Searching for the “Social” in the “Sustainable”: A Case Study from the Arctic Energyscape

Growth in global energy demand, dwindling reserves, warming climate and technological developments are pushing energy extraction further towards the previously inaccessible North. At least on the level of rhetorics, the Arctic region is becoming the world’s new energy province, where 'energy' is understood as oil, gas and their production. In political and popular energy debates, sustainability is a key argument both for and against different energy sources and individual projects. However, these debates tend to focus on the economic and environmental sustainability aspects of planned and ongoing developments. As a result, social sustainability concerns associated with energy remain sidelined. This presentation elaborates and expands on the simplified concept of 'energy' and the silenced 'social' dimension as well as the manners in which they interwine and entangle in the case study context of the Arctic energyscape.