Labor and Environmental Implications in the Commodification of Natural Resources for Sustainably Branded Markets

可持续品牌产品市场是一个庞大且快速增长的行业的一部分。在满足消费者的环境可持续性需求时，公司依赖于供应链，这些供应链可能会在起源点减轻劳动力和环境影响。该项目探讨了这样一个供应链，询问消费者对旨在提高销售点可持续性的产品的需求是否会对这些产品所在社区的可持续性产生不利影响。该项目具体着眼于小规模的采掘情况，以及它们总体上是否会对环境和经济可持续性的整体措施产生影响。这项研究的数据将被传播，以提高公众对科学和科学方法的理解，并为与新市场的采矿和商业化有关的公共政策提供信息。该项目通过为研究人员的母校西班牙裔服务机构(HSI)的第一代少数族裔学生提供研究机会，扩大了科学领域中代表性不足的群体的参与，并促进了科学教育。这项研究调查了劳动密集型产品的提取，以满足环境可持续产品的服务需求。它具体着眼于手工和小规模采矿环境，这是采掘业的主要就业来源，自2000年以来有所加强，但研究相对较少。社会科学家主要研究石油和天然气等自然资源的大规模工业开采，而对小规模和劳动密集型采矿的关注较少。这项研究集中在三个领域：小型采掘业涉及的劳动安排和工作条件；公司营销这些产品所采用的策略；以及消费者使用这些产品的目的。研究人员将包括参与者观察、半结构访谈和照片记录在内的人种学方法与采掘点采矿量的定量数据结合起来。这项研究提供了关于自然资源开采对经济、社会和环境影响的科学知识。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The market for sustainably branded products is part of a massive and rapidly growing industry. In meeting the environmental sustainability demands of the consumer, companies rely on supply chains that may have mitigating labor and environmental implications at the point of origin. This project explores such a supply chain, asking whether consumer demand for products designed to improve sustainability at the point of sale adversely impact sustainability in the communities from which those products originate. The project looks specifically at small-scale extractive contexts, and whether in the aggregate they have consequences for overall measures in environmental and economic sustainability. Data from the study will be disseminated to improve the public's understanding of science and the scientific method, and inform public policies related to mining and commercialization in new markets. The project broadens the participation of groups underrepresented in science and advance scientific education by providing research opportunities for first-generation minority students at the researcher’s home institution, a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI).This study examines the labor-intensive extraction of products that service demands for environmentally sustainable products. It looks specifically at artisanal and small-scale mining contexts, which are major sources of employment in extractive contexts, and have intensified since 2000, but relatively understudied. Social scientists have mainly studied mass-scale industrial extraction of natural resources such as oil and gas while paying less attention to small-scale and more labor-intensive types of mining. The study focuses on three areas: the labor arrangements and working conditions involved in small-scale extractive industries; the strategies used by companies to market those products; and the purposes for which consumers use them. The researcher integrates ethnographic methods including participant-observation, semi-structured interviews, and photo documentation, with quantitative data on mining volumes at extractive sites. The study contributes scientific knowledge on the economic, social, and environmental impacts of natural resource extraction.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.