The Additive Environment and the Good Economy of Infrastructures: Valuing Roadworks through Eco-Comparison

Abstract

Infrastructures have been increasingly challenged by ecological concerns. Yet they are supported by industries whose ability to seize upon such concerns should not be underestimated. This article focuses on a French business association of roadworks companies that has developed an eco-comparator. The software aims to valorize certain techniques for road construction and maintenance, by demonstrating that they amount to reduced “environmental impacts.” A number of features of this valuation instrument are used by the industry as part of a broader repertoire of ecological justification. I analyze this argumentative endeavor as strengthening a form of “good economy” (Asdal et al. 2023), in the sense of a certain understanding of the good relationships between economy, society, the state, and the environment. The software enacts a version of the environment that I describe as “additive”: a reservoir of greenhouse gases, energy, and materials that is external to infrastructures, and in which the consequences of economic activities are not to be subjected to constraining thresholds, but only compared and mitigated. As the French central administrations have reduced their involvement in road policies, this additive environment is used by the industry to claim its own ability to relevantly address ecological concerns, while questioning that of the state.