Work

Fossil and friction free: a critical discourse analysis of sustainability in EU freight policy

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Policy on greening freight constitutes a recent addition to the discourse on sustainability in the EU. To stimulate economic growth, the EU also plans for freight transport activity to grow significantly over the coming decades. In this paper, drawing on critical discourse analysis and Marxian geographical thought, I show how the argument for implementing sustainable freight is constructed in EU freight policy and analyse its contribution to capital reproduction. I find a dominating argument that, by promoting green expansion legitimized by clean technologies, underpins actions that reshape geographies to the demands of circulation, commerce and trade while reproducing conditions of crisis. Thus, EU freight policy harbors contradictions between sustainability and growth that are only discursively resolved.

Source: Environmental Politics

DOI: 10.1080/09644016.2025.2598124

Author: Christina Gratorp

Institution: Lund University

Language: English

Topic: transportation and logistics systems

Subfield: Transportation

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Responsible consumption and production

Open Access status: hybrid

Funder: Fordonsstrategisk Forskning och Innovation