The Round Table on Responsible Soy’s Landnahme: converting sustainable practices into tradable intangibles to protect the environment

Abstract

The Round Table on Responsible Soy (RTRS) is a multi-stakeholder organization that has set as its aim to improve the environmental, social and economic conditions of soy production. To do so, it relies on a certification scheme whose standards seek to regulate the practices of producers. Unlike most certifications, however, RTRS allows for the detachment of ‘sustainability’ from physical commodities. In this way, the former is converted into ‘RTRS credits,’ a certificate that attests for the responsible conditions of production. These credits are sold by certified producers and bought by soy consumers who use them to offset the negative impacts of the physical soy they actually handle. This article seeks to identify the tensions that spring from the (a priori paradoxical) strategy of resorting to an intangible in order to preserve the physical environment. The analysis is guided by the concept of Landnahme, which accounts for the processes through which previously non-capitalist spheres of life become colonized by this system’s logic. In the case under examination, two analytically different levels of Landnahme are identified: the economicization of an environmental struggle and the commodification of sustainability. After describing both processes, the paper reflects on the shortcomings faced by RTRS’ approach.