Green Criminology and Social Justice: A Reexamination of the Lynemouth Plant Closing and the Political Economic Causes of Environmental and Social Injustice

Introduction

In a recent article in Theoretical Criminology, Davies (2014) employed a case study of the closure of an aluminum smelter in Lynemouth, UK, owned by Rio Tinto, one of the world’s largest ore extraction and refining companies in the world, to illustrate what she claimed were the negative social justice impacts of green environmental policies on the plant’s workers. ¹ In taking that view, Davies also forwards a critique of green criminology which suggests that green policies supported by green criminologists result in social injustice for workers.

Green criminology, first suggested by Lynch (1990), is the study of ecological crimes and injustice from a criminological perspective. That subfield of criminology, which has grown rapidly in recent years, draws on interdisciplinary perspectives to examine green crime, justice and injustice, and explores a wide range of topics including crimes against nonhuman animals, ecological and environmental justice, deforestation, e-waste, environmental law, pollution and climate change, among others. Social, environmental and ecological injustice are major concerns within green criminology (Brisman, 2008, 2013). There is no overarching green criminological theory, and the theory used most often, following Lynch’s (1990) suggestion, is grounded in political economic analysis. This does not mean that most green criminological literature takes that view, and much of the green criminological literature is atheoretical, though portions of that research also owe a debt to environmental sociology generally and ecological Marxism in particular.

To address Davies’ claims, this article reanalyzes the Lynemouth plant closing using political economic theory and analysis. That reanalysis recasts the Lynemouth closing as an example of the routine forms of social injustice workers experience as global capitalism is constantly transformed to enhance profit-making. We illustrate this outcome using an analysis of the global transformation in global aluminum production over the past 40 years.

This argument is divided into several parts. Part I, addresses the connection between social justice and green criminology. Part II, examines the facts behind the closing of the Lynemouth facility and draws attention to internal Rio Tinto (the facility owner) documents to explain the plant closing. Part III uses data on aluminum production to estimate the quantity and types of pollution the Lynemouth plant generated. Part IV examines the worker, public and environmental health consequences of aluminum production pollution to establish that aluminum production generates widespread health, environmental and social justice effects. Part V provides a brief summary of health issues before turning to Part VI, a description of how social problems should be conceptualized based on observations made by C. Wright Mills. Part VII examines the Lynemouth facility closing within the context of the global aluminum production market, while Part VIII recasts the plant’s closing in a political economic context.

Green Criminology and Social Justice

Davies’ assessment of the Lynemouth closing is based on asserting that the closing of the plant has negative social justice impacts for affected workers. We agree, and certainly there is a large literature, written from a variety of perspectives, that details the deleterious social justice effects on workers of plant closings. Thus, the general argument that plant closings have significant social justice implications is not in dispute. What is in dispute is Davies’ claim that the Lynemouth closing is primarily the result of state environmental policies, and that somehow that makes green criminology complicit in promoting conditions that produce detrimental social justice effects for workers. In this way, and without sufficiently acknowledging that green criminology is really all about limiting the social and environmental injustice effects of ecological destruction for humans, nonhumans and ecosystems, Davies produces a “straw man” to represent green criminology. In contrast to Davies’ assertions, green criminologists have long engaged in research on environmental and social justice, and those issues are part of the core content of green criminology and its concern with environmental justice (Brisman, 2013; Lynch and Stretesky, 2001; Stretesky and Lynch, 1998, 1999, 2002).

Davies’ argument overlooks the fact that the normal progress of capitalism produces numerous social justice impacts for workers and the public, and that plant closings are part of that process. Corporations regularly engage in actions that undermine the interests of workers and include efforts to undermine worker organizations. In the US, for example, labor union membership is at its lowest point in more than six decades, and as a result, social justice and wages for workers have deteriorated and stagnated. This has also led to a decline in manufacturing employment in developing nations for reasons Marx identified, related to the manipulation of production as a mechanism for increasing profit. Yet Davies fails to critique how corporations routinely and adversely impact social justice for workers, instead laying blame for social injustice against workers on green policies.

In contrast to Davies’ assertions, we offer data to support the observation that the Lynemouth closing is merely another example of a chain of plant closings consistent with the adverse consequences of the global political economy of capitalism. Using political economic theory and observations of modern global capitalism, we suggest that the Lynemouth closing is not actually a trade-off between forms of justice, but rather a result of the extension of capitalism and the forms of injustice capitalism typically generates in a global economic setting.

This reanalysis of the Lynemouth plant closing draws attention to how that closing connects to the broader political economic structure of global capitalism. By “broader” we mean two things. First, that environmental policies designed to protect public (and worker) health and ecosystem stability are important social justice policies that offset the tendency of corporate capitalism to destroy the ecosystem, as ecological Marxists contend (Burkett and Foster, 2006; Clark and York, 2008; Foster, 1999, 2000). When plants close, workers lose something important – employment. At the same time, workers are likely to reside in communities adversely impacted by life-threatening diseases associated with exposure to environmental pollution. This type of trade-off between jobs and health is a defining characteristic of the contemporary global economy for the working class and not, as Davies suggests, a product that simply results from state environmental policies.

Second, we use the term “broader” to indicate that plant closures must be examined in relation to the political economic structure of capitalism. Industrial facilities may be closed for numerous reasons, but largely occur to maximize profit making. In the present global system of economic production, plant closings in developed nations have become routine matters as corporations shift production internationally to take advantage of different international market conditions and costs of production. We illustrate how Rio Tinto’s own documents suggest that the Lynemouth closing occurred in response to changing conditions in the global raw materials market, and that industrial data on the shifting location of aluminum production reviewed below confirms this observation. Davies’ analysis overlooks this important issue.

In reassessing the Lynemouth closure, we draw attention to media and Rio Tinto documents concerning this outcome. That review indicates that economic rather than environmental policies were the chief concern of upper-level management. We then link our reanalysis to examinations of the public health impacts of aluminum production pollution, the social justice costs of that pollution for workers and the public, and illustrate how plant closures are frequently driven by the “normal” development of capitalism using data from the aluminum industry to support that argument.

Rio Tinto and the Lynemouth Aluminum Smelter Closure

Davies’ argument concerning the negative social justice impacts of green environmental policies is framed specifically around the closure of the Rio Tinto aluminum plant in Lynemouth, UK (opened 1973). The facility was purchased in 2007 by Rio Tinto at the height of the credit boom in the UK. The facility employed about 515 workers, and it was estimated that 323 worker (62.7%) would lose their jobs when the plant closed in March 2012 (Merlin-Jones, 2012). The Lynemouth facility included its own coal-power electrical generation plant that supplied a portion of the electricity needed to smelt aluminum. Aluminum smelting uses a great deal of electricity (see below), and in an effort to keep production costs low, previous owners had installed a coal-fired power plant. As part of the original negotiations related to locating the plant, the British government contributed £28 million (about US$47 million) to ameliorate high levels of unemployment in the surrounding area following the decline of coal mining in that region.

Aluminum production requires bauxite as a raw material. The UK has no bauxite mines, and thus bauxite must be imported at substantial cost from Australia, Brazil, India and, more recently, China. Those four locations produce 61% of global bauxite, and in recent years aluminum production has been relocated to be nearer to bauxite mines. The geographical separation between the Lynemouth plant and sources of bauxite became an important issue related to closing the facility (see below).

In the media, explanations for the closing of the plant varied. Selecting from among these explanations is difficult as media reports do not necessarily report all issues, and different media outlets cited various sources for their information, including the plant’s owners, Rio Tinto. For example, several media accounts noted that Rio Tinto personnel stated that the closure was driven by declining returns on investments along with projected future energy costs associated with operating the smelter (The Journal, 2011). Others indicated that, as a result of the global recession, production at the site had dropped by as much as 60% (Merlin-Jones, 2012). Other media sources confirmed that financial issues were a significant concern, noting that internal Rio Tinto policy establishes a high cost return on investment (40%), which is difficult to maintain at an aged/aging facility, and the Lynemouth facility did not meet this internal company profit target. Other media cite the effect of rising costs of coal and electricity, along with declining finished aluminum prices (which also caused the plant to close for three months during 2008; Wachman, 2011). Other Rio Tinto and media documents noted that the coal burned on site is shipped from New Orleans, USA, and that insufficient local coal supply drives up the price of generating electrical power at the facility. Thus the smelter operations, which are energy intensive, is largely dependent on the international coal market and international coal pricing, which had been rising. As the story of the closing received increasing media coverage, media reports noted that UK greenhouse gas emission requirements and further tightening of greenhouse gas emissions was also a motivating factor (Wachman, 2011).

Media accounts focused more attention on the economic causes of the closing than on environmental policy effects. Further evidence of the influence of economic factors on the closing can be extracted from Rio Tinto’s own documents (Annual Reports; see also Merlin-Jones, 2012). Rio Tinto’s 2012 Annual Report (Rio Tinto, 2012: 4) noted that it has been divesting certain assets globally: ‘… taking a more aggressive approach to assets in our portfolio that no longer fit our strategy. We achieved further cash proceeds from our divestment programme in 2012, with the sale of several non-core businesses including Lynemouth Power Station, the North American and Chinese portions of the Alcan Cable business, our Specialty Alumina division, and we secured a binding agreement to sell our interest in Palabora’ (emphasis added). Later in that report the sale of these facilities was linked to divesting from greenhouse gas intensive industries to lower Rio Tinto’s greenhouse gas emissions. Rio Tinto’s closure of the facility, if indeed motivated simply by the latter concern, indicates that decision-makers decided to close the plant rather than re-fit the plant with new, low-carbon production techniques used in aluminum smelting elsewhere (European Aluminum Association, 2010). In other words, while governments attempt to address climate change due to the significant environmental and social justice problems it generates, companies decide whether they will participate in the changes needed to protect the earth from climate change, or will simply abandon those efforts to other corporations. Rio Tinto made the decision to relieve itself of any social justice obligations associated with lower carbon emissions by divesting some of its holdings, and showed disinterest in either preserving global ecological integrity or the employment of its workers in favor of continual expansion of profit.

Merlin-Jones (2012) identified other factors associated with the plant closing. One of those factors was that the facility, now 40 years old, was less efficient than newer aluminum smelters, including other facilities owned by Rio Tinto in Australia and China (Merlin-Jones, 2012; Rio Tinto, 2012). Moreover, since much of the bauxite used at Lynemouth was produced by Rio Tinto in Australia, it became more efficient to produce finished aluminum in its Australian facilities.

From the above, it appears one-sided to lay blame for the closing of the Rio Tinto plant on environmental policy, though Rio Tinto executives indeed cite this as one issue of concern (Wachman, 2011). There are numerous issues involved in the plant closing, and many revolve around larger political economic processes described below.

At issue in Davies’ analysis is the neglect of the significant detrimental environmental and public health costs of the Lynemouth facility, though she does a credible job exploring climate change concerns. Aluminum smelting is environmentally costly, and corporations tend to pollute for economic reasons. That form of pollution has significant public health, environmental and social justice impacts reviewed below.

The Environmental Costs of Aluminum Production at Lynemouth

Aluminum production is energy intensive and has extensive environmental costs related to energy use and pollution, especially when coal is burnt as an energy source, as was the case at Lynemouth. Part of the coal-fired power used at Lynemouth was part of the aluminum plant. That plant, however, was insufficient to provide all of the electricity needed, and the facility also drew electricity from the power grid.

News stories on the plant attempted to place some of the production and environmental issues surrounding the Lynemouth facility in context by comparing the quantity of electricity used at the facility to the volume of electricity used by a UK family of four. A commonly reproduced comparison was that the production of one ton of aluminum at Lynemouth used the same quantity of electricity that a family of four does in 20 years. The Lynemouth facility has a capacity of 175,000 tons, but produced as little as 138,000 tons annually. Recent data indicates that a family of four in the UK uses 7,940 Kw hours of electricity per year. From that data it can be estimated that the Lynemouth facility uses 158,800 Kw hours to produce one ton of finished aluminum product. Thus, to produce 175,000 tons of aluminum (capacity production), the Lynemouth facility uses as much electricity in one year as 700,000 UK citizens (for electrical conversion data see World Energy Council, 2014). That volume of electrical use produces significant ecological damage.

Various estimates exist for the quantity of electricity required to transform bauxite into finished aluminum. That variability is dependent on knowing how old and what type of production equipment is used. An adequate estimate is that it requires 14,000 to 15,000 Kw hours to produce one ton of finished aluminum (World Energy Council, 2014). At capacity, therefore, the Lynemouth facility would use 2.45 million megawatts of electricity. That figure can be converted into a measure of carbon dioxide pollution produced by the plant at full capacity. From available data we estimated that one Kw hour of electricity produced by coal generates about 943 grams of carbon dioxide (US Energy Information Administration, 2014; Pace University Center for Environmental and Legal Studies, 1990), so that the quantity of aluminum produced at Lynemouth generates 2.55 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution, or about 25% of all UK carbon dioxide industrial emissions (UK Department of Energy & Climate Change, 2013). These data indicate that the Lynemouth plant had extremely severe environmental consequences with respect to the emission of climate change pollutants among UK industries.

Other documents, however, indicate that the plant burns only 1.2 million tons of coal (Rio Tinto Alcan, 2008). That coal-use estimate is the quantity burnt on-site, and does not include the additional electricity the facility extracts from the public power-grid. Alternatively, Rio Tinto (2102) documents estimated the facility used 700 megawatts of power annually, or significantly more electrical energy than the average aluminum smelting facility, reflected in the estimate used above. Using data from a 500 megawatt coal-fired power plant (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2014), it can be estimated that the volume of pollution produced by a 700 megawatts coal-fired smelting facility includes: (1) 5.18 tons of carbon dioxide (note: this figure is twice as large as the figure reached by using the industrial average); (2) 14,000 tons of sulfur dioxide; (3) 14,280 tons of nitric-oxides; (4) 700 tons of particle matter less than 10 microns; (5) 308 tons of hydrocarbons; (6) 1,008 tons of carbon monoxide; (7) 175,000 tons of coal ash waste; (8) 270,200 tons of coal stack sludge; and (9) 593 pounds of heavy metal waste (mercury, arsenic, lead and cadmium). In addition to the wastes listed above, aluminum production at Lynemouth would also consume 3.08 million gallons of fresh water, and generate other pollutants including fluoride, which is a phytotoxin (i.e. plant poison; Sant’Anna-Santos et al., 2014), and is emitted at an average rate of 1.1 kilograms of fluoride per ton of aluminum produced (Rio Tinto Alcan, 2008).

As is evident from the above, the environmental costs of the Lynemouth facility were significant. ² We explore the health impacts produced by these pollutants and aluminum production in greater detail below. Such information is needed to make an informed decision about the social justice implications of the closing of a plant such as the one at Lynemouth.

Health Effects for Humans, Animals and Plants

The health effects associated with coal combustion pollutants are extensive. These public social justice concerns were not addressed by Davies in her assessment. These health effects include those experienced by workers occupationally exposed to pollutants, the general public, wildlife, and ecosystems. A general review of research findings on these issues follows.

To begin, it should be noted that workers are not always well informed about the workplace hazards they face when accepting industrial employment in a facility that generates deleterious environmental pollutants. This is an important social justice issue. When such information is lacking, workers have an inability to decide whether potential employment in a given industry is worth the exposure risk. Occupational exposure to pollutants is a serious concern for aluminum workers (e.g. Kuo et al., 2007; for detailed discussion see Krewski et al., 2007), and uniformed workers must accept these risks without the option of rejecting employment due to potential health effects. Numerous studies indicate the significant health risk aluminum smelter workers face. For example, the link between exposure to aluminum pollutants and heart conditions among aluminum smelter workers has long been known (Thériault et al., 1988; Rønneberg, 1995). Confirming those earlier studies, Costello et al. (2014) found elevated rates of heart disease and cardiovascular incidents among aluminum workers with respect to exposure to small particle matter (i.e. PM_2.5) pollution that results from aluminum smelting. Similar results were found among aluminum workers in Australia with respect to cancer mortality from exposure to aluminum smelter benzene-compound pollution (Friesen et al., 2009; for other health issues see Noth et al., 2104; for relative health risk estimates for aluminum smelter workers see Wang et al., 2013). Costello et al. (2014) found elevated rates of cancer and heart disease respectively among aluminum smelter workers in the automobile industry. Elevated exposure to cancer-causing dioxins has also been found among aluminum smelter workers (Hu et al., 2013) and in soils proximate to aluminum smelters (Colombo et al., 2011). Studies also indicate high levels of serum polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDD/Fs), both known carcinogens, among aluminum smelter workers (Lee et al., 2009; Armstrong et al., 1994). Studies have also shown elevated occupational asthma among aluminum smelter workers (Barnard et al., 2004) and other lung function abnormalities (Fritschi et al., 2003; Musk et al., 2000).

There are also significant public health consequences associated with aluminum productions. Since there are typically more members of the general public than there are smelter workers, it would be usual for the social justice costs to favor aluminum smelter workers over the general public with respect to the closing of an aluminum smelter facility. Several studies examine the public health costs of exposure to aluminum refinery pollutants. For example, hospitalization rates for asthma and bronchiolitis increased for children in a Canadian sample as emissions from an aluminum smelter increased (Lewin et al., 2013). Other studies indicate that those living near aluminum smelters have higher excretion levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) metabolites than those living a significant distance from such a facility, and suffer more extensively from related health issues (Bouchard et al., 2009). PAH exposure is linked to cancer (skin, lung, bladder, liver, and stomach cancers), may produce acute toxicity in humans depending on the level of exposure, and is related to adverse pulmonary, gastrointestinal, renal, and dermatological outcomes.

Public health effects are also noted in the literature with respect to some of the specific pollutants generated by an aluminum smelter such as nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide (Chen et al., 2007). For example, studies have found that exposure to sulfur dioxide is significantly related to daily trends in mortality among a general population living near an exposure site (Katsouyanni et al., 1997) and for hospital admissions for serious illness (Sunyer et al., 2003). In a widely cited study, sulfur dioxide exposure across the US was associated with an increase in all causes of mortality, and specifically with lung cancer mortality and cardiopulmonary mortality (Pope et al., 2002). Other studies have found an association between sulfur dioxide exposure of pregnant women and low infant birth weight (Rogers et al., 2000; for a literature review see Šrám et al., 2005; Glinianaia et al., 2004). For nitric oxide, general population exposure studies indicate increased levels of emergency admissions for myocardial infarctions and pneumonia (Zanobetti and Schwartz, 2006). Other nitric oxide effects include elevated blood pressure in adults (Haynes et al., 1993) and newborns (Roberts et al., 1997; see generally Ricciardolo et al., 2004).

In short, numerous studies indicate that aluminum smelter pollutants have significant worker and public health effects and thus produce extensive social injustice. Such studies indicate that there are serious social justice issues related to negative health impacts caused by aluminum smelting and refining.

The effects of aluminum smelting on the ecosystem, wildlife and fauna also indicate serious health harms. For instance, exposure to fluoride pollution, a plant toxin, is a significant concern, and has been shown to decline significantly following closure of an aluminum smelter (Brougham et al., 2013a). Studies have also indicated significant growth of pathogenic fungi (Evdokimova et al., 2013a) and changes in soil composition around aluminum smelters (Evdokimova et al., 2013b, 2013c). Studies of Beluga whales that washed up dead near an aluminum refinery in Quebec, Canada, found elevated rates of cancer (Martineau et al., 2002). The effect of sulfur dioxide on crop health has long been known (Middleton et al., 1958), indicating that such pollutants may adversely affect farming and the income of farmers and thus would have negative social justice effects for that populations as well.

Summing Up

Before examining the global political economic context of the closing of the Lynemouth facility, it is useful to summarize the main findings thus far. First, media coverage of the Lynemouth closing presents various explanations for the plant’s closure. Those reasons are not limited to the effects of green environmental policies, and Rio Tinto’s internal documents explain the plant’s closure relative to the firm’s profit-making concerns. Second, aluminum smelters produce large quantities of environmental pollutants that affect workers, the general public, wildlife and ecosystems, and much is known about the health consequences of exposure to aluminum smelter pollution.

Given the above, the Lynemouth facility presents numerous social justice concerns. Each of those social justice issues, including the loss of jobs, is a consequence of how capitalism organizes production. ³ To be sure, the loss of employment is an unfortunate outcome, and one could argue that if corporations were not singularly concerned with profit, plant owners could address environmental issues while maintaining employment at the facility and avoiding adverse social justice impacts for the facility’s workers.

Below, we examine the Lynemouth closing from a political economic perspective. We begin with a discussion of C. Wright Mills’ analysis of social versus individual trouble to illustrate how sometimes social issues can be mistaken for individual level troubles and how those individual level troubles can be erroneously cast as social problems.

Theorizing Social Problems: Global Capitalism and Lynemouth

At issue in the discussion of the Lynemouth plant closing is addressing the closing as a social problem. As C. Wright Mills (1959) pointed out, doing so requires establishing that an issue has a social context beyond the troubles experienced by individuals – in this case, that the employment troubles experienced by former Lynemouth workers can be grounded in a broader social context that would allow those troubles to be viewed as part of a social pattern of unemployment. To be sure, plant closings create individual problems for those who lose their jobs. But these are also social problems. Following Mills (1959: 3–4), such analysis illustrates the ‘intricate connection’ between a pattern of troubles as an outcome of ‘the course of world history’. In the case of Lynemouth, we suggest this means addressing the plant closing within the context of the world capitalist system and in relation to the treadmill of production, a theme consistent with arguments found in the green criminological literature (Lynch et al., 2013; Stretesky et al., 2013). Doing so places the Lynemouth plant closing within the structural context of the modern world-capitalist system and illustrates how that system impacts plants closures associated with the general trend toward long-term deindustrialization in developed nations.

It has been argued that deindustrialization in developed countries and the transfer of production to developing nations emerged in the 1960s as a consequence of the ‘new international division of labor’ (Frobel et al., 1980) and impacted employment stability in developed nations as production was transferred to developing nations (Bluestone and Harrison, 1982). Numerous empirical studies suggest that this general type of explanation (there are several different theoretical varieties) of the interaction between deindustrialization and the global economic context has dramatic, negative impacts on employment in developed nations (Kollmeyer and Pichler, 2013; Brady and Denniston, 2006; Kaya, 2010; Mahutga and Smith, 2011). This observation ties together the social justice problems experienced by workers to the political economy of capitalism and its reorganization. As a social problem, plant closings represent what has become a ‘typical’ form of social injustice workers experience, and follows well established practices implemented to expand profitmaking in the context of a global capitalist marketplace.

The Context of the Lynemouth Facility Closing

Considered in that context, it is worth noting that the Lynemouth plant was 40 years old and incorporated dated aluminum production technology inconsistent with new aluminum smelting processes found, for example, in China and India (Nie, 2013), making the plant less economically competitive. In this sense, the plant closing at Lynemouth is not unique. Even owners of aluminum smelters in the significant aluminum production market in Australia where bauxite is mined have recently announced (late February 2014) plant closings due to excess availability of aluminum on the world market produced in China and India at lower prices, and the inefficiency of the aging Australian facilities (Alcoa, 2014).

From a social justice perspective, plant closings are unfortunate and of concern, and it is not our intention to suggest that such issues be ignored because they are now routine practices. Indeed, forms of political economic analysis influenced by Marx’s theory of capitalism have long pointed out the detrimental forms of social injustice capitalism produces for the working class. These negative social justice affects are part of the nature of capitalism, meaning that protecting the worker from these forms of injustice requires protecting them from the detrimental consequences of capitalism.

Structurally, the goal of capitalism is to expand production to enhance profitmaking. In doing so, corporations regularly sacrifice the interests of workers to profitmaking goals. At the same time, corporate leaders may express concern for workers as they sacrifice jobs. For example, after closings of aluminum facilities in Australia, Klaus Kleinfeld, chief executive officer of Alcoa, noted: ‘We recognize how deeply this decision impacts employees at the affected facilities and are committed to supporting them through this transition. Despite the hard work of the local teams, these assets are no longer competitive and are not financially sustainable’ (Alcoa, 2014; emphasis added).

Placing the plant closing at Lynemouth in its broader political economic context also requires examining empirical data related to developments in the worldwide aluminum production market over time. Data for this purpose were collected from the website of the International Aluminum Institute (accessed 2 April 2014; http://www.world-aluminium.org/statistics/alumina-capacity/#data). In 1974, global aluminum production capacity was 26.938 thousand metric tons, and by 2013 it had reached 66.988 thousand metric tons, an increase of 63.7% capacity. From 1974 to 1983, North America had the greatest production capacity, on average about 29% of capacity. From 1984 to 2013, production capacity shifted to Oceania, which controlled, on average, about one-third of capacity.

These estimates, however, exclude China, reported separately since 2003. In 2003, China produced 6.112 thousand metric tons, which surpassed production in Western Europe. In 2004, China’s production surpassed North American production (6.994 thousand metric tons), surpassed South American production in 2006, and even Oceania’s production in 2007. By 2013, China was the major global producer of aluminum, producing 44.186 thousand metric tons compared to Oceania’s 21.795 thousand metric tons. Thus, in the span of less than a decade, the world aluminum production market had changed dramatically. By 2013, China was producing 7.25 times as much aluminum as it had just ten years earlier, and in 2013 it out-produced the previous main producer of aluminum, Oceania, by a factor of two. Recent growth in the Chinese aluminum production market has centered around modern, less energy intensive and less polluting production practices (International Aluminum Institute, 2011). Evidence of this is seen in declining global aluminum energy consumption (International Aluminum Institute, 2011: 4, 6) and carbon dioxide, fluoride and perfluorocarbon pollution (International Aluminum Institute, 2011: 2, 5) as global production shifted to China.

Globally, the transformations noted above occurred as aluminum production efficiency increased in the developing market in China. This had adverse consequences for older production facilities in developed countries which were no longer economically competitive, leading to plant closures and expanded unemployment.

One cannot overlook the role internal organizational influences at Rio Tinto played in Lynemouth’s closing. In an effort to improve its financial position, Rio Tinto decided to divested $17.1 billion in older aluminum production assets, closing 10 major and 13 minor aluminum facilities from 2009 to 2013 (Rio Tinto, 2013). This divestment reduced employment by 26% (3,800 workers globally) (Rio Tinto, 2013). In doing so, Rio Tinto expanded aluminum production in China, from 10 million tons in 2006 to 25 million tons in 2013, or by 150% (Rio Tinto, 2013). Here, the point is that internal decisions concerning the expansion of profitmaking significantly impacted Rio Tinto’s global divestment and reinvestment in the aluminum industry.

In a political economic context, the more elaborate theoretically and empirically appropriate explanation of the Lynemouth plant closing is as follows. Driven by a concern for profit, capitalists seek out the lowest costs of production, including minimal wages and raw material costs. Those costs are impacted by the nature of the international division of labor. The international or global nature of the capitalist world system allows the capitalist access to the lowest wage and raw material costs across nations, and occurs though capital disinvestment in older productive industries in developed nations and a transfer of production to developing nations where profit margins are higher. In addition, it is important to refer to how this profitmaking process occurs in relation to the structural organization of capitalism (Marx, 1974), which includes manipulating the organic composition of capital (the ratio of investments in technology to human labor), and the rate of surplus value (the ratio of workers’ wages to the surplus value or value added by labor). Long-term success on these fronts by the mass of businesses eventually leads to wage stabilization from the perspective of capital, which means a decline in wages over the long run, and the growth of unemployment (Marx, 1974).

Since the second half of the 20th century, the expansion of production and profit has been accompanied by an expansion of the treadmill of production (Schnaiberg, 1980), that is, by replacing human labor with chemical and fossil fuel labor. Over the latter part of the 20th and early 21st centuries, as fossil fuel prices began to rise due to diminished worldwide oil reserves and increased costs associated with fossil fuel extraction, a serious impediment faced capitalists with respect to costs and profits. In response, capitalist sought to replace less efficient, aging production facilities with new, efficient manufacturing processes that lower energy costs and consumption, and which inadvertently reduced greenhouse gas emissions. To take advantage of the global market in wages and raw materials, these facilities are located in nations with the lowest economic costs, leading to deindustrialization in developed/core nations such as the US and UK. The relocation of facilities from the deindustrializing core also shifts employment opportunities away from the core and is due to long-term trends produced by the global capitalist economy rather than short-term environmental policies. ⁴

The observations above indicate that, in the long run, the global world capitalist market drives deindustrialization of the core and shifts manufacturing employment from the core to the periphery and semi-periphery. With respect to the issue of social justice, these observations imply that increasing social injustice for workers in the core associated with declining employment result from the normal development of the capitalist world economy. That is to say, the forms of social injustice Lynemouth workers experience are not the result of environmental or green policies, but are part and parcel of efforts to improve profitmaking by companies within a global capitalist economy.

The discussion above is also consistent with evidence from the pollution haven hypothesis (Eskeland and Harrison, 2003; Dean et al., 2009), which suggests that manufacturing firms are attracted to nations (e.g. China) with reduced environmental protection requirements as a means of reducing production costs. On the one hand, this hypothesis is consistent with Davies’ argument concerning the plant closure at Lynemouth (i.e. the closing may be the result of an interaction between UK polices and those of pollution havens). On the other hand, that argument does not address the world system explanation noted above with respect to production efficiency, cost and profit in the global capitalist market. Nor does it take into account the changing nature of production and the development of green production policies in countries normally assumed to be pollution havens.

In recent years, for example, some “pollution haven” nations, China in particular, have passed legislation requiring stricter environmental regulations and the use of life cycle analysis for improving industrial production and reducing pollution emissions (Nie, 2013). Nie’s analysis of the evolution of new Chinese anti-pollution laws and polices indicates that China has undertaken numerous programs to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions in particular. The Chinese government, in fact, has developed a database on product and manufacturing life cycle analysis, with specific studies related to improved efficiency and lowered emissions from aluminum production (Nei, 2013: 1437). Thus, it would appear that the decision to close Lynemouth is not a “pollution haven” effect or the result of UK green policies. That is, at the same time that the UK was establishing new environmental protection policies, so was China, which had become a major producer of aluminum.

Consistent with our interpretation, the global movement of manufacturing and deindustrialization of the core reflect conditions in the global world capitalist economy and may “accidentally” create improvement in emissions. On that point, He (2006) found that the increase in foreign direct investment in China causes small emission increases in the pollutants that have been studied (e.g. sulfur dioxide). Those emissions are generated by newer facilities with greater efficiency that produce less overall environmental harm.

The observations above, however, do not mean that capitalism is efficiently solving pollution problems or that it can serve as a mechanism for eliminating the forms of social injustice associated with capitalist production. The fact that new production techniques located in developing nations are more efficient and less polluting does not mean that those production techniques are “good” for the environment. Those techniques are still environmentally harmful, and as Marxist ecologists have demonstrated, capitalism must be environmentally destructive to meet its production and accumulation goals (Burkett, 2008; Burkett and Foster, 2006; Clark and York, 2005, 2008; Foster, 1999, 2000, 2002, 2005; Jorgenson, 2003, 2008, 2009).

Discussion and Conclusion

This article examined two major claims about social justice. First, that green policies promoted forms of social injustice evident at the aluminum plant closing at Lynemouth, UK. Second, that green criminology contributes to social injustice by supporting green policies. These claims were rejected.

As noted, green criminologists have long been concerned with social justice, especially environmental injustice, but also with the impacts of pollution on ecosystem sustainability. These are serious social justice issues, and green criminologists have done much to highlight the need for criminologists to attend to the social justice problems produced by various forms of ecological destruction.

To address the criticism that green policies promote plant closures and cause social injustice, the Lynemouth closure was reassessed in a broader theoretical context related to how deindustrialization and capital disinvestment occur under global capitalism. That argument illustrated how individual plant closures are a routine occurrence as the treadmill of production expands its influence in the global capitalist economy.

To be sure, emerging environmental rules may play some role in this divestment process. But, one must also place those rules in context. A major concern in the modern world, however, is continued expansion of ecological destruction, well documented in a variety of academic literatures. In the biological and physics literatures it is widely noted that adverse ecological consequences are caused by the ways in which humans organize their productive practices. In more critical terms, in the social sciences, those “productive practices” have been identified as having political economic origins and involving the expansion of capitalism (Foster, 1999, 2000; Lynch, et al., 2013; Stretesky et al., 2013).

Responding to the adverse effects of economic production on ecosystem stability in an effort to rein in ecological destruction (e.g., climate change; escalating rates of pollution; the unequal distribution of these affects globally), governments across the world have engaged in promoting various environmental policies. At issue in these efforts is the “band-aid” approach they apply, which seeks to limit the deleterious ecological impacts of production without acknowledging the need to transform the economic model behind ecological destruction – capitalism. Arguing that those policies have adverse social justice affects misses the more significant issue: that under capitalism, such rule making cannot destroy the basic organization of capitalism, and that those policies will necessarily contribute to forms of social injustice associated with capitalism. As Marx (1974) argued, capitalism is based on the exploitation of the working class, and in that system little attention is given to social justice for workers. Any social justice analysis that excludes that observation fails to appreciate the structural origins of social injustice.

Despite its analytic limitations, Davies’ work is useful because it draws attention to social justice issues workers face. Those issues have a great deal to do with the loss of respectable, well-paying jobs. That outcome, however, is a product of the organization structure and development of capitalism, not environmental policy.