A Sustainable Lyngby-Taarbæk?

Abstract

Today, all actors of society need to act and respond in some way or another in relation to the sustainable development. Thus, also the Danish municipalities need to answer this topic. In this thesis I want to explore how the Danish municipality of Lyngby-Taarbæk Kommune, through their sustainability strategy enacted in March 2021, aims to create sustainable changes. Although citizens' general awareness of climate change and sustainability is rising, consumption continues to rise too. Analyzing this case, the thesis aims to answer the research question: How does the municipality of Lyngby-Taarbæk articulate sustainability and agency in their sustainability strategy, and how does this encourage change in the municipality, including creating conditions for motivating behavior change among the municipality's citizens? The thesis is based on an empirical study in which the sustainability strategy constitutes the central empirical resource, but is supplemented by the conduction of four interviews with co-authors of the strategy. The analyses are inspired theoretically by Ernesto Laclau’s and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory, which is based on the post-structural premise that the meanings constituting the social world are discursive constructions, and that these are fundamentally unstable. The analysis consists of two parts. First part examines how the municipality of Lyngby-Taarbæk ascribes meaning to a ‘sustainable Lyngby-Taarbæk’. Here, it is found that the strategy’s attribution of meaning to sustainability includes many different elements and oscillates between being an empty signifier and polyphonic specific discourses. Next part of the analysis explores how Lyngby-Taarbæk seeks to redeem the objectives of the strategy by examining how the strategy articulates and distributes agent roles and responsibilities. In this second analysis, it is found that the strategy’s concept of action and who is to act is articulated diffusely, which could be covering up political disagreements, leaving it uncertain whether actions will actually be taken, as no one is really assigned by anything but their free will and own interpretation of the strategy. The municipality of Lyngby-Taarbæk will not act as an authority in relation to behavior change, but simply inspire and support. Thus, the responsibility for the citizens' behavioral changes remains with the citizens and the citizens alone. In the discussion, I unfold the conflict between the western world’s values of freedom and democracy, which is proposed as reason to why Lyngby-Taarbæk Municipality will not resort to disciplinary actions. Finally, I propose that new and attractive concepts of freedom, democracy and community need to be developed, if people are to change their behavior and unwind the non-sustainable 'pursuit of the plenty' without use of force by the authorities.