A green energy transition is sustainable. Green products make our lifestyles sustainable. We are frontrunners of sustainability and climate action. But are we? And for what criteria? Do we look at ecological conflicts, uneven power relations, and the asymmetric distribution of environmental costs and benefits? And if we look, do we care? Reasons enough to engage critically with the current developments and shed critical light on where we are, what might happen, and where we want to go. 

Sustainability has evolved from a niche term towards a leading term for policy at the global, national, regional, and local levels of politics and spatial planning. On the one hand, this could mean it has lost its appeal and transformative powers. It has made its way into environmental sciences, economics, management, social sciences, even the financial industry, and many more. On the other hand, it opens the scope for debates about global relations and global responsibilities, such as around the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Earth Charter Initiative, and multiple governmental and civil society networks. Down to earth, it has been incorporated into lifestyle choices, resource uses, chains of production and consumption, and the way we plan for cities and regions.

Global sustainability studies came of age in the past decades as a reaction to study of the earth in isolation from humans and non-humans as well as the broader critique within planning, political economy, and environmental studies domains. This is the starting point for the course “Critical Approaches to Global Sustainability Challenges” at the Faculty of Spatial Sciences (University of Groningen). The faculty established the course in spring 2022 as a complement for the Master programme Society, Sustainability and Planning (SSP) and other programmes of the faculty and the university. 

From this course, students develop independent public outreach projects in small groups of three to five students. The following two examples from the second run of the course in spring 2023 are magazines that cover two major concerns: first, they look at a global perspective and the extractivist relations between our energy transition in the Global North and the needed resources from the Global South. Second, they delve deeper into our own lifestyle choices, how our patterns of consumption feed unsustainable outcomes, ways to detect greenwashing, and practical choices we can make in Groningen and beyond.

Green transitions? How clean energy technologies in the Global North are fuelling extractivism in the Global South 

Slowly but surely many countries and organizations are making attempts, like the European Union and the United Nations, to transition towards more sustainable and greener ways of living. Electric vehicles and renewable energies are high up on the political agenda. However, as advocates of degrowth movements such as Jason Hickel rightly point out, the strategies towards sustainability are often flawed as economic growth remains the focus. Instead of consuming less, the Global North is only consuming differently. To illustrate the consequences of the continued rise in raw material consumption, four cases were explored in a magazine where extraction takes place of the most important minerals for clean energy technologies: copper, cobalt, nickel, and lithium. This magazine takes you on a journey to Chile, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia, and Portugal picturing the environmental and social consequences of our current sustainability trajectory and the inequality this continues to fuel.

• Magazine: Green Transitions?

(by: Ruben Bleeker, Ge Zhu, Bregtje van Uffelen and Valentin Wittig)

The conscious consumer: sustainability in action

What does sustainability look like in action? How can we live minimally in a world that constantly advertises newer, better, and, sometimes, ‘greenwashed’ products to us? These are just a few of the questions that are explored in this magazine. By diving into the effects of the fast fashion industry and tackling issues such as environmental justice, cost shifting, and globalisation, this magazine portrays the often-hidden side of (over)consumption. Readers will also discover what to look out for to avoid products that may seem ‘green’ or ‘sustainable’, but are just as environmentally destructive as regular products. The Conscious Consumer focuses not only on educating its audience, but also on creating realistic calls to action for greater change. Start reducing your environmental footprint and learn to become a more conscious consumer using the tips in this magazine as a starting point.

• Magazine: The Conscious Consumer

(by: Jildou Altenburg, Esther Bunk and Madison Ketelaars)

Transitioning together

We trust these examples provide lively insights into the links between our actions here, and the global impacts elsewhere. Consuming less and consuming differently can positively impact on our own lives, and the lives of others whom we do not know but who work ‘for us’. We believe that critical perspectives are needed to clearly understand the impacts of our choices, but also to improve and enable the (radical) changes that we have already agreed upon politically. The sustainable and equitable future that policy agendas envision needs such relational knowledge to enable transitioning together.