Knowledge for Corporate Energy Management - Structural Contradictions and Hope for Change? - Implementing Environmental and Resource Management - page 219

within STS 19 . It suggests that laymen have gaps in their scientific knowledge of
the world and that they cannot, therefore, adequately conceptualise their environ-
ment. The implication of this model being that one needs a funnel to put scientific
knowledge into them. Kunz's reaction to the workers' body of knowledge, in line
with this, was: I will “write a piece in the journal, the [BOTNACO] house journal,
[about] what kind of things we have here and do, in order ... to prevent such
things” . From his point of view he merely needed to teach them what kind of en-
vironmental technologies existed and then they would understand what a proper
suggestion is. As he pointed out regarding the suggestion to install another solar
panel, such teaching should convey that general suggestions are not proper: “Ob-
viously this is a rather general suggestion, and actually we cannot put this prop-
erly to use” . This stance illustrates that he, as the environmental manager, has the
power to define the terms of the situation. This signifies as well a hierarchy be-
tween the forms of knowledge, i.e. the general idea vs. the specific suggestion fit-
ting to his ecological modernisation rationality. Like scientific experts knowing
better than laymen, the environmental manager knows better than workers. This
hierarchy is maintained through the categories in use: workers would allow the
expert to define which categories are suitable to analyse a situation. By this proc-
ess the relations of categories are reproduced. It is not questioned that workers
might very well possess useful knowledge to deal with their environment and rec-
ognise qualities that are lacking in it.
On the other hand, Kunz also actively negotiated issues which required objec-
tive decisions upon them. For example he emphasised that his colleagues, who
were part of decision-making, are human actors and that therefore he can discuss
with them the terms of amortisation of an investment. Thus, practically, he co-
constructed objectivity: the objectivity of whether a measure is worth it is socially
co-constructed.
Nevertheless, for his identity it seemed to be of importance that he conceptual-
ises himself as an adviser to the site manager and in our case to the suggestion
scheme. This advice should be as objective as possible. According to his descrip-
tions, what he and his colleagues had in common was that they developed their
decisive advice to the decision-maker based on a shared commitment to rationality
and objectivity. The most significant criterion around which their advice was
shaped was profitability. It was on these grounds and within these relations in
which the environmental manager constructed advice.
Let us now turn briefly to some relations in which those workers whose ideas
had been declined were situated. Fundamentally, they were the means of the 'Pro-
gramme'. It was aimed at mobilising their ideas and when they saw the posters
and emails they were 'triggered' to develop ideas or make them explicit respec-
tively. The ideas were based on their knowledge of their working environment.
When they had a chance to use their knowledge as capital they used it. The sug-
gestion scheme both enabled them to try to 'sell' their ideas and provided a me-
dium for them to communicate the ideas. Thus, they were not merely passively re-
19 See e.g. Wieser (2002), Lynch (2004), Irwin (2006) and Wynne (1992).