‘Towards a Concrete Utopian Model of Green Political Economy’

Much of the thinking about the appropriate ‘political economy’ to underpin sustainable development has been either utopian (as in some ‘green’ political views) or ‘business as usual’ approaches. This article suggests that ‘ecological modernisation’ is the dominant conceptualisation of ‘sustainable development’ within the UK and other ‘developed’ Northern polities and most corporate/business interests, and illustrates this by looking at some key ‘sustainable development’ policy documents from the UK Government. While critical of the reformist ‘policy telos’ of ecological modernisation, supporters of a more radical version of sustainable development need to also be aware of the strategic opportunities of this policy discourse. In particular, the article suggests that the discourse of ‘economic security’, which can be attached to a radicalised notion of ecological modernisation, ought to be used as a way of articulating a radical, robust and principled understanding of sustainable development, which offers a normatively compelling and policy-relevant path to outlining aspects of a ‘green political economy’ to underpin sustainable development.

Developments in Performance Monitoring of Concrete Exposed to Extreme Environments

The performance of the surface zone of concrete is acknowledged as a major factor governing the rate of deterioration of reinforced concrete structures as it provides the only barrier to the ingress of water containing dissolved ionic species such as chlorides which, ultimately, initiate corrosion of the reinforcement. In-situ monitoring of cover-zone concrete is therefore critical in attempting to make realistic predictions as to the in-service performance of the structure. To this end, this paper presents developments in a remote interrogation system to allow continuous, real-time monitoring of the cover-zone concrete from an office setting. Use is made of a multi-electrode array embedded within cover-zone concrete to acquire discretized electrical resistivity and temperature measurements, with both parameters monitored spatially and temporally. On-site instrumentation, which allows remote interrogation of concrete samples placed at a marine exposure site, is detailed, together with data handling and processing procedures. Site-measurements highlight the influence of temperature on electrical resistivity and an Arrhenius-based temperature correction protocol is developed using on-site measurements to standardize resistivity data to a reference temperature; this is an advancement over the use of laboratory-based procedures. The testing methodology and interrogation system represents a robust, low-cost and high-value technique which could be deployed for intelligent monitoring of reinforced concrete structures.