Format/Structure

Interactive panel with short presentations (10 mins each), followed by open discussion and audience engagement to explore diverse perspectives.

Long Abstract

As green transitions accelerate globally, environmental information management plays a pivotal role in shaping policy, practice, and public understanding of sustainability. However, the production, control, and dissemination of environmental data are deeply political acts that influence whose knowledge is valued, whose voices are heard, and ultimately, who benefits from “green” initiatives. This panel explores the political ecology of environmental information management in the context of green transitions, critically examining the power dynamics embedded in data infrastructures, valuation tools, and information regimes.

We ask: Whose knowledge informs green growth and sustainability agendas? How do environmental information systems mediate between scientific expertise, policy frameworks, and local or Indigenous knowledge? In what ways do data collection, monitoring, and reporting reinforce or challenge existing inequalities and exclusions? And how might alternative information practices contribute to more inclusive and just environmental governance?

Bringing together interdisciplinary research, activism, and practice, this panel invites contributions that investigate the intersections of environmental information, power, and resistance within green economy projects, ecosystem service commodification, and sustainable development efforts. Case studies may highlight the marginalization of community knowledge by technocratic data, participatory mapping as a form of political contestation, or the dual potential of open environmental data as both democratizing and co-optive.

Through short presentations and a moderated discussion, the panel aims to unpack the complexities of environmental information management as a contested terrain, one that shapes narratives, legitimizes policies, and frames possibilities for alternative, more equitable futures. Ultimately, this panel seeks to foreground the question of “knowledge for whom?” as central to understanding and transforming the political ecology of green transitions.

This Panel has 5 pending paper proposals.
Propose paper