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Paper short abstract:

This presentation draws on material from Romania to describe the discursive and technical means by which European cement producers seek to legitimise burning trash instead of fossil fuels as an ethical contribution to decarbonisation amidst public health concerns about incineration.

Paper long abstract:

Cement is a major contributor to anthropogenic carbon dioxide, and is thus a main candidate for decarbonisation worldwide. In the European Union, the ambitious targets of the Green Deal and the rising costs of carbon credits are beginning to pressure corporations to cut their emissions. European industry associations are showcasing road-maps for carbon neutrality down the cement and concrete value chain promising to to reconcile the growth and sustainability. The most widespread of carbon cutting strategies is the replacement of coke and coal with trash for the heating of cement kilns. This process earns extra income for an industry with historically narrow profit margins and allows companies to market their products as ‚green’ and to promote themselves as contributing to decarbonisation and the reduction of landfilling rates. However, this practice is particularly controversial in Eastern Europe, where rising waste imports and the burning of ambiguous and often toxic garbage fuel concerns about public health, corruption, and regional inequalities. Drawing on research in Romania – with policymakers, cement producers, industry representatives, engineers, and activists – this paper investigates the discursive and technical means by which cement manufacturers seek to legitimise this practice. Most prominent among these strategies are the use of corporate oxymorons – discursive strategies that pair a desirable attribute with a harmful product – a strategic denial of power – by which corporations abdicate agency through an invocation of higher powers, and an unwavering trust in the power of technologies and standards.