Sustainability in the Capitalocene: private standards, electric vehicles, and critical mineral mining in global value chains

Abstract

The growing demand for electric vehicles and batteries intensifies the extraction of critical minerals while these technologies are simultaneously presented as instruments of decarbonization and energy transition. Drawing on the Capitalocene as an interpretive lens, this article examines this tension through the relationships between the appropriation of nature, production, and the transnational circulation of resources. It asks how private sustainability standards shape corporate definitions of what counts as sustainable across electric vehicle and battery value chains. Methodologically, the research combines a critical framework informed by the Capitalocene debate with coding procedures inspired by constructivist Grounded Theory. The analysis draws on two documentary datasets: one concerning companies involved in the mining of critical minerals and another concerning electric vehicle manufacturers. It identifies common and sector-specific categories through which sustainability is constructed and examines how corporate criteria, transnational frameworks, and mechanisms of selection and management reorganize the socio-ecological contradictions of the energy transition. The results indicate that corporate sustainability is constructed through selective processes of valuation, materiality, risk, and compliance, which make certain impacts more visible than others and may displace, rather than eliminate, socio-ecological contradictions along the value chain.