CSS Lecture Series "After Sustainability" - Video SeriesRecording of lecture by Steven Yearley onlineDecarbonisation, Brexit and the "Foundation Industries": How to make stuff like aluminium, glass and steel in a Net-Zero-oriented nation

21 November 2022, by CSS

Photo: Yearley

We are very pleased to announce that the video of the lecture on "Decarbonisation, Brexit and the 'Foundation Industries': How to make stuff like aluminium, glass and steel in a Net-Zero-oriented nation" for the CSS Lecture Series "After Sustainability" by Steven Yearley (Professor of the Sociology of Scientific Knowledge, The University of Edinburgh) is now online!

You can watch the lecture here or directly below.

Abstract: This lecture reports on research being conducted as part of the UK’s TransFIRe Hub.

TransFIRe is about the meeting point of two huge challenges and transformations confronting UK industry, particularly the so-called Foundation Industries – the industries that produce the material from which other products are made (for example, metals, glass and ceramics). Ordinary people are seldom customers for foundation-industry products, but they (we) buy the things made from Foundation Industries outputs.

The first challenge is Brexit; the second challenge is how to meet obligations towards decarbonisation and net-zero emissions.

In this talk, Steven Yearley will draw on policy analyses and two industry case studies to investigate how the future of Foundation Industries is being shaped, and imagined or ignored in the UK. Though this research is focused on the UK, the talk will conclude with a consideration of parallels in comparable EU member states.

You can find the flyer for the talk here [pdf].

You can find more up to date information on the lecture series here.