Course detail

Welcome to Green Economy in the Making: Designing sustainable markets and resources

Description: Building on the new economic sociology formed on science and technology scholarship, the course provides new understandings to processes of ‘greening’ economies by redesigning markets, commodities, regulation, and resources. The course includes participants’ own work in progress, and the course is open to PhD students in sociology, anthropology, political science, sustainable design, and related fields.

Prerequisites: PhD students should have some training in social science and an interest in green transition of markets and economies. The course is particularly engaged with economic sociology and with science and technology scholarship. Students should have an interest in engaging with these fields, but no prior knowledge is required.

Learning objectives: Understanding STS and economic sociology approaches to greening economies; Relating own work in progress to discussions in the field; Employing theories and methods in own work.

Organizer: Troels Krarup

Lecturers: Troels Krarup and Peter Karnøe

ECTS: 2

Time: 11 and 12 May 2026

Room: 2.1.042

Place: Aalborg University, A.C. Meyers Vænge 15

City: Copenhagen

Maximal number of participants: 15

Deadline: 20 April 2026

Important information concerning PhD courses: 

There is a no-show fee of DKK 3,000 for each course where the student does not show up. Cancellations are accepted no later than 2 weeks before the start of the course. Registered illness is of course an acceptable reason for not showing up on those days. Furthermore, all courses open for registration approximately four months before start of the course. We cannot ensure any seats before the deadline for enrolment, all participants will be informed after the deadline, approximately 3 weeks before the start of the course.

For inquiries regarding registration, cancellation or waiting list, please contact the PhD administration at phdcourses@adm.aau.dk. When contacting us please state the course title and course period. Thank you.

Course content

The green transition takes place to a very large extent through markets – by:

·         developing new, ‘green’ resources for the economy (such as renewable energy or by recycling waste)

·         designing new ‘intangible’ environmental commodities (like tradable CO2 emission quotas or green certificates),

·         regulating the production and circulation of existing goods (such as ESG rules or the definition of product standards)

·         by redesigning markets to favor ‘green’ forms of arbitrage (such as eco labelling or flexible demand in electricity markets).

The course introduces students to this new domain at the intersection of sustainability, business, politics, and markets. Specifically, the course introduces and builds on the broad field of research in social science known as science and technology studies (STS). STS has a long and strong tradition for studying the complex processes of assembling new sociotechnical phenomena, such as scientific facts, technological artefacts, markets, and resources.

The two-day course will comprise both lectures, student presentations, and group discussion based on participants’ own work. We have six 30-minute slots for discussing student papers. These will be allocated on a first come first serve basis. Please contact Troels Krarup directly by email if you would like to have your paper discussed at a session. Students who do not present papers will be assigned roles as lead commentators to open the discussion. Everyone is expected to read and comment on the six student papers (in addition to the course curriculum). Student papers should be circulated no later than 24 April.

Programme (tentative)

Literature

Asdal, K., Doganova, L., & Fochler, M. (2024). Valuation studies as a frame in STS. In U. Felt & A. Irwin (Eds.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Science and Technology Studies (pp. 79–86). Edward Elgar Publishing.

Corvellec, H., Hultman, J., Jerneck, A., Arvidsson, S., Ekroos, J., Wahlberg, N., & Luke, T. W. (2021). Resourcification: A non-essentialist theory of resources for sustainable development. Sustainable Development, 29(6), 1249–1256. https://doi.org/10.1002/sd.2222

Doganova, L., & Karnøe, P. (2015). Building markets for clean technologies: Controversies, environmental concerns and economic worth. Industrial Marketing Management, 44, 22–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2014.10.004

Çalışkan, Koray and Callon, Michel(2010) 'Economization, part 2: a research programme for the study of markets', Economy and Society, 39(1), 1 — 32. https://doi.org/10.1080/03085140903424519.

Laurent, B., & Petit, B. (2020). A European Market for Green Certificates? The Failed Disentanglement of Immaterial Labels from the Materiality of Electricity. In B. Laurent & A. Mallard (Eds.), Labelling the Economy: Qualities and Values in Contemporary Markets (pp. 207–232). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1498-2_8

Moalem, R. M., & Kerndrup, S. (2023). The entrepreneurial role of waste companies in transforming waste streams to value streams: Lessons from a Danish Municipal waste company. Waste Management & Research, 41(3), 620–634. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734242X221124048

Pallesen, T., & Jenle, R. P. (2018). Organizing consumers for a decarbonized electricity system: Calculative agencies and user scripts in a Danish demonstration project. Energy Research & Social Science, 38, 102–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2018.02.003

Iuel-Stissing, J., Karnøe, P., & Georg, S. (2024). Biomass valuation and marketization: Uncertainties and political maneuvering in market framing. In S. Geiger, K. et al.  (Eds.), Market Studies: Mapping, Theorizing and Impacting Market Action (pp. 176–193). Cambridge University Press.

Suggested further reading

Callon, M. (2021). Markets in the Making – Rethinking Competition, Goods, and Innovation. Zone Books.

 Breslau, D. (2024). Are subsidies market manipulation? The politics of electricity market hybridization in the United States. Energy Research & Social Science, 115, 103623. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2024.103623

Reverdy, T. (2024). Performative Struggles and Theory–Practice Decoupling in the Design and the Implementation of a Market-Based Instrument: French Tradable Certificates for Energy Efficiency. In A. Ryan, K. Mason, N. Pollock, P. Trompette, P. Roscoe, S. Schwarzkopf, & S. Geiger (Eds.), Market Studies: Mapping, Theorizing and Impacting Market Action (pp. 114–126). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009413961.008