we (researchers and practitioners) learn from this empirical case?

In what follows, a background of the emergence of CE and its central assumptions is provided. The intersectional perspective adopted is then presented alongside a discussion of its usefulness for problematising and unsettling seemingly apolitical understandings within such policies, bringing to light issues of power, equity, and justice. Thereafter, the methods of the critical policy analysis are explained, prior to a description of the case and of how sustainable production-consumption perspectives and the CE came to be a key climate policy strategy of the City of Gothenburg. This is followed by the analysis itself – an intersectional reading of the City of Gothenburg’s new Environment and Climate Programme. Finally, the paper ends with a discussion that closes the loop, so to speak; or, hopefully, opens up new possibilities for future research and practice that can contribute to more holistic and comprehensive urban climate policies and, thus, truly transformative solutions.

Background: a review of current circular economy discourses

In the last decade, the concept of CE has gained prominence in political, corporate, and academic discourse around the world. What such a framework entails is, however, less certain, as the CE is an ambiguous concept containing many different meanings. Indeed, Kirchherr, Reike, and Hekkert (2017) have identified over a hundred definitions and conceptualisations of the CE. Thus, the CE is not one “thing” (Corvellec et al. 2020), but could, instead, be regarded as an “umbrella” term (Homrich et al. 2018; Rip and Jan-Peter 2013) or even an “empty signifier” (Valenzuela and Böhm 2017), which allows for a wide range of interpretations and approaches.

Despite this “emptiness” of the CE and the wide array of approaches available, the CE discourse has been hegemonised by influential economic and political actors (Corvellec et al. 2020). This hegemonic discourse of CE is represented by an apolitical, ecomodernist, and technocratic framing (Genovese and Pansera 2021). Within this framing, the CE comes with a promise that circular relationships among markets, customers, and natural resources have a unique capacity to combine economic growth with sustainability (Ghisellini, Cialani, and Ulgiati 2016). This leads to the suggestive assumption that the current economic system could become entirely sustainable by implementing CE principles of closed material and energy loops – not surprising considering that efficiency is often seen as the building block of technocratic development (cf. Rijnhout and Mastini 2018).

This dominant CE discourse is prominent in the global policy arena, and especially so within the European Union (EU). As Völker, Kovacic, and Strand (2020) argue, “almost no EU policy area can afford not to mention the circular economy nowadays” (103), in particular when it comes to economic, environmental, and climate strategies. CE has arguably even become the new buzzword to replace “sustainable development”.

The non-governmental organisation and advocacy group the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (EMF) has been an influential source in shaping the CE discourse through many impactful publications (Sauvé, Bernard, and Sloan 2016), by offering guidance for global corporation strategies, and by participating in significant international events such as the World Economic Forum to spread the uptake of CE ideas and practices (Hobson 2021). EMF authored the report Growth from Within: A Circular Economy Vision for a Competitive Europe which was published the same year as the EU’s CE Action Plan, arguing that a transition to a CE could provide the EU with the foundations for an era of green economic growth (EMF 2015). This can be achieved by minimising the waste and pollution from current linear systems and “make-use-dispose” practices and instead changing material and resource flows into “circles” or “loops” of continued use by following the so-called 3Rs – recycle, reuse, and reduce.

As several analyses of existing CE publications illustrate, the 3Rs have become some of the most discussed CE practices, where recycle stands out as the most prominent (cf. Ghisellini, Cialani, and Ulgiati 2016; Hobson 2016; Merli, Preziosi, and Acampora 2018; Schulz, Hjaltadóttir, and Hild 2019). The principle of reduce is the least prioritised of the 3R concepts (Kirchherr, Reike, and Hekkert 2017), mainly being mentioned in theoretical discussion (Su et al. 2013; Hobson 2016; Merli, Preziosi, and Acampora 2018). One reason to why recycling over-weighs the other two, is argued to be because this is where profits are most easily made, and thus where the economic interest of the main players lies (Alexander and Reno 2012; MacBride 2012). As Schulz, Hjaltadóttir, and Hild (2019) argue, this emphasis on recycling is an indication of the technocentric and management focus over wider socio-cultural change within CE discourses; resource efficiency, reforming practices, and the creation of faster loops and cyclical material streams are key concepts, aiming to minimise the need for virgin materials (Hobson 2016; Schulz, Hjaltadóttir, and Hild 2019; Appelgren and Bohlin 2020).

Thus, a result of the CE having reached “the mainstream” has been the narrowing down of latent possibilities within the systems-thinking that underlies the CE (Corvellec et al. 2020). As Hobson (2016) has pointed out, at heart, the CE is a radical concept, as it historically stems from a critique of the characteristics of current linear forms of global capitalism and its established systems relations that have produced the very “unsustainability” problems we are currently facing (see also Corvellec et al. 2020). Critics of mainstream CE discourses instead argue that significant changes in society and human activity are needed, such as a new economic paradigm, if CE policy is to be truly transformative and more successful than previous measures (cf. Geels et al. 2015; Schröder et al. 2019; Hobson 2021). In this literature, inspired by post-growth approaches, the reduce principle extends the importance of less consumption, in the form of frugal consumption or sufficiency, and challenges the assumptions of the current model of economic growth as the primary measure of welfare (Kallis, Kerschner, and Martinez-Alier 2012; Schulz and Bailey 2014; Schneidewind and Zahrnt 2014; Krueger, Schulz, and Gibbs 2018; Kallis et al. 2020). As Boehnert (2015) argues, at its best, CE thinking takes a “whole-systems approach” which aims to change material, social and economic relations to reduce the impact humans have on the environment, as well as radically transform human-nature relations.

To analyse whether the City of Gothenburg adopts a CE approach in line with the mainstream dominant discourse, which offer little promise for a transition to a sustainable and just society, or, whether it adopts more “systemic” thinking that offer larger promises for truly transformative solutions and “strong” versions of sustainability, this article employs a theoretical perspective that can aid us in bringing to light socio-ecological inequalities and incorporate the power, equity, and justice dimensions of CE policies; namely, a synthesis between intersectionality and posthumanism.

Theory: beyond identity and binaries – a posthumanist intersectionality

Intersectionality originates from black feminist activist and academic circles as a critique of the colour-blindness of mainstream feminism, highlighting how women’s experiences are shaped by overlapping patterns of sexism and racism (cf. Davis 1981; hooks 1981; Crenshaw 1989, 1991). Since then, feminist literature has employed and developed intersectionality to improve the analysis of power relations and differences to also include intersections between other social categories such as class, ethnicity, sexuality, age, religion, (dis)ability, and place (Yuval-Davis 2006; Lykke 2010; Cho, Crenshaw, and McCall 2013). Intersectional insights have also been helpful for questioning what knowledge claims and whose voices are heard and privileged in various contexts (Moraga and Anzaldúa 2015 [1981]; Hill Collins and Bilge 2016).

Much of the previous intersectional work has been criticised for being too anthropocentric and for its lack of attention to the interconnection between human/society and nature power relations (cf. Lykke 2010; Kronsell et al. 2021). To enlargen the political analyses to also incorporate nature and the material as a sphere of analysis, this article’s take on intersectionality is inspired by the so-called material and posthumanist turn within feminist thinking – a turn that criticises the idea of the natural world and technical artefacts as a mere context to humanity, resource, restraint, or raw material for technological progress, economic production, or social construction. Thus, posthumanist feminism(s) disidentify with the anthropocentric focus on human affairs in much feminist theory and have contributed to the inclusion of other non-human agencies in the discussion of the intersecting power differentials that need to be considered in feminist theorising (Birke, Bryld, and Lykke 2004).

With such a theoretical synthesis – a posthumanist intersectionality –, equality is not separated from its socio-economical and bio-geophysical context. Instead, social, economic, and environmental problems can be seen as systemic and inextricably linked; moving intersectionality’s focus from a solely identity to a systemic level (cf. Godfrey and Torres 2016). As such, two points could be stressed: (i) that transformations towards a sustainable and just society need to entail a radical critique of the current unjust social relations that enable current capitalist modes of production and consumption, and (ii) that to achieve social justice, one cannot neglect the intimate links between the destruction of the web of life and the causes of social injustice. In this manner, a posthumanist intersectionality can aid us in emphasising how intersecting isms (such as capitalism, colonialism, racism, (hetero) sexism, rationalism, and speciesism), both contribute to, and are exacerbated by, environmental problems such as climate change (Patterson 2016) and unsustainable production-consumption-use-waste practices. In other words, instead of looking at such systems and/or social differences in siloes, such a perspective can provide a more comprehensive and holistic analysis.

Furthermore, posthumanist intersectionality is an analytical approach that employs a non-dualist and performative understanding to its analytics of power by attending to intersecting dynamics of oppression across both human categories like gender, class, and race, as well as across more-than-human organisms and the living/non-living binary (cf. Clare 2016), promoting an ethics that extends care beyond humans (cf. Puig de la Bellacasa 2017). To clarify, it is critical to the long-standing so-called dualisms inherent to much Western thought, which constructs the world as a series of opposites; human/nature, male/female, white/non-white, mind/body, reason/emotion. In modern society, these dualisms translate into a perceived superiority of science, rationality, and modernity, which allows for instrumental views on nature and continued exploitation. In other words, through such dualistic constructions, domination of humans over nature (as well as “othered” humans) is established and maintained, leading not only to a distorted understanding of human-nature relations, but also to unjust relations “ … in terms of which groups are rendered more vulnerable, more affected, and who has benefited from previous unsustainable resource use; by privileging and supporting particular actors and knowledges” (Kronsell et al. 2021, 9; see also Kaijser and Kronsell 2014). Thus, such an analytical lens aids us in the analysis and critique of binary object-subject relations, by investigating, for example, who and what is understood as “human” and “non-human” bodies or “natural” and “social” entities. In the context of a CE policy analysis, it means asking questions about how these relationships are addressed and conceptualised with the aim of problematising and unsettling seemingly apolitical understandings within such policies and governance frameworks; an approach that has underpinned the methodological choices of the research reported in this article.

Method: critical policy analysis

This paper challenges a linear, technical conception of policy processes and departs from the idea that policy processes and their related understandings of, for example, “evidence”, “expert knowledge”, “science”, “the economy”, “nature”, and “sustainability” are intrinsically value-driven. Knowledge is political. Thus, as Bradshaw (2019) argues, how the world is known and how social reality and how, in turn, environmental issues (and the economy) are constructed have implications for policy and practice and its outcomes. Therefore, to get at the root of how underlying assumptions and ideas influence the CE-related solutions that are pursued or ignored within the City of Gothenburg’s policy work, a critical policy analysis of their new Environment and Climate Programme has been performed (interchangeably referred to as the Programme from here on). The way individuals, groups of individuals, or entire organisations frame a topic (such as the CE) may not only indicate their understanding of the field but can also provide insights into the (potential) performativity of such narratives.

In addition to this performative understanding of discourses and narratives, the methodology was inspired by the “What’s-the-problem-represented-to-be” (WPR) approach (Bacchi 2009), which directs critical attention to the production of problems by identifying proposed solutions, reading off implicit problem representations, and probing the unexamined assumptions and deep-seated conceptual logics within these representations (Bacchi and Goodwin 2016).

To tease out which power relations, ideas, assumptions, and object-subject positions that underpin the Programme, I approached the analysis in an open-ended mode of critical engagement (cf. Bacchi 2009) and, inspired by the WPR approach and the theoretical synthesis described in the Theory section – posthumanist intersectionality – asked specific questions to the material (see also Kaijser and Kronsell 2014). Questions asked included: How is “nature”, “ecology”, “society”, and “the economy” represented, respectively? What economic rationalities underpin the Programme? What definitions of “sustainability” underlie the Programme? Who or what is included when notions of a shared humanity are invoked? Which social categorisations are visible in the Programme? How are citizens conceptualised and viewed upon? How is the issue of responsibility addressed? What types of justice are invoked, and, justice for whom (and what)?

The analysis was carried out in three steps. In the first step, I read the Programme carefully and probed the questions above to the material line-by-line (85 pages in total). This explorative process resulted in a long list of codes, such as nature is referred to as a resource (or not); specific social categories and differentiation between citizens are mentioned (or not); minimising consumption and sufficiency, and post-growth narratives are visible (or not, etc.). In a second step, these codes were clustered into themes, four of which were especially relevant to the purpose of this paper. These four themes, which are presented in the Analysis section, were in the final step of the analysis interpreted by going back and forth between the empirical material (themes, codes, and quotes) and the literature on CE and posthumanist intersectionality referenced in previous sections.

The extracted themes as well as the quotes, which I have translated to English, are solely from the Programme. However, apart from the textual analysis of the Programme, I have also listened to three public hearings, where representatives of the City of Gothenburg presented the Programme to other local actors and participated in eight workshops where public officials and invited experts discussed the implementation of the Programme, as well as in two workshops and one full-day workshop with the public officials that are responsible for the strategies within the Programme. Since performing the analysis, I have, moreover, conducted interviews with some of the civil servants that are working with the implementation process of the Programme. Although these activities have not formed part of the policy analysis per se, they have provided me with a contextual understanding of the narratives and conceptualisations that are at play. This has influenced how I read the Programme and thus likely enriched the results presented in this article.

Another thing to note is that the policy analysis itself takes place within a particular context, which should be borne in mind when scrutinising a document fixed in time – CE thinking is still very much in a process of formation within the City (cf. Appelgren and Bohlin 2020), thus, ideas and assumptions will continue to develop after the publication of this article. Likewise, the document examined contained multiple, complex, nuanced, and contradictory ideas and framings, as we shall see in the analysis, and it can be difficult to weigh these different formulations against each other and assess which ideas are more dominant than the other, or becomes particularly relevant in practice, which is one limitation to a textual analysis of policy.

The case: circular economy in the City of Gothenburg, Sweden

Before turning to the analysis, this section provides a brief background to the Programme as well as to the rise of CE as a key climate strategy of the City of Gothenburg.

The City of Gothenburg is the municipality responsible for a large proportion of local services in Gothenburg, the second-largest city in Sweden. In March 2021, the City of Gothenburg officially adopted the Programme – a guiding document that indicates the direction the City of Gothenburg should take to meet their environment and climate objectives. The Programme incorporates both the production and consumption perspectives regarding climate emissions; thus considering both territorial emissions and consumption-based emissions from products that are produced elsewhere.

The goals in the Programme are divided into three themes that each have an overarching goal: nature – a high biodiversity, climate – a climate footprint close to zero, and human – a healthy living environment for the citizens of Gothenburg. Within each theme, there are also four to five specific subgoals, constituting a total of 13 goals altogether, followed by seven overarching key strategies for how to achieve them and their related objectives.

One of the seven key strategies is to push for a transition to a CE. Furthermore, one of the subgoals for the climate theme is to minimise climate effects from consumption; the municipality has set the objective that by 2030 the consumption-based emissions of Gothenburg inhabitants should not exceed 3.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per capita. As the current estimate is around 8.9 tonnes, this entails minimising consumption-based emissions with nearly two-thirds during the next 8–9 years. Regarding the City of Gothenburg’s organisation, the objective is to decrease its consumption-based emissions with 90% by 2030.

The rise of the CE trend within the City of Gothenburg has been paralleled by, and perhaps enabled by, this increased focus on consumption-related emissions. Within the Swedish context, the City of Gothenburg has arguably acted as pioneers when it comes to incorporating a consumption perspective into their climate policies (cf. Hult and Larsson 2016). Such a perspective was incorporated already in a forerunner to the Programme (in 2014). At that point in time, Gothenburg was the only Swedish municipality that had incorporated consumption-related emissions into their greenhouse gas inventories and policies in a systematic manner. According to Hult and Larsson (2016), the City of Gothenburg had been successful with this partly because the city council decided on the following long-term goal in 2006: “In 2050, Gothenburg has a sustainable and just level of greenhouse gas emissions” (City of Gothenburg 2014, 3). According to civil servants, the fact that the goal included the word “just” made it easier to argue for a consumption perspective to be included (Hult and Larsson 2016). Following the example of the City of Gothenburg, several municipalities across Sweden have followed suit, and are at least conducting preparatory work and pushing for such a perspective to be decided upon in their cities, drawing on Gothenburg as a case for inspiration (Hult and Larsson 2016).

Analysis: an intersectional reading of the Programme

Four themes, or underlying assumptions, ideas, conceptual logics, and ways of thinking, became visible through the probing of questions and reading of the Programme from a posthumanist intersectionality-perspective: (i) efficiency versus sufficiency, (ii) rational individual consumers, (iii) justice and responsibility, and (iv) an anthropocentric worldview. These four themes will form the structure of this section.

Efficiency versus sufficiency

As described above, there are many different perspectives and definitions of what the CE entails, in academic as well as public discourse. In particular, there is a divide between those who see CE as an opportunity to keep up current production and consumption patterns and those who highlight the need for decreased consumption or even post-growth. Interestingly, the City of Gothenburg seems, to an extent, to promote both of these somewhat competing discourses within the Programme. Throughout the Programme, there is a strong focus on technology and innovations as providers of new solutions, including an emphasis on the importance of continued profit and returns. Furthermore, the importance of transitioning into a more resource-efficient world is highlighted repeatedly. This is in line with the neoliberal trajectory of ecological modernisation historically prominent in Swedish (and global) environmental politics, whereby environmental improvements are possible within the growth paradigm and through increased efficiency (Lundqvist 2004). However, as becomes visible with the employed theoretical lens; which sees social, economic, and environmental problems and inequalities as systemic and inextricably linked problems; alongside this focus on efficiency and technology runs another theme, which emphasises the systemic nature of the problems, as well as the need for broader sociocultural change. As highlighted in the Background section, much CE policy focuses on the recycle principle, while the reduce principle is often neglected (Kirchherr, Reike, and Hekkert 2017). In comparison, the City of Gothenburg emphasise reduced consumption as an important aspect of achieving a CE:

Since the access to biobased material is limited and needs to cover a transition of all sectors, it is not enough to solely change the material in products to, for example, biobased materials. Simultaneously, the consumption volume needs to decrease. (50)

Reducing consumption is even highlighted as the most important aspect of achieving a CE and is to be given top priority. This decreased consumption and sufficiency-oriented discourse is in line with perspectives that promote a new economic paradigm. And then, on other pages, the efficiency discourse becomes more dominant, which instead tends to promote an adjusted or another version of the capitalist model, emphasising cost savings, job creation, and economic growth alongside environmental benefits as arguments for the advantages of CE, á la the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Thus, there seems to be clashing takes on the CE, rather than a singular strong or dominant discourse. This is perhaps not surprising considering that policy documents tend to have several authors and to receive input from several actors and sectors, thus combining a mix of interests. The Programme also needed to be accepted by a political majority within the city, further increasing the number of actors that need to be convinced, or at least not concerned, by its content. Thus, one way to avoid conflicts is to convey the message in an ambiguous and vague enough language so that as many as possible can agree upon it. In a similar vein, win-win solutions are easier to sell. Promises of technological fixes and scenarios that leave the core principles of liberal consumer capitalism untouched are thus more likely to be brought forward, while more contestable ideas might be watered down, or detached from the concrete proposals. Whether this is a reason behind the inconsistent take on efficiency versus sufficiency in the Programme remains to be analysed and is outside the scope of this article. What is clear, however, is that even though efficiency-oriented and technocratic approaches receive plenty of space, the City of Gothenburg seems to be the first authority in Sweden that (at least to my knowledge) has included perspectives of sufficiency. In this manner, the Programme stands out from other CE policies, such as, for example, Sweden’s national strategy for achieving a CE that was launched in July 2020 (Government Offices of Sweden 2020).

Rational individual consumers

As highlighted in the Theory section, a posthumanist intersectionality-approach is helpful for making visible dualist constructs; constructs which sees the world as a series of opposites. Two such constructs which were apparent within the Programme were the mind/body- and reason/emotion-dualisms. These dualisms translate into a perceived superiority of rationality, where the rational mind of individuals is detached from the body, emotions, practices, and wider (unjust) socio-ecological relations. Let me clarify. Even though there may be many environmental and social benefits with including a consumption perspective on carbon emissions, depending on how consumption is governed, it runs a risk of reinforcing a “consumer responsibility” discourse. In such a discourse, the main aim of municipal strategies becomes to inform and influence its citizens to make lifestyle changes on their own. In the Programme, several of the strategies are connected to lifestyle issues, where the role of the municipality becomes to educate, inform, and advice the public towards making "sustainable", “greener”, and more "climate and environmentally friendly" decisions:

[The City of Gothenburg] can affect energy usage and climate effects through supervision and follow-up, providing guidance and advice, education and spread of knowledge. (18)

A key underlying assumption seems to be that sustainable behaviours, in a linear fashion, are usually the result of decision-making by individuals in a largely rational choice manner (cf. Harrison and Davis 1998;Shove 2010; Hargreaves 2011). Therefore, it is assumed that there is an information deficit among the public (cf. Burgess et al. 1998; Owens 2000) and that having access to knowledge about sustainability will promote "greener" and more rational attitutes and values, which, in turn, will lead to more sustainable choices and outcomes. The role of the municipality is then to be the provider of education and knowledge so that the citizens of Gothenburg can make more informed decisions.. The importance of nforming people of the sustainability effects of their lifestyles is emphasised within the Programme, such as their individual ecological footprints, in the hope that they will rationally change their behaviours toward more sustainable living and consumption patterns. The emphasis on these education and information efforts is accompanied by a strong belief in providing economic incentives:

The City of Gothenburg continually develops and utilises different types of government mechanisms such as a congestion tax, pricing, and regulation for parking, environmental zones, and car free inner-city areas. (36)

Hence, the Programme is underpinned by an unproblematised understanding of the public (here referring to the inhabitants of, as well as visitors to, Gothenburg) as reactive to costs, nudges, and incentives, in an ultimately rational process. As has been argued elsewhere, as models of learning and (sustainable) behavioural change, these notions of rational choice are too cognitivistic and simplistic (cf. Boström et al. 2018).

The City of Gothenburg is not alone in promoting these ideas of sustainable behaviour, however; such discourses are dominant in current governance frameworks for sustainable behaviour change, in Sweden (cf. Singleton et al. 2021) and globally. These behavioural notions may be popular among policymakers as they consist of a linear simplicty which treats values, beliefs, needs, and attitudes as, what Bamberg (2003) has called, “situation invariant orientation patterns” (22) . Within such a simplistic approach, people are extracted from their contexts, as if they existed in a political, social, and physical vacuum (Shove 2010; Hargreaves 2011). This is problematic since it neglects inequalities and power imbalances and instead departs from the idea that people have the same opportunities to act (Singleton et al. 2021). Furthermore, this kind of governance might result in individualised self-governed climate subjects which offers little hope for leading to larger transformations of dominant everyday practices (cf. Hult and Larsson 2016; Singleton et al. 2021). For, as several critics have argued, these individualistic rational choice approaches disregard and profoundly fail to address the importance of power, context, socio-ecological relations, and material infrastructures for the performance of social practices (cf. Spaargaren and Van Vliet 2000; Hobson 2003; Shove 2004; Southerton, Chappells, and Van Vliet 2004; Nye and Hargreaves 2010; Hargreaves 2011). Thus, from a posthumanist intersectionality-perspective, these overly simplified ideas and binaries within the Programme imply that it seems less likely to lead to the substantial changes and rebalancing of human–nature relations towards the more sustainable and just societies so direly needed.

Justice and responsibility

While possibly reinforcing an individualised rational choice discourse, an important benefit with the consumption perspective is that it strengthens a justice and responsibility discourse, as suggested by Hult and Larsson: “ … a consumption perspective is necessary to fully address environmental problems and to highlight issues of justice and responsibility” (2016, 434). A consumption perspective is, moreover, necessary to include the whole production-consumption network and its effects across (often) different parts of the world; in other words, it is not enough to curb emissions within the city, while continuing to consume and import products and services with high emissions, and negative social and environmental impacts elsewhere.

On several occasions within the Programme, it is highlighted that, compared to many developing countries, Sweden has a greater impact on the climate per capita, currently and historically (especially so when including a consumption perspective), but also a higher capacity to act, and thus holds a kind of “double-responsibility” to take a lead in the transformation towards a more sustainable society. The importance of the City of Gothenburg to act as a role model to inspire change elsewhere, within and outside of Sweden is often lifted in the Programme, and even given its own strategy:

The role of the City of Gothenburg in this is to act as a role model in the work of achieving the goals and to ensure that our measures not only reduce local emissions but also the total emissions in Sweden, Europe, and the world. It is, moreover, important to prioritize measures that are scalable and useful in other municipalities and cities. (17)

When probing questions such as “How is the issue of responsibility addressed?”, “What types of justice are invoked?”, and, “Justice for whom (and what)?” to the material, it becomes clear that there is a strong emphasis on certain aspects of justice in the Programme; inter- as well as intragenerational. Still, the largest focus, in terms of effect on others is on the effects that the Gothenburg citizens have on “world” poverty and poorer, developing countries and its inhabitants. Poverty is something that exists “out there”, outside the borders of Sweden. There is, moreover, an apparent anthropocentric focus, although the Programme on a few occasions refer to effects on biodiversity, animals, and nature in other parts of the world.

Thus, it seems like issues concerning justice solely concern the effects either (i) outside of Sweden and/or (ii) for future generations. Considerations of current (in)justice, (in)equality, and social differences within Sweden are mostly lacking, although the section on the transport sub-target, to an extent, provides an exception, as will be illustrated in the next paragraph. Considerations of current injustice, inequalities, and social differences within the city are completely lacking in the Programme.

The City of Gothenburg recognises that municipalities in Sweden have different opportunities to decrease climate effects from transport; Gothenburg has certain preconditions, such as the existing tram and bus infrastructures, that will likely make it easier to transition to more sustainable modes of travelling, and to decrease travelling. Therefore, the Programme argues that the City of Gothenburg should have a higher responsibility to achieve the national and global climate targets, and that they should take on targets that are higher than the general national ones:

Gothenburg has good requisites to decrease climate effects from travel and transports. The sub-target for the emissions from traffic has therefore been made higher than the corresponding target on the national level. The higher target is in line with the 1,5-degree goal and means a higher safety margin for the effects of climate change, as well as a responsibility for historical emissions. (13)

An anthropocentric worldview – nature for the benefit of humans

As mentioned above, the critical reading highlights that an anthropocentric worldview is apparent throughout the Programme; a worldview where nature is solely seen as backdrop, or matter without agency, that needs protection from humans and by humans, for the benefit of humans. The language used refers to nature as providing gains, benefits and ecosystem services and as being a resource for the city and its (human) citizens:

The City of Gothenburg creates a green and robust city by using, sustaining and developing the benefits of nature, so-called ecosystem services. With the help of water and green areas, we can both get rid of the effects of climate change, decrease noise pollution and have cleaner air, as well as give the Gothenburgians [the inhabitants of Gothenburg; göteborgarna in Swedish] access to healthy environments. (22)

Apart from being a backdrop for human recreation, nature is indeed considered as part of the economy in the Programme, or as needed to be further incorporated into the economy. The endeavour to put a price on nature in the form of ecosystem services is an attempt to bring in nature to the market and the (capitalist) economic system so that it can be given value (cf. the field of environmental economics) – a problem formulation and solution situated within a capitalist paradigm. It is a response to climate change and environmental disasters that continues an anthropocentric relationship with the non-human world. Within this relationship, nature is far down in the hierarchy of power.

In this hierarchy, nature is seen as an object for human appropriation or as an ecosystem service in need of conservation. However, realising a just transition would entail putting the needs of the nonhuman world alongside – instead of beneath – the needs of humanity (Schlosberg and Craven 2019; Wienhues 2020). As a posthumanist intersectionality reading makes visible, the ontological issue here is that the “dualist, essentialist separation between humans and nature (or inhuman) is false” (Mansfield and Doyle 2017, 23). The climate crisis has emphasised how intimately we are connected to more-than-human organisms and phenomena and highlights the need to include the biosphere and other species in any considerations of economic interdependence. How to do so in a way that sees these organisms and phenomena as subjects in their own right is challenging (cf. Roelvink 2015a). It also raises some crucial ethical issues of human/non-human relations, ranging from recognition and respect (Schlosberg 2007), to cooperation and reciprocity, to more-than-human partnerships (Gibson-Graham and Roelvink 2010; Roelvink 2015b; Roelvink et al. 2015), to conceptions of multispecies justice (Haraway 2016; Heise 2016; Celermajer et al. 2021).

Discussion and conclusions: (re)politicising the circular economy

For decades, climate change mitigation has been portrayed as a matter of pollution control, of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the end of the pipe. Increasingly, this view is giving way to a recognition that fundamental systemic transformations are required to decarbonise societies. One possible solution that has gained prominence in political, corporate, and academic discourse around the world in the last decade is the concept of the CE. However, as has been illustrated in this article, the CE, in its hegemonic variety, is a child of the less than radical ecological modernisation paradigm. This implies that CE thinking “amounts to incremental rather than radical transformations, a “weak” rather than a “strong” form of sustainability” (Hobson and Lynch 2016, 18). This hegemonic discourse of CE is represented by a technocratic and efficiency-oriented framing; in other words, an apolitical framing that neglects issues of power, equity, and justice. Thus, the socio-ecological inequalities driving production-consumption systems built into the organisation of our global political economy remain largely overlooked. Sufficiency approaches instead provide a more systemic take on the transition to a CE that questions the current economic paradigm.

Therefore, depending on how one problematises certain economic rationalities – such as growth and efficiency – performing a CE has the potential to either “shake up” or further entrench “business-as-usual”. Departing from this notion, this article employed a theoretical approach – here termed a posthumanist intersectionality – to be able to ask questions about how these relationships are addressed and conceptualised with the aim of (re)politicising, problematising, and unsettling seemingly apolitical understandings within such policies and governance frameworks. As showcased in this article, such a theoretical perspective can aid us in bringing to light socio-ecological inequalities and incorporate the power, equity, and justice dimensions of climate and CE policies, stressing that: (i) transformations towards a sustainable and just society need to entail a radical critique of the current unjust social relations that enable current capitalist modes of production and consumption, and (ii) that to achieve social justice, one cannot neglect the intimate links between the destruction of the web of life and the causes of social injustice. With the help of such an analytical lens, the reported critical reading and policy analysis of how the City of Gothenburg argues for and approaches CE within their new Environment and Climate Programme has provided several important insights that can assist both future analysis and crafting of CE strategies towards more truly transformative trajectories.

The analysis finds that, in line with mainstream sustainability practices, the Programme indeed contains largely ecomodernist and individualised environmental narratives, which result in several of the policies being framed as to provide education and economic incentives in order to promote rational individual decision-makingtowards more sustainable behaviours. This is an approach that, as Mathai et al. (2021) argue, “downplays questions of power and political contestation while overemphasizing the techno-economic and behavioural tools derived from an ideological commitment to managerialism” (10). Even though behaviours indeed need to change, and, even though individualised consumer action indeed can be important (to an extent), such narratives are based on simplified understandings of sustainable behaviour change. It is an approach that extracts humans from their physical, social, and political context, disreagrding the importance of socio-ecological relations for the performance of new social practices. As a result, it fails to acknowledge existing inequalities and that people do not have identical opportunities for action (Singleton et al. 2021). As a posthumanist intersectionality-perspective makes clear, the individual rational mind cannot be separated from the body, emotions, practices, and wider (unjust) socio-ecological relations. Instead, there is a need to understand human agency “not as isolated and individualist, but as thoroughly networked into, and with complex and dynamic systems and assemblages across, the human/non-human divide” (Schlosberg and Craven 2019, 102). Therefore, CE policymakers, and others, "need to move beyond the individual as the principal agent of action and to recognise that individuals belong to complex webs of relations with other humans and things. Change depends on the interaction between all those elements, rather than on the isolated action of the individual" (Singleton et al. 2021, 15). Furthermore, an over-emphasis on political consumerism and individual agency risks downplaying the responsibility of, for example, large corporations and governments, while potentially placing too much responsibility and weight on the shoulders of the individual “citizen-consumer” (cf. Hobson 2002; Supran and Oreskes 2017; Werfel 2017).

From the analysis, it also becomes clear that the Programme considers justice and responsibility aspects in a range of ways, by, for example, highlighting the effects that climate emissions and unsustainable production-consumption patterns have on other parts of the world, as well as for future generations. Albeit with a strong anthropocentric focus. The Programme can be seen as ambitious in that it takes on higher goals for decreasing climate emissions, compared to Sweden’s national objectives, with the argument that the municipality also has a responsibility to consider historical emissions, and as it likely has better prerequisites for change, and therefore further increased responsibility to lead sustainable transformations, compared to, for example, less developed countries as well as smaller municipalities in Sweden.

Justice is, nevertheless, mostly referred to in terms of the effects Gothenburg has on “poorer countries”, while justice aspects within the city are non-existent. There is a rather narrow concern for social issues, which mainly include health factors of Gothenburg citizens. Citizens are referred to as individuals and consumers, as already highlighted, while specific social categories or social roles are not considered. In general, the Programme does not differentiate between different groups of citizens (apart from a few references to children).

This is rather surprising considering that Gothenburg is a highly unequal and segregated city (Andersson, Bråmå, and Hogdal 2009; Igerud 2012; Östh, Clark, and Malmberg 2015; Thörn and Thörn 2017; Shehab and Salama 2018). Consequently, climate effects and production-consumption-use-waste practices, as well as how such issues are governed will likely influence people within the city differently. If power inequalities within the city are not considered, there is a risk of increasing inequalities within the city. In this work, it is important to not only direct attention towards the effects on and inclusion of those that are the most vulnerable, but also to focus on developing strategies that target those that are the most privileged. For, as Nielsen et al. (2021) argue, people with high socioeconomic status (what they have termed “high-socioeconomic-status people”) have a disproportionate negative effect on climate change and environmental damage. However, in light of the increasing inequalities and growing income gaps both globally and within countries such as Sweden (OECD 2019) and the practical difficulties that might be encountered by individuals who wish to live sustainably within a highly unsustainable system (Jackson 2005; Mont et al. 2013) such a withdrawal could benefit from being guided by an ambitious “politics of sufficiency” (Callmer and Bradley 2021) that focuses on redistribution of material, political, and cultural power.

The City of Gothenburg seems to have taken a step (or several) in a sufficiency direction, by emphasising the importance of decreased consumption and the reduce principle, offering some glimmers of hope. It is however important to highlight that focusing on reducing and decreasing consumption is not enough if one does not incorporate an awareness of and measures to deal with socio-ecological inequalities. For example, as Hayden (2019) has highlighted, if equity concerns are not incorporated, sufficiency policies could also take politically conservative forms if for example consumption reduction was concentrated on less-privileged people.

In conclusion, to increase its transformative potential, the Programme needs to take a step further in acknowledging that climate change and unsustainable production-consumption-use-waste practices are not merely environmental and managerial problems that require technological solutions, but that they are social and systemic issues. The underlying causes of climate change, as well as the suggested solutions (such as the CE), are embedded and entangled in unequal power structures, relationships, and practices (cf. Kronsell et al. 2021). Sustainable transformations thus require a restructuring of societal relations; offering alternative development pathways towards new modes of practice and re-formed relations between humans, societies, the economy, and the natural world, including materials and things. Therefore, to solve climate change and environmental problems and for strategies to achieve a CE, “technological fix” and efficiency-oriented narratives need to be replaced by narratives that also incorporate issues of power, equity, and justice.

This article has arguably showcased how a posthumanist intersectionality-perspective can inform and enrich a critical textual analysis of climate and CE policies. However, policy documents provide a limited picture of the process of policymaking and can seldom explain how policies come about. To identify what tools (urban) policymakers need to (better) apply an approach inspired by posthumanist intersectionality to their policy work therefore requires engagement with policymakers and other actors involved in and/or affected by the policies through other methods such as interviews, observations, and workshops. Such analyses could hopefully provide further insights into how we can steer urban policy towards a more radical and transformative version of the CE; that can “shake up” business-as-usual; and, contribute to cities that are sustainable and just for all – meaning, a justice for all humans as well as a responsibility and ethics of care for living (and non-living) beings and things.

Acknowledgements

This article is a product of the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (FORMAS) funded project Intersectionality and Climate Policy Making: Ways Forward to a Socially Inclusive and Sustainable Welfare State [grant number FR-2018/0010]. I would like to thank Robert Krueger, one of the editors of this special issue, for providing thoughtful and constructive comments on an earlier version of this text. I would also like to thank the other project members, Annica Kronsell, Gunnhildur Lily Magnusdottir, and Benedict E. Singleton, my main supervisor Anna Bohlin, and the organisers and participants of a publication workshop and a PhD seminar in Environmental Social Sciences, both held at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, where I presented earlier drafts. This article has benefitted considerably from their feedback. All remaining errors are my own.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (FORMAS) [grant number FR-2018/0010].