Twinning green and digital futures in waste management

Abstract

In waste management, a classic field of environmental governance, the political idea of “twinning” the green with the digital transition can be expected to gain performative power. To explore the question of how far this is the case and to what effect, we argue for a closer examination of enactments of and contestations around the twin transition policy discourse in daily practices of technology use. As a sensitizing concept, we use Mike Michael’s (2017) idea of the “ecology of futures” in order to help us explore ways and means by which digital and green futures are envisioned and become material in the technology-practice assemblages of a municipal waste management company in Germany. We identify three different “modes” of linking and decoupling these futures to and from each other. More precisely, we reveal how the “win-win” of a technology-mediated twinning policy is enacted, complemented, and even contested by other future visions at the company level. These are related to experimental playgrounds where, in their everyday routines, many workers do not refer to environmental goals at all. We conclude that considering such a plurality of perspectives may provide the basis for opening up and re-politicizing the debate around the twin transition. What role green visions of the future will play in this, however, remains open.