This research deals with the processes of standardization performed through various sociotechnical agencements and also with the normalizations and regulations of both environmental discourses and practices within the 'sphere of producing' (Jonas). Focusing on many companies and the ways they integrate concerns about environment and sustainable development (via management systems, reporting, labelization, etc.), this dissertation describes finely the concerned actors' networks, and especially the mediations provided by a multitude of texts, written and conveyed by heterogeneous entities. Moreover, the resulting "architexture" is translated into the firm's environmental practices - which may circularly affect norms and standards. Our methodological approach consists in depicting ethnographically different types of environmental politics that are institutionalized by several companies and in describing three of them through very precise monographs. The core hypothesis of this research is thus to understand how the markets are designing the environment; but also, symmetrically, if and how this environment can contribute to a politization of the sphere of production particularly by questioning the instruments serving as a proof of the firm's commitment toward the environment. Emphasizing the hybrid forms taken by markets' environmental politics and the public policies, this study explains the development of compromises between economic rationality, market-sector behavior, techno-scientific innovation and political commitment towards environmental issues - locally and globally. It conducts me to underline the role of environmental indicators and benchmarks in making the environment quantifiable and measurable - and therefore incorporable in discourses and practices. So the co-production of markets and environment(s) finally appeared as a pragmatic of the "less evil", setting the basis for minimal compromises between ecology and economy as well as those for a potential ecological ethic within the sphere of producing.
TO ACCOUNT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT WITHIN THE SPHERE OF PRODUCING. Standardization through Sociotechnical Networks and Forms of Environmental Commitment