Project Director: Will Eadson
Project Duration: 2021-2024

This project examines how industrial transformation can contribute to thriving places in zero carbon economies. The transition to a low-carbon society will require extensive industrial change. These changes will have wide-ranging socio-economic implications in the locations where these industries are based. As well as economic dependencies, geographic concentration of industrial activity also creates social and cultural place-based dependencies: industries and industrial work become entwined with workers’ and communities’ social identities. In this project we seek to understand how low-carbon transitions interact with places and place-based identities in industrial communities, and how these interactions affect possibilities for successful and just low-carbon transitions. We will do this through a combination of historical and contemporary case studies of the steel industry in Sweden and the United Kingdom.

The project team also includes Bregje van Veelen (Upssala University) and Stefan Backius (Karlstad University).