Helen Hawthorne
(Middlesex University)
Valerie Nelson
(Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich)
Format:
Panel
Streams:
Climate & ecosystems
Sessions:
Wednesday 6 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Development perspectives on transforming economies for nature, climate, and society.
Panel P30 at conference DSA2022: Just sustainable futures in an urbanising and mobile world.
This panel invites papers that critically examine evolving relationships between Business, Development, and the Environment. We especially seek empirical case studies of shifts and transformations in enterprises/economies which give insights into questions about responses to environmental concerns.
Long Abstract:
The COP26 meeting in Glasgow in November 2021, and the upcoming UN Biodiversity Conference which aims to agree a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework represent two key intergovernmental processes for the environment and humanity. Both processes have seen increasing involvement and focus on the role and impact of business, yet there are contested visions about relationships between business, development, and the environment. Many in international development agencies, governments and business facilitate private sector engagement as key to achieving the SDGs. Within business circles, the narrative emphasizes that beyond the CSR approach, business depends on biodiversity and must act to manage impacts. Among investors, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) agendas increasingly inform ratings of risks to business. But voluntary and business-led approaches are viewed as ineffective, prompting a turn towards mandatory regulation. The centrality of finance in shaping corporate behaviour has prompted sustainable finance announcements and initiatives aimed at reducing deforestation and ecological restoration Climate finance also dominated at COP 26, yet the effectiveness of climate finance projects face challenges, and richer nations failed to meet their commitments. Corporate climate reporting requirements are also rapidly evolving but questions remain regarding the effectiveness of reporting as a tool for change, per se.
Many initiatives adopt essentially reformist positions to the global economy, i.e. they seek to change individual corporate practice, without broader changes to the rules governing economies (e.g. anti-monopoly regulation, changes to corporate governance / ownership and investment rules). Voluntary initiatives are unlikely to be sufficient levers to achieve required levels of change, given the power of corporations, changing trade patterns and global geopolitics.
• What changes in thinking, processes and measures can facilitate necessary transformations to the global political economy to enable humanity to live within planetary boundaries, repair damage to nature, and achieve human rights and justice?
• What is the nature and role of business in achieving biodiversity conservation?
• What can be learned from citizen-driven initiatives and governmental policies and regulations, in terms of their response to corporate power?
• How can citizen-driven initiatives gain greater centrality in alternative economies – i.e. through trans-local linking?
This panel invites papers that critically examine evolving relationships between Business, Development, and the Environment. We especially seek empirical case studies of shifts and transformations in enterprise and economies which provide insights into these questions.
Methodology
Panelists will upload pre-recorded presentations. Convenors will ask panelists to watch other people’s presentations in advance of the synchronous discussion session(s). The convenors will also share in advance what they think are the key questions emerging from the recorded presentations which will be prompts for the synchronous discussion. The convenors will also start the synchronous session outlining these questions. Then, each presenter will give a 2min pitch summarising their key argument and another 2min in which they address one of the key questions from the convenors. After this, the discussion will be open to the audience with convenors’ moderation.
The Transition Township project addresses the crises of economic deprivation and the onset of ecological collapse by piloting an integrated model of local and localised economic development that Prepares for a just transition to energy democracy and food sovereignty.
Paper long abstract:
Achieving the necessary transformations in global political economy to affect human and planetary justice requires actors to see poor and working people as equally capable of taking ownership of their livelihoods as themselves. Facilitating poor communities by "handing over the stick" both enlightens people to their full humanity and produces sustained commitment to their maintenance and flourishing. Transition Township is a development intervention in formal working-class townships in Gqeberha, South Africa that is building an integrated model of local and localised development based on principles of food sovereignty and energy democracy. Food sovereignty as a pillar of community development builds relations where the production, distribution, and consumption of food is owned by the people directly involved in these processes. As an intervention, Transition Township is building a deep Just Transition by facilitating poor and working people, those most vulnerable to climate catastrophe, to take control of their own development through community-owned renewable energy and community food production. Drawing on the concept of circular economy, Transition Township makes use of assets within the community to retrofit for renewable energy and sustainable technologies. Co-operative production of food and energy are central to this project as a democratic platform for local political and economic practices while it incentivizes residents to invest in sustained production by preserving and enhancing the local ecology. As Transition Township seeks to achieve broader change, the implementation of multiple pilots within rural and urban geographies lay the groundwork for an alternative economy in Gqeberha as a bottom-up approach.
Taking the banning of mining in El Salvador as a case study, this paper shows why environmental policies respond to ideas and values that are not reducible to material interests. This paper proposes a cultural political economy approach to analysing how the environment and business are governed.
Paper long abstract:
Analysis that focuses on economic interests and power leaves little space for imagining how citizens can organise and protect ecosystems. Nor is it useful for explaining why governments would introduce strong legislation prioritising environment sustainability over business interests. I argue that while political economy dynamics are important for analysing the business-environment-development nexus, so too are ideas and cultural forms of power. Following Sum and Jessop (2013) and others, I propose a cultural political economy approach to understanding the power relations, interests and ideas that give rise to environmental regulation.
Using the case study of the mining ban in El Salvador, I show how citizen organisations can increase their power to protect the ecosystems that they rely on. Communities successfully campaigned against mining in El Salvador by forming alliances nationally and internationally and drawing on cultural and political power to confront economic power. The case study demonstrates how ideas and discourse were important in changing how people perceived the environment and mining, whether as a source of profit and development or as a threat to 'everyone's home'. Finally, the case study demonstrates how interests and values at an international level shaped national legislation that governs the relationship between business and the environment.
Despite the rise of environmentalism, the pace of ecological degradation has increased. If environmentalism is a broader force, then why is its influence so slight? We argue that environmental concern is a product of economic growth but at the same time alienated from economic growth consequences.
Paper long abstract:
This paper challenges the view that economic growth raises environmental consciousness as postulated in Inglehart's post-materialist thesis. Instead, we argue that we have to be attentive to the types of environmentalism different economic regimes engender. We analyse two types of evidence— surveys and environmental indicators. This study uses dynamic regressions and a Vector autoregressive model to analyse influencing factors of the changes in the environmental concerns. Analyses of surveys suggest that particular forms of environmental consciousness are a product of economic growth. And, conversely, that these forms decline during economic downturns. However, the analyses of environmental indicators suggest that the heightened environmental consciousness that economic growth is not particularly good for the environment. We argue that the type of environmental consciousness that is derived from the post-materialist thesis is intermeshed with commodity fetishism such that people separate their consumerist lifestyles from the environmental impact of these lifestyles. Environmental concern is alienated from the consequences of economic growth
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Valerie Nelson (Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich)
Short Abstract:
This panel invites papers that critically examine evolving relationships between Business, Development, and the Environment. We especially seek empirical case studies of shifts and transformations in enterprises/economies which give insights into questions about responses to environmental concerns.
Long Abstract:
The COP26 meeting in Glasgow in November 2021, and the upcoming UN Biodiversity Conference which aims to agree a post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework represent two key intergovernmental processes for the environment and humanity. Both processes have seen increasing involvement and focus on the role and impact of business, yet there are contested visions about relationships between business, development, and the environment. Many in international development agencies, governments and business facilitate private sector engagement as key to achieving the SDGs. Within business circles, the narrative emphasizes that beyond the CSR approach, business depends on biodiversity and must act to manage impacts. Among investors, Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) agendas increasingly inform ratings of risks to business. But voluntary and business-led approaches are viewed as ineffective, prompting a turn towards mandatory regulation. The centrality of finance in shaping corporate behaviour has prompted sustainable finance announcements and initiatives aimed at reducing deforestation and ecological restoration Climate finance also dominated at COP 26, yet the effectiveness of climate finance projects face challenges, and richer nations failed to meet their commitments. Corporate climate reporting requirements are also rapidly evolving but questions remain regarding the effectiveness of reporting as a tool for change, per se.
Many initiatives adopt essentially reformist positions to the global economy, i.e. they seek to change individual corporate practice, without broader changes to the rules governing economies (e.g. anti-monopoly regulation, changes to corporate governance / ownership and investment rules). Voluntary initiatives are unlikely to be sufficient levers to achieve required levels of change, given the power of corporations, changing trade patterns and global geopolitics.
• What changes in thinking, processes and measures can facilitate necessary transformations to the global political economy to enable humanity to live within planetary boundaries, repair damage to nature, and achieve human rights and justice?
• What is the nature and role of business in achieving biodiversity conservation?
• What can be learned from citizen-driven initiatives and governmental policies and regulations, in terms of their response to corporate power?
• How can citizen-driven initiatives gain greater centrality in alternative economies – i.e. through trans-local linking?
This panel invites papers that critically examine evolving relationships between Business, Development, and the Environment. We especially seek empirical case studies of shifts and transformations in enterprise and economies which provide insights into these questions.
Methodology
Panelists will upload pre-recorded presentations. Convenors will ask panelists to watch other people’s presentations in advance of the synchronous discussion session(s). The convenors will also share in advance what they think are the key questions emerging from the recorded presentations which will be prompts for the synchronous discussion. The convenors will also start the synchronous session outlining these questions. Then, each presenter will give a 2min pitch summarising their key argument and another 2min in which they address one of the key questions from the convenors. After this, the discussion will be open to the audience with convenors’ moderation.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 6 July, 2022, -