By Charlotte Bez

Geography of Heavy Industries and Toxic Pollution in Europe

This contribution explores the conditions of democratic participation in Europe’s left-behind regions, where the presence of heavy industry creates barriers to transformation. Industrial facilities—especially in the coal, steel, petrochemical, and cement sectors—are deeply embedded in European regions, and their emissions are considered hard to abate. Heavy industry is responsible for a large share of Europe’s point-source CO₂ emissions contributing to global warming, as well as toxic pollution (e.g. heavy metals) that pose immediate public health threats to local communities.

Examples of high industrial presence include the Ruhr and Lusatia regions in Germany—mainly due to coal-fired power plants—and the cities of Taranto, Terni, and Piombino in Italy, where steel production is concentrated. Europe’s largest steel plant, ex-ILVA in Taranto, exemplifies a lack of industry diversification, inadequate public infrastructure, and multiple forms of environmental injustice. These include serious health impacts and deaths linked to toxic chemical emissions, alongside unemployment and wage levels significantly below the national average. Ruhr and Lusatia, similarly, are among Germany’s structurally weak regions.

Mechanisms of Job Segregation and Lock-ins

Polluting factories can damage local economies by creating job segregation and “bad-specialization” lock-ins, ultimately reducing employment opportunities. This coexistence of pollution and underemployment is known as noxious deindustrialization.

Understanding regional development requires attention to the historical and place-based factors shaping technology and economic paths. Lock-ins are reproduced through localised knowledge and socio-technological systems. Heavy industry, in particular, operates under innovation regimes with low technological dynamism and limited competition. These sectors often host toxic outliers: inefficient, high-emitting plants whose environmental harm is not a technological necessity but a consequence of underinvestment in cleaner production.

The case of ex-ILVA in Taranto highlights this dynamic: an industrial monoculture, combined with managerial resistance to innovation, has created both economic dependence and severe public health risks.

Industrial Complexes and the Concept of Left-Behind Places

Many regions with low economic diversification and stagnant wages depend heavily on polluting industries. These “left-behind” places often suffer from industrial decline, population loss, low wages, and a general sense of abandonment. Some have never industrialized in the first place and remain long-term lagging regions.

Industrial pollution in these areas is both an environmental and public health issue. It affects quality of life and creates uneven vulnerabilities to national and international climate policies. Marginalized groups bear the brunt of this pollution, often with fewer resources to protect themselves and worse average health. This combination of exposure and limited resilience makes health impacts a central concern in working-class communities. At the same time, chronic exposure undermines the capacity of these communities to take preventive action. Environmental inequality, therefore, mirrors broader social inequalities.

The Risk of Becoming Politically Consequential

How can we prevent spatial inequality from resulting in exclusion or political backlash? This phenomenon—sometimes called “the revenge of the places that don’t matter”—stems from economic and industrial decline combined with social marginalisation (e.g. Brexit, regional import shocks). Addressing spatial inequality is urgent: not only to contain the rise of right-wing populism that threatens environmental policymaking, but also to support democratic participation in a just transition.

Understanding the political economy of left-behind places is crucial for shaping inclusive green transitions. Citizen participation is essential to overcome the lack of imagination for a future beyond industrial decline—a status quo marked by poverty, ill health, and political under-representation.

Towards a Geography of Transitions

Transitioning to a greener economy will directly affect heavy industries and their workers. Listening to what affected communities want is crucial, especially in left-behind places. But we must reject the false narrative that communities must choose between jobs and health, or jobs and a clean environment.

Instead, we must shift from a geography of pollution to a geography of transitions. This approach ensures that communities are not left behind by the green transition. Workers in polluting industries should not be framed as obstacles to climate policy—but as potential allies in environmental struggles. Policymakers must work with these communities to co-develop a future where working-class environmentalism plays a central role.