Semiotic landscape in a green capital

In the wake of the ‘climate apocalypse’ global discourse, the environmental agenda of the European Green Deal and

the overarching objective for the European Union are to deliver a high level of protection and improvement of the quality of the

environment. European cities are under pressure to reinvent urban environments and develop resilience to environmental risks. This

paper looks at semiotic material appearing in Essen, a city in Germany awarded the European Green Capital title. Grounded in the

multimodal social semiotic approach and ecolinguistics, the paper investigates strategically emplaced ‘green’ semiotic material

which shape environmental values and privilege. The paper illustrates the political economy of city clean-ups which every so often

result in questionable environmental choices and fail to alleviate social inequalities. The analysis ultimately shows how semiotic

forms of sustainability are evidently implicated in the creation of urban eco-arenas accentuating the socioeconomic stratification

and privileges of valorized places.