STONEM

The STONEM project in short

Imports of resources affect economic, social, and environmental conditions elsewhere in the world. Regarding sustainability trade-offs abroad, the Netherlands currently has the worst track record in Europe. Its performance has historical origins: over the past two centuries, scientific knowledge production, colonial developments, and industrial modernization have helped to create global production chains. Systematic science-based commodification attributed economic and use values to natural resources. This changed western perceptions of the natural environment. It had a severe impact on global environment and indigenous people’s livelihoods. STONEM investigates this commodification process in conjunction with the development of global supply chains and their effect on sustainability. It traces the activities of global supply chain entanglers, the actors who constructed transnational socioeconomic systems.

The STONEM project consists of different work packages

• Work package 1 performs a quantitative analysis of the historical development of Dutch imports and its sustainability trade-offs. Therefore, it develops two databases: (1) on the import of commodities to the Netherlands, and (2) on the sustainability indicators for selected periods and regions This first woks package is conducted in collaboration with Netherlands Statistics CBS. This work package is part of Postdoc research at Eindhoven University of Technology.
• Work package 2 and 3 qualitatively study the historical developments in supply chains of edible oils and metals. This focusses on the processes of commodification, global system entanglement, and the distribution of sustainability trade-offs. These work packages are PhD research at Eindhoven University of Technology (edible oils) and Utrecht University (metals).

The qualitative research and the case studies enable system comparisons and analysis of cross-system dynamics. This will inform nascent academic fields of sustainability histories and deep transitions. Furthermore, this research will provide perspectives for contemporary policy initiatives in the field of sustainability transitions. The project is supported by an experienced multi-disciplinary team of scholars at Eindhoven, Utrecht and Wageningen university and relevant societal partners, ensuring broad dissemination of the knowledge in academic and policy domains.

Vacancies:

Click on the vacancy of your interest to view the full text.

• PhD position 1: Edible oils
• PhD position 2: Metals
• Postdoc position (t.b.a.)

Research concepts

STONEM studies three interconnected issues. First it aims to understand the commodification process i.e., the development of science and technologies that socially (re)constructed the natural environment in terms of technical characteristics and economic values. The second issue is to trace the mainly western actors in their socio-technical construction of globally entangled supply chains. The third element is to study how these systems produced sustainability effects and trade-offs, in global South regions and in the Netherlands. With these tripartite aims, STONEM engages and contributes to various historical debates.

Commodification is seen as the social construction of economic and use values to natural resources. Natural resources become commodities when humans define them as valuable, and what is valuable is highly dependent on the political, economic, social, and cultural context (Zimmerman 1951, Bridge 2009). Historians of consumer culture highlight the long global histories of commodification of products and goods (e.g. Trentmann 2009). Anthropologists and historians show that commodification processes are dynamic, where commodities are constantly being reassessed in broader societal contexts and culturally diverse settings. They furthermore point out that these commodities are not unique to global North modernization (e.g. Van Binsbergen and Geschiere, 2005). Whereas their studies focus on products or ´things,´ the STONEM project emphasizes the science-based commodification of ´stuff,´ how western science and technology systematically attributed chemical and physical characteristics to substances (Homburg et al., 2010, Homburg, 2018). This changed western perceptions of nature and had a severe impact on global environments. STONEM therefore also connects to global histories of resources and environmental histories (see Veraart et al., 2020a; Heymann et al., 2020; Beckert, 2014; Robins 2021). These study the sociotechnical development of resource extraction and application—the culturally entrenched and changing understanding of resources, also in light of transitions towards sustainability (Hecht, 2012, Narins 2017, Vikstöm, 2020). By focusing on economic, social, and environmental trade-offs in supply chain developments, STONEM adds an explicit operationalization of sustainability to this literature.

Global resource chains entangled the Global North and Global South across and beyond colonial structures. To explain the development of global supply chains, STONEM builds upon notions in the History of Technology and Business History that study the role of actors. To investigate the dynamics, it draws on the transnational turn in infrastructure history and Large Technical Systems (LTS) studies of the past decade. These studies analyze the multi-actor processes where priorities, meanings, power relations, and contestations are negotiated and inscribed in the construction of large-scale transnational infrastructures for resource circulation (Van der Vleuten 2008, 2019a). STONEM focusses on selected actors and we call them global system entanglers. These were businesses, (colonial) authorities, diplomats, knowledge institutes, financers, and others, who built or governed the entanglement systems between the Dutch economy and regions elsewhere.

With its explicit focus on sustainability, STONEM engages in the dialogue between sustainability studies and global or transnational history investigating the historical interconnectedness of societies (Iriye 2013; Saunier 2013). It provides sustainability studies with a long-term perspective on global tele-couplings, their entanglements, and their localized implications (Costanza et al. 2007; Trischler 2016; Van der Vleuten 2019b, 2020). STONEM creates a global interpretive framework for (un)sustainable development that captures sustainability entanglements across the global South-North divide. An historical, statistical analysis of Dutch trade in raw materials from 1900 to the present investigates the transnational and geographical origins of raw material flows and their importance for the Dutch economy. This collated data can shed light on the rise, decline, and shifts in specific commodity flows. To assess sustainability in the Netherlands and other countries, the project quantitatively analyses the sustainability modeling applied by the Dutch government, the World Bank and the OECD (World Bank 2011; CBS 2021). In its qualitative historical accounts, STONEM applies dominant western concepts and attributes, to assess historical trends, scales, and impacts. The limitations of this contemporary and mainly western interpretation of sustainability and the impact on qualitative approaches are acknowledged. The project does not see the human-nature divide as pre-given but views it as the outcome of dominant western knowledge production processes that shaped these conceptualizations, understandings, categorizations, behavior and treatment of the environment. Analyzing and understanding the friction, conflicts, and negotiations that shaped global supply chain developments in non-western environments can shed light on alternative indigenous conceptualizations (for a discussion see Hazareesingh & Maat, 2016 and ´The Soy Story´ Project).  In conjunction with scholars of The Soy Story  project STONEM scholars will problematizes and critically reviews these issues in the qualitative analyses of edible oils and metals.

Work packages

Work Package 1: Resource flows and trade-offs

This work package applies quantitative research methods to investigate the historical development of commodity flows and sustainability trade-offs. This part of the research will be conducted with Netherlands Statistics. Databases on material flows and sustainability developments in the entangled regions will be developed in consultation with CBS experts. As a ´researcher in residence´, the postdoc researcher will develop databases on Dutch global trade from 1900 to the present, and sustainability indicators in relation to regions of extraction and production of edible oils (WP2) and metals (WP3).

An in-depth analysis of trends in Dutch international trade will reveal the volume, rise, and decline of commodities. By adding regional data, this analysis can show the temporalities in regional shifts and interregional interdependencies. Together with the outcomes of WP2 and WP3, it will be possible to investigate substitutions and interrelated commodities. Sources for these investigations are, Dutch International Trade Statistics (since 1851), colonial statistical yearbooks as well as (inter)national agriculture (FAO) statistics (WP2), International iron & steel institute statistics,  US Geological Surveys (WP3), yearbooks for individual countries, African National Development plans (since 1945) and Africa Sector Database (since 1960). Such information will help to create a database that informs WP2 and WP3 research, the synthesis, and is also a standalone WP1 deliverable, available for future consultation.

An assessment of sustainability developments will be based on sustainability monitors. The main applicant and other research team members have laid the foundations for this tool that is internationally acknowledged by the UN and OECD to visualize suitability developments (CES 2014; Schoenakers et al. 2015, Hoekstra 2019, CBS 2021). It uses historical data to construct time-series on economic, social, and human capital for the period 1900 until the present. Monitors will be constructed for selected years (1920, 1935, 1950, 1965, 1980, 2000, 2025) and regions of WP2 and WP3. Data since the 1960s can be found in official statistics published by the various UN agencies such as United Nations Comtrade database, 1962-2017, ILO (labor conditions), UNESCO (education) etc.

Work Package 2 – Protein and Edible oils

The WP1 research and WP2’s specific focus on edible oils can highlight the effect of global trade competition and the role of substitutes and global intra-regional competition. Furthermore, this case allows for a more in-depth analysis of cross-system dynamics. In time, the application of edible (plant) oils extended beyond the food industries into agricultural domains (animal fodder), the production of detergents and soaps, pharmacy, personal-care products, and biofuels.

Fats, protein, and carbohydrates contain major nutrients for humans and animals, and are sources of energy, essential vitamins, and other essential nutrients. These can be acquired by consuming fruit and vegetables, meat, and dairy products, however, in current diets, most are consumed in other products made of composite food. About 90 percent of the present fat intake comes from products such as margarine, baking fats and oils, or is based on imported resources such as palm, soy, sunflower, and other vegetable oils. Today, the Netherlands is Europe´s largest importer of palm oil (2.8 million tons). Commodification, rationalization, and specialization processes have made palm the major source of plant oils for the feed, food, cosmetics, and detergent industries. Animal husbandry demands made the Netherlands the world’s second largest importer of Soy, with imports of 6.6 million tons in 2018 (LNV, 2020). In December 2020, the Dutch ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality presented its National Protein Strategy to become less dependent on imports of protein-rich crops from outside the EU and increase European self-sufficiency in more ecologically friendly produced protein resources (LNV, 2020).

This work package engages with the tripartite aims of the STONEM project by studying the commodification of edible oils and establishment of global supply chains by Dutch global system entanglers. Dutch food industries, suppliers, and food authorities were the main contributors to knowledge about edible oils in the early twentieth century. They laid the foundations for research and development into the biochemical analyses of edible oils and fats and their characteristics. Food industries such as nut and oil traders, margarine producers such as Unilever (established in 1930) and its predecessors became major global system entanglers. They developed refined processing technologies and invested in plantations and transport facilities to gain access to resources in Global South regions. These ranged from palm plantations in Africa and Asia to later soy processing facilities in South America. The Netherlands developed an industrial complex in which tropical nuts, kernels, and fruits were processed into oils. Residual streams transferred into fodder were fed into compound feed manufacturer services for livestock farming. The second aim of work package 2 is to study the build-up of this transnational system by tracing the actors, the global system entanglers. Shedding light on this build-up are: Unilever and United Africa Company at Unilever Archives, Port Sunlight (UK), and Unilever Archives & Records Management (UARM) Rotterdam; N.V. Oliefabriek, formerly T. Crok Wormerveer (GA Zaanstad); Bedrijfschap voor Margarine Vetten en Oliën (NA).

There will be a specific focus on the difficulties, friction, and tension encountered in the establishment of these supply chains. Scrutinizing such encounters will shed light on processes of ecological, social, and cultural compression, alternatives, and the confrontation of western with indigenous sociotechnical systems (Ishikawa 2020; Robins 2021). These confrontations together with the WP1 monitor indicators will enable further investigation into the trade-offs with these socio-technical systems. Various commodities originated from different global regions and some commodities were substituted by others. Work Package 2 investigates not only these intra-regional but also temporal changes in trade-offs.

This work package attempts to understand why the Dutch acquired a leading position in the edible oil trade (Aftalion 2001, 84; Robins, 2021, 90-96), how this is linked to developing a social-technical system in support of this trade, and how shifts in commodity requirements changed this system in the past. Understanding the nature and implications of these shifts can inform policies for the contemporary protein transition (Hebinck, 2021).

Work Package 3: Ores and Metals

WP3 studies metal ores, and like WP2, focusses on the international impacts, and can furthermore highlight the shifting appreciation of metals as strategic resources for national economies and contemporary energy transitions policy.  Similar to WP2, this work package will address the STONEM project’s tripartite aims of commodification, global supply chain development, and sustainability trade-offs.

This work package articulates various issues in the development of global supply chains. The Netherlands was less at the forefront of metals’ sociotechnical system than WP2 developments. The technological options of specific blast furnaces and smelters were also closely connected with requirements for feedstocks (Nijman 1994, Haumann 2020). In addition to the mining companies’ research institutes, (Dutch) investors and businesses, through their decisions, determined what became the crucial resources. Engineering journals and company archives can shed light on these decisions.

Because of its strong dependency on foreign resources, the establishment of global entangled sociotechnical systems connected to the Netherlands seemed more an extension of foreign activities, international and colonial mining companies established smelters and furnaces such as the zinc smelters in Budel and Arnhem (1890s) linked to the Billiton mining company’s activities in Indonesia. Alternative domestic strategic and economic considerations attracted investments in the IJmuiden blast furnaces (1910s), and aluminium smelters (1960s) in Vlissingen and Delfzijl. WP3 investigates the actors who entangled the Dutch sociotechnical system in zinc, iron, steel, and aluminium global supply chains. In WP3, post-World War II developments in Europe are important factors for understanding the changing structures in governance, institutions, and businesses and how these affected the shifts in global metal resources. Historical sources for these investigations are the Tata Steel archives, the Billiton archives, National Metals bureau  (at National Archives), and the archives of transnational European institutions such as Eurofer and Institutes for the History of Aluminium (IHA). These developments entangled the Netherlands with (former) colonies Suriname, Indonesia, and other metal mining regions. The WP1 databases can indicate the regions’ shifts.

The impacts of these entanglements are assessed along with the WP1 indicators. This will answer questions on how Dutch metal consumption affected economic, social, and environmental capital in various mining regions across the globe. The sustainability trade-offs shown in WP3 were also felt in the Netherlands itself. Since their establishment, metal industries have challenged the social, economic, and environmental trade-offs domestically. WP3 therefore also investigates these domestic trade-offs as part of the global production systems.

Work Package 4:  Synthesis and policy advice

Synthesis and policy advice will be executed by the project applicants and wider research team. Knowledge will be disseminated in a policy brief and an academic book issued by an international academic publisher. The policy brief will be presented at a workshop organized in conjunction with CBS. A draft version of the book will be discussed during a two-day international workshop with international academic an policy representatives in these fields (also see section B6).