Project description

Imports of resources affect economic, social, and environmental conditions elsewhere in the world. Regarding sustainability trade-offs abroad, the Netherlands currently has the worst track record in Europe. Its performance has historical origins: over the past two centuries, scientific knowledge production, colonial developments, and industrial modernization have helped to create global production chains. Systematic science-based commodification attributed economic and use values to natural resources. This changed western perceptions of the natural environment. It had a severe impact on global environment and indigenous people’s livelihoods. STONEM investigates this commodification process in conjunction with the development of global supply chains and their effect on sustainability. It traces the activities of global supply chain entanglers, the actors who constructed transnational socioeconomic systems.

Sustainable developments are seen as the intersection of economic, social, and environmental developments that affect present needs, future options, lives, and livelihoods around the world. These have been operationalized by the United Nations in 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). The Netherlands currently performs well when it comes to sustainability, however, regarding spillover i.e., the sustainability costs that countries impose on one another, its performance is the worst of all European states (Lafortune et al., 2021, 130). Why is this the case?

Planta Margarine: advertisement published in the Zierikzeesche Nieuwsbode, 24-10-1961.

The text reads: “Rich harvest of ripe fruit for Planta. Abundance from warm countries: bananas, lemons, coffee and tea. But also… coconuts and palm fruits, the suppliers of easily digestible vegetable fats for Planta.” Source: ZB Krantenbank Zeeland, Zierikzeesche Nieuwsbode, 24-10-1961 p. 7.

To investigate, the project Sustainability Trade-offs in the Netherlands’ Entangled Modernization (STONEM) proposes deeper historical research into the developments of the institutional structures of transnational sustainability interrelations. Contemporary European policies on supply chain traceability as part of corporate due diligence and accountability frameworks (Wolters, 2020) make businesses responsible for investigating the social and environmental impacts of their supply chains, implicitly connecting European lifestyles and consumption patterns with sustainable development issues in other parts of the world. These are long terms developments and STONEM suggests studying these from an historical perspective.

Understanding European modernization and Dutch sustainability history requires considering the global connections and demand for foreign resources. Between 1850 and 2020, the Dutch nation’s dependence on imports increased from 13 to 59 percent (Lintsen et al., 2018). The present-day lower scores in spillover of the Netherlands and Europe in general seem rooted in the economic structures and institutions developed during the modernization of society since the mid-19th century. The economic global structures and institutions are constructed by actors. These have shaped transcontinental trade, the exchange of knowledge, and ideologies. They have also created transnational socio-technical systems of resource extraction, production, and consumption, and the associated institutional and behavioral rules (Geels, 2004). Western ideas of economic progress based on scientific insights encouraged a new interpretation of the natural environment. New methods of science-based commodification evolved, describing natural resources in western terms of material characteristics and economic values (Topik and Wells, 2014). Together with global exploration, these methods opened up novel ideas for resource application and often moved resource extraction to places outside the Netherlands. Traders, businesses, colonial authorities, and diplomats acted as global system entanglers. They co-constructed global production chains and were at the locus of where problems and solutions were articulated, dealing with deviating rules, viewpoints, critiques, alternatives, opponents, conflicts, and failures. These confrontations resulted in sustainability trade-offs.

The two main research questions are: how did modern science-based commodification of natural resources contribute to the emergence of industrial global resource supply chains, and what sustainability trade-offs did this process generate between the Netherlands and global South regions? The project additionally aims to connect these long-term historical developments with contemporary challenges in sustainable development policies. STONEM investigates the historical commodity shifts in exports from the global South. To explain these shifts, it scrutinizes two cases: edible oils and minerals. These primary sector natural resources became materials for interconnected systems such as agri-food, metal, and construction industries, transforming the products for a diverse array of markets. Both commodities have played an important role in Dutch modernization through a strong high tech agri-food sector as well as the expansion of infrastructure and the built environment. These same commodities are also currently at the core of initiatives in food pattern transitions and renewable energy production. Historical knowledge is crucial for understanding the complex transnational socio-technical setup, to grasp its processes of change and identify options for transition.