Work

Batteries not included: Navigating the contentious path development of battery recycling as a green industry in Shenzhen

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Geographical scholarship has paid increasing attention to the rise of so-called green industries. To evolutionary economic geographers, the development of such green industries represents a distinctive, ‘green’ form of path creation. Although green industries can significantly reconfigure socio-ecological relations, studies of green path creation tend to shy away from examining what green means and how green matters for green industries to take off. To address this research gap, this study examines the development of a battery recycling firm in Shenzhen by integrating perspectives from evolutionary economic geography and political-industrial ecology. We unpack the creation of a green development path in the battery recycling industry as a process of bargaining and interactions among actors who view used batteries differently. By doing so, this study enriches existing scholarship on geographies of waste, green path creation, and nature-society geography.

Source: Environment and Planning E Nature and Space

DOI: 10.1177/25148486251332089

Authors: Zhengke Zhou, Calvin King Lam Chung, Jiang Xu

Institution: Chinese University of Hong Kong

Language: English

Topic: Sustainable Industrial Ecology

Subfield: Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDGs: Responsible consumption and production, Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: bronze

Funder: Chinese University of Hong Kong