Definitions of «Sustainability» and «Sustainable Technology» : a Seemiotic and Narrative Approach on Agricultural Regulations

In this paper, we focus on food production guidelines provided by two European sustainable regulations : the European Union (EU) Organic and the Biodiversity Friend certification. Drawing upon recent developments in the study of "technologies of law", this chapter seeks to examine the role and the meaning of technology in the expanding sector of sustainable standards in food production. Our claim is that agricultural regulations and certifications are semiotic devices which performatively define different technological systems which channel “human” and “non-human” forces in order to smooth out tensions between environmental and economic constraints. In the first paragraph, we show how crucial is the role of technology for the regulations ends. In the second, we will illustrate the general structure of european regulations and precise which actors they involve. In the third place, we show how – as metalanguage for specific technological arrangements – legal texts participate in building narratives on sustainable production, and thus shape the world they are only supposed to regulate. In the fourth and the fifth paragraph, we submit the texts of the European Union (EU) Organic and the Biodiversity Friend certification to semiotic analysis. Surprisingly, despite both regulations seek the value of sustainability, they build up very different narratives to realize it. While the EU Organic technological network aims at producing “sustainable food” by purifying nature from culture, BF produces foods, landscapes and connections between the farm and the environment through hybrid artifacts where nature and culture are indistinguishable.