Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 On the ambiguities of greening
- 2 Social movements and knowledge-making
- 3 The dialectics of environmentalism
- 4 National shades of green
- 5 The challenge of green business
- 6 On the dilemmas of activism
- 7 Concluding reflections
- References
- Index of Names
5 - The challenge of green business
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 On the ambiguities of greening
- 2 Social movements and knowledge-making
- 3 The dialectics of environmentalism
- 4 National shades of green
- 5 The challenge of green business
- 6 On the dilemmas of activism
- 7 Concluding reflections
- References
- Index of Names
Summary
Imagine a world that gets progressively cleaner …
Vivendi advertisement (1999)… the fundamental assumption [is] that economic growth and the resolution of ecological problem can, in principle, be reconciled … ecological modernization suggests that the recognition of the ecological crisis actually constitutes a challenge for business. Not only does it open up new markets and create new demands; if executed well, it would stimulate innovation in methods of production and transport, industrial organization, consumer goods …
Maarten Hajer, The Politics of Environmental Discourse (1995: 26, 32–3)From opposition to coop(era)tion
As I suggested in chapter 1, it is possible to place the different strategies, or approaches, in the world of environmental politics along a continuum between two poles, or opposing “cultural formations”. On the one hand there is the dominant formation of green business, or commerce, which seeks to divert environmentalism into profit-making directions, integrating the quest for sustainable development into processes of global corporate expansion. On the other hand there are the various “residual formations” of ecological resistance, or critical ecology, which tend to draw environmental struggles into all sorts of political and social campaigns: for justice and equity, community and consumer empowerment, as well as for cultural survival and local resistance to the various effects and repercussions of globalization.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Making of Green KnowledgeEnvironmental Politics and Cultural Transformation, pp. 123 - 146Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001