ChapterPDF Available

Social‐Ecological Transformation

Authors:

Abstract

Social-ecological transformation” is an umbrella term which describes recent political, socioeconomic, and cultural shifts resulting from attempts to address the social-ecological crisis. On the one hand, think tanks and international organizations have issued reports which provide for an interpretation of the crisis and propose ways out of it. Their common denominator is that economic growth can be reconciled with social and environmental objectives. On the other hand, there is an academic debate in progress which at least in part addresses the crisis in more fundamental ways, challenging not only existing technologies and market structures, but also the underlying patterns of production and consumption. It is informed by social ecology, practice theory and political ecology. This entry presents these two strands of the debate and suggests a combination of political ecology and critical political economy as a means for better understanding the crisis and for informing the emancipatory strategies designed to address it.
Richardson wbieg0690.tex V1 - 05/13/2016 6:30 P.M. Page 1
k
k k
k
Social-ecological
transformation
Ulrich Brand
University of Vienna, Austria
Markus Wissen
Berlin School of Economics and Law, Germany
Social-ecological transformation is an umbrella
term which describes political, socioeconomic,
and cultural shifts resulting from attempts to
address the socioecological crisis. Under this
conceptual and epistemic heading, such terms as
green, great or social-ecological transition, great
or societal transformation, green economy, and
sociotechnical transition have increasingly come
into use. Their goal is to provide a comprehensive
understanding of current global environmental
change and to contribute to a social and political
strategy for dealing with the crisis. Research pro-
grams for the social sciences have been oriented
accordingly (Hackmann and St Clair 2012).
The concepts and related debates have gained
specic importance, rst, due to the increasing
acknowledgment that existing sectoralized and
top-down forms of global or regional environ-
mental management have failed and, second, in
view of the “multiple crises” of the nancial
system, the economy, nature, energy provision,
and food. There is a strong consensus in the
literature that profound societal changes will be
required in order to get a grip on these multiple
crises. In the context of this consensus, however,
the socioecological crisis is approached from the
positions of divergent normative interests and
dierent theoretical perspectives, with the result
The International Encyclopedia of Geography.
Edited by Douglas Richardson, Noel Castree, Michael F. Goodchild, Audrey Kobayashi, Weidong Liu, and Richard A. Marston.
© 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2017 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/9781118786352.wbieg0690
that a variety of dierent and even contrasting
analyses and proposals concerning the ways out
of the crisis have emerged (Brand et al. 2013).
The following noncomprehensive overview
rst addresses important agship reports issued
mainly by political organizations and think
tanks. These are seen as indicators of a shift of
perception within state apparatuses on various
spatial scales and as an attempt to shape the
corridor of social-ecological transformation.
Second, key aspects are presented of the aca-
demic debate which have to some extent
inuenced these political agship reports, but
have also raised more fundamental theoretical
and political questions. In the outlook, conclu-
sions are drawn regarding a critical perspective
on social-ecological transformation.
Social-ecological transformation
in agship reports
1. The concept of a green economy, which puts
forward the claim of being able to overcome
the economic and ecological crisis, was
promoted before and around the Rio +20
Conference in June 2012. The United
Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)
started its Green Economy Initiative in 2008.
In 2011, it issued a comprehensive report
in which it identied a “widespread disil-
lusionment with our prevailing economic
paradigm, a sense of fatigue emanating from
the many concurrent crises and market
failures experienced during the very rst
decade of the new millennium, including
especially the nancial and economic crisis
Richardson wbieg0690.tex V1 - 05/13/2016 6:30 P.M. Page 2
k
k k
k
SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION
of 2008. But at the same time, we have
seen increasing evidence of a way forward,
a new economic paradigm one in which
material wealth is not delivered perforce at
the expense of growing environmental risks,
ecological scarcities and social disparities”
(UNEP 2011a, 1).
2. In line with the United Nations Devel-
opment Programme (UNDP), the United
Nations Department of Economic and
Social Aairs (UN DESA) argues for a
great green technological transformation,with
a scaling up of clean technologies, waste
reduction, and sustainable agriculture. In
its report with the same title, it states that
a green economy “embodies the promise
of a new development paradigm, whose
application has the potential to ensure the
preservation of the earth’s ecosystem along
new economic growth pathways while
contributing at the same time to poverty
reduction” (UN DESA 2011, v).
3. The European Commission has developed
a plan for sustainable growth: the promotion
of a resource-light, ecological, and com-
petitive economy. In a communication of
September 2011, the commission stated the
necessity to fundamentally transform the
European economy within the time span
of one generation. It saw reducing resource
use and increasing resource eciency as key
mechanisms for coping with environmental
problems and resource shortages and, at the
same time, strengthening European com-
petitiveness (European Commission 2011;
for a similar approach see the green growth
strategy of the OECD 2011).
4. An example for an initiative at the national
level is a report by the German Federal
Government’s Advisory Council on Global
Change (WBGU) entitled “Social Con-
tract for Sustainability.” Its plea for a great
transformation (WBGU 2011) specically
refers to Karl Polanyi’s concept in which he
explains the passage to industrial capitalism
during the nineteenth century, in order to
emphasize the magnitude of the socioeco-
logical challenge. One point of departure
is the assumed global transformation of
values toward a sensitization for ecological
questions (WBGU 2011). In order to pro-
mote and strengthen this transformation,
the report states that a new “global social
contract” (WBGU 2011, 8, 276) is needed.
Central to realizing the great transformation,
along with the transformation of values, are
“pioneers of change” (such as innovative
individuals, NGOs, and companies in all
sectors of society and the economy), and a
“proactive state” (WBGU 2011, 203). The
latter is to create an adequate framework
for change agents and to promote required
innovations.
The common denominator of these reports
and strategy papers is that they consider eco-
nomic growth desirable, necessary, and capable
of reconciliation with the environment. They
express, rst, a belief, akin to that which pre-
vailed at the beginning of the sustainable devel-
opment discourse in the early 1990s, that com-
prehensive win–win situations can be created;
and second, rm trust in the existing political
and economic institutions and elites, which they
see as both able and willing to guide this process.
The shortcomings to particularly focus on are:
rst, the concepts argue for strong regulatory
frameworks and thus neglect the prevailing
power relations. In the current crisis, regulatory
frameworks tend to develop in an authoritarian
direction in order to secure access to resources
for particular countries or regions (Lander
2011). Moreover, the economy which is to be
politically regulated is mainly understood as the
formal capitalist market economy. Accordingly,
2
Richardson wbieg0690.tex V1 - 05/13/2016 6:30 P.M. Page 3
k
k k
k
SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION
gender perspectives and their focus on social
reproduction and reproductive work are largely
absent in the debate about a green economy
(Deutscher Frauenrat 2011).
Second, whereas a relative decoupling of eco-
nomic growth from resource use and environ-
mental impact can be observed in many advanced
capitalist economies, it is far from clear how the
necessary absolute reduction might be achieved
within the paradigm of economic growth. Since
2008, strategies for coping with the multiple
crises have not gone hand in hand with the
reorientation of production and consumption
patterns designed to promote sustainability.
They thus face the danger that improvements in
resource eciency may be overcompensated by
the quantity of resources consumed in a growing
economy (UNEP 2011b).
Third, neoliberal open-market policies and
erce competition have led to deindustrialization
in many countries of the Global South. What is
reasonable from a neoclassical perspective is that
production that takes place where it is econom-
ically most ecient has pushed many countries
into the new/old strategy of resource extrac-
tivism (Lang and Mokrani 2013). In most coun-
tries in Latin America, even in Brazil and Mex-
ico, this seems to be the only viable development
strategy capable of alleviating poverty. And it is
the ip side of the green economy, since the rare
earth metals needed for green high-tech products
mostly come from the countries of the south.
Finally, in addition to the universalization of
the Western model of production, globalization
implies what can be called an “imperial mode
of living” (Brand and Wissen 2013). The logic
of globalized liberal markets is reected in the
everyday practices in which access to cheap
and often unsustainably produced commodities
and labor power are normalized. Currently, this
logic is being universalized among the upper and
middle classes of newly industrialized countries.
The social relations underlying the imperial
mode of living, and possible ways for overcom-
ing them, have hardly been challenged at all
during this crisis and have been insuciently
reected in the reports cited above.
The academic debate about
social-ecological transformation
Aside from the political-strategic debate, there
is also an academic debate over social-ecological
transformation. Most of the approaches here have
a longer history. Nevertheless, like the political
debate, the academic one has gained momentum
in the context of the current multiple crises.
The various contributions emphasize, rst, that
socioeconomic, political, and cultural changes
have to go beyond incremental steps and toward
particular policy elds, such as climate change
or biodiversity policies. Second, transformation
is understood as a manifold nonlinear process,
since it deals with dynamic, multidimensional,
and complex systems as well as potential tipping
points. Third, it is acknowledged that technical
innovation is necessary, but not sucient, while
social innovation is central to social-ecological
transformation (Brand et al. 2013).
Within this framework, several approaches can
be distinguished, as follows.
1. The concept of social metabolism/socioecological
transition developed in the interdisciplinary
context of the Vienna Institute of Social
Ecology. It conceptualizes social-ecological
transformation from the perspective of the
use of energy and material. The history of
humankind is understood as a succession of
“sociometabolic regimes” that dier in their
energy sources and in the “colonization”
of nature. Hunters and gatherers, the rst
sociometabolic regime, relied on the solar
3
Richardson wbieg0690.tex V1 - 05/13/2016 6:30 P.M. Page 4
k
k k
k
SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION
energy stored in the plants and animals
available on their territory, but did not
systematically inuence the reproduction
of these resources. By contrast, agrarian
societies, while still relying mainly on solar
energy, started to systematically intervene
in nature to “colonize” it in order to
enhance its productivity.
Industrial societies, the thus far last stage of
human development, invented increasingly
sophisticated and, at the same time, destruc-
tive forms of the colonization of nature.
Even more important, they replaced repro-
ducing biomass as the main source of energy
with fossil biomass, which now, given the
prevailing patterns of production and con-
sumption in the Global North and the fact
that two thirds of the world’s population
are currently in transition from the agrarian
to the industrial regime, is imminently
threatened with exhaustion. Given further
that the remaining fossil resources cannot
be burned without exacerbating global
warming, the social metabolism of industrial
society today faces a fundamental crisis
(Haberl et al. 2011). The current pattern can
thus be understood as a “structural exhaus-
tion of opportunities” (Fischer-Kowalski
2011) of the existing sociometabolic regime.
It has given rise to a social-ecological trans-
formation which may either take on the
form of a catastrophic break with industrial
metabolism or, if the patterns of energy
generation and consumption are radically
changed, may result in a new, sustainable
sociometabolic regime.
2. Whereas the concept of social metabolism
is mainly concerned with the physical basis
of the social-ecological transformation,
transition research and management focus on
societal and institutional aspects as well as
on technological and social innovation.
Furthermore, their temporal and thematic
scope is signicantly narrower than that
of the social metabolism/socioecological
transition approach. Starting from the anal-
ysis of concrete transition processes in such
sectors as energy and agriculture, transi-
tion research has developed a “multilevel
concept” of major societal shifts toward
sustainability (Verbong and Geels 2010),
according to which transitions often origi-
nate in societal “niches,” then spread to the
level of “regimes” (institutional structures),
and nally contribute to transforming
“landscapes” (the overall social, political,
economic, and cultural setting). Radical
innovation is considered to take place pri-
marily in niches, while at the mesolevel of
regimes, changes occur more incremen-
tally because of path dependencies and
lock-in processes. The interplay of the
three levels is key to sustainability transi-
tions which are understood as “long-term,
multidimensional, and fundamental transfor-
mation processes through which established
sociotechnical systems shift to more sustain-
able modes of production and consumption”
(Markard, Raven, and Truer 2012, 956).
Transitions can be the results of evolutions
and/or of clear-cut goals.
Transition management aims to utilize the
ndings of transition research in order to
inform and shape the governance of con-
crete reform processes (Kemp, Loorbach,
and Rotmans 2007). Collaboration between
actors and learning processes are funda-
mental. Governance can inuence cultures
and discourses, actors and structures, as
well as innovations in order to accelerate
and trigger transitions. However, com-
mand and control strategies are not possible
owing to the complexity and uncertainty
4
Richardson wbieg0690.tex V1 - 05/13/2016 6:30 P.M. Page 5
k
k k
k
SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION
of transition processes. The transition man-
agement approach sees its role in the debate
on social-ecological transformation as pro-
viding methodologies which are of practical
and policy relevance (Wesely et al. 2014).
3. Transition research and management has
been criticized by proponents of approaches
in the tradition of practice theories (see Røpke
2009 for an overview). According to these
theories, there is a producer and manager
bias in transition management. Consumers
and complex congurations of everyday life
are treated more or less as external to the
system of innovation. However, according
to Shove and Walker, they are a constitutive
part of it. Neglecting them conceptually
is like an “act of writing to an audience
that might not be listening” (Shove and
Walker 2008). The crucial concept for a
better understanding of the causes of the
socioecological crisis, and for discerning
possible ways out of it, is that of social practice.
It refers to shared behavioral routines con-
stituted by sets of interconnected elements:
the social and political institutions that
facilitate them, the sociotechnical congu-
rations, such as the physical infrastructures,
that enable them, the available knowledge
and prevailing symbolic orientations that,
consciously or not, guide them, and the
forms of power that are inscribed in all these
elements (Spaargaren 2011).
Because of its habitualized character, an
environmentally detrimental social practice,
such as driving a car, is only to a very limited
extent accessible to intentional steering and
management or to consciousness-raising
campaigns. This makes social-ecological
transformation a far more complicated
process than it is assumed to be in transition
research and management. It is a process
which cannot be inuenced from any
preferential entry point, but which has to
address the various elements which con-
stitute social practices (Shove and Walker
2010). Overcoming automobility, to take
this example, would require an under-
standing of driving, not only as a form
of movement with the intent of relatively
rapidly overcoming a distance, but rather,
too, as an issue which has to be addressed
in terms of the prevailing and power-laden
conceptions of progress, freedom, and
masculinity and their institutional and
infrastructural manifestations.
4. The central motives and arguments in the
context of the degrowth debate maintain that
the orientation toward economic growth as
the crucial point of reference of economic
policy and as an indicator of prosperity and
quality of life no longer holds (Kallis 2011).
The issue of the suitability, or lack thereof,
of markets as a mechanism for dealing with
ecological and social problems is another
core point of commonality. Some authors
argue for an internalization of ecological and
social costs, others go further and add that
more structural changes as well as a decol-
onization of economics and of our minds
from the domination of economism, and a
move toward a dierent collective imagery,
are the preconditions for meaningful change.
Degrowth is “a multifaceted political project
that aspires to mobilize support for a change
of direction, at the macro-level of eco-
nomic and political institutions, and at the
micro-level of personal values and aspira-
tions. Income and material comfort is to
be reduced for many along the way, but
the goal is that this is not experienced as
welfare loss” (Kallis 2011, 878). Normative
principles, such as cooperation and social
justice, are being reintroduced, while social
movements are seen as the major subjects of
5
Richardson wbieg0690.tex V1 - 05/13/2016 6:30 P.M. Page 6
k
k k
k
SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION
change. Many contributions to the debate
do not focus so much on crises or secular
trends of diminishing growth rates in highly
industrialized countries. Rather, they pro-
pose a “voluntary, smooth and equitable
transition to a regime of lower production
and consumption” (Schneider, Kallis, and
Martinez-Alier 2010, 511). Degrowth is
thought of as a conscious societal process
based on a change of values.
5. Contributions from a critical geography/
political ecology perspective (Robbins 2004;
Perreault, McCarthy, and Bridge 2015)
dier from the approaches described above
in focusing more explicitly on issues of
power and domination. Where the social
metabolism approach addresses mainly
physical materiality, political ecology also
takes into account the materiality of social
structures. In political ecology, the terrains
and processes of governance, which tran-
sition management tries to shape in order
to facilitate sustainability transitions, are
less understood as solutions than as part of
the problem. Like practice theories, polit-
ical ecology focuses on the reproduction
of social relations, but also addresses the
contradictions inherent in them and, unlike
the degrowth debate, the political ecology
perspective sees economic growth as a
social relation intrinsically linked to societal
domination that reproduces social structures.
From a political ecology perspective, nature is
societally that is, socioeconomically, culturally,
and politically/institutionally produced and
appropriated. The focus is not on “the envi-
ronment,” but rather on the social forms of
the appropriation of nature: that is, the forms
in which such basic social needs as food and
housing, mobility, communications, and health
and reproduction are satised. This is not to deny
the material peculiarities of biophysical processes
for they are, under certain circumstances, no
longer reproducible, however, they are shaped
by society. And conversely, the materiality of
nature shapes societal processes. Importantly,
the production of scale is considered crucial in
transforming the conditions of access to natural
resources and reshaping societal nature relations.
Political ecology argues that the metabolism of
human society with nature, which is essentially
mediated by labor, assumes a particular form in
capitalist society: the production of use values for
the sake of exchange value and/or prot; a hier-
archy between capital and wage labor as well as
other forms of labor; and, moreover, the develop-
ment of a modern state separated from the cap-
italist economy and the class relationships. The
dynamics of the capitalist economy consists of the
valorization of human labor power and of nature.
Therefore, a crucial assumption regarding
social-ecological transformation is that in mod-
ern capitalist societies, change takes place
continually. “The bourgeoisie cannot exist with-
out constantly revolutionizing the instruments
of production, and thereby the relations of pro-
duction, and with them the whole relations of
society. Conservation of the old modes of pro-
duction in unaltered form, was, on the contrary,
the rst condition of existence for all earlier
industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of
production, uninterrupted disturbance of all
social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and
agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from
all earlier ones” (Marx and Engels 1998/1848,
243). The decisive question is what kind of logic
of transformation is to predominate.
Outlook
For a theoretically adequate understanding
of transformation, it is useful to link political
6
Richardson wbieg0690.tex V1 - 05/13/2016 6:30 P.M. Page 7
k
k k
k
SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION
ecology with critical political economy and social
theory, especially critical state and hegemony
theory. In so doing it can be shown that capi-
talist societies, with their tendencies to destroy
their own material foundations, can in certain
ways develop stabilizing forms of the societal
appropriation of nature. The societal regulation
of interaction with nature is possible and does
in fact occur; herein lies a central dynamic of
politics (Görg 2011). The regulation of societal
nature relations does not imply abolition of the
largely destructive forms of appropriation of
nature. However, the destruction of nature will
not necessarily become an urgent problem for
overall capitalist development, since dangerous
negative impacts can be spatially externalized
and temporarily postponed. This can be seen in
climate change, many eects of which will occur
in the future; those that are indeed manifested
in the present usually occur in more vulnerable,
peripheral places. Crises will particularly occur
at the local and regional levels or are already
occurring there today. However, that fact does
not necessarily call the fundamental structures
and developmental dynamics of capitalism into
question. With regard to a possible scarcity of
resources, we can also see that in the interplay
of fears of global scarcity and local valoriza-
tion strategies, the regulation of societal nature
relations today means new exploration for tar
sands, fracking for natural gas in slate forma-
tions, energy crops which involve the control
and utilization of land, or a partial switch to
solar energy. Insights into the changing forms
of capitalist regulation help to understand the
direction of capitalist development, for example,
toward a selective greening of capitalism.
The thus enhanced critical concept of trans-
formation focuses on complex societal and
social-ecological relations and, in particular,
on their dominant development dynamics.
Moreover, it focuses on structures and processes
by means of which society organizes its mate-
rial foundations, including its metabolism with
nature socioeconomically, politically, culturally,
and subjectively.
Such an analysis would consider the struc-
ture and power of sustainability discourses
(Brand 2010) and the tendencies toward the
“neo-liberalization of nature” (Castree 2008),
that is, the shifting politico-economic and
sociocultural dynamics of the appropriation of
elements of nature. And it would acknowledge
the still powerful structures, interests, and instru-
ments of nancial market capitalism. It would
ascertain that in spite of all tendencies pointing
toward greater sustainability, the state and the
international political institutional system have
tended to reinforce the dominant conditions
and developments. The term “imperial way of
living” (Brand and Wissen 2013) identies a
determining factor why very little is happening
politically, along with such other factors as power
strategies, including repression of criticism and
alternatives, and political co-optation.
Again, this has political-strategic implications.
First, research into social-ecological transforma-
tion needs to consider and evaluate the various
strategies and possibilities for dealing with the
multiple crises, that is, business-as-usual or more
authoritarian alternatives, an imperial deepen-
ing of global fragmentation, social-democratic
steering at various spatial levels, or more
radical-democratic alternatives.
Second, analyzing hegemony, capitalist regula-
tion, and its social forms means considering how
the corridor of both top-down and bottom-up
alternatives tends to be systematically narrowed
down to a form of capitalist ecological modern-
ization. It remains to be seen whether projects
like the greening of the economy or green cap-
italism will be potentially capable of ushering in
a new accumulation dynamic by changing the
energy and resource base.
7
Richardson wbieg0690.tex V1 - 05/13/2016 6:30 P.M. Page 8
k
k k
k
SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION
The question of a democratic shaping of soci-
ety and of societal nature relations would appear
crucial. That implies the democratic control of
resource use, but also of the manifold processes
of production and consumption. This is an
important research perspective to determine
what the already existing democratic forms
of resource control is, which struggles will be
necessary in order to generalize them, and how
they are to be stabilized institutionally. It must
also be determined which demands can be made
in a comprehensive sense for the democratic
structuring of society’s interaction with nature
and to what extent the concrete strategies for
a green economy or a green new deal have a
supportive eect or not. Taking the perspectives
presented into account, it would be necessary to
evaluate whether, and to what extent, a “passive
revolution” in the form of an eco-capitalist
modernization might take place in response to
the multiple crises and how it could be addressed
from an emancipatory perspective.
Acknowledgment
The authors wish to thank Phil Hill for his excel-
lent language editing.
SEE ALSO: Commodication of nature;
Wbieg0332
Consumption; Democracy; Political ecology;
Wbieg0234
Wbieg0837
Wbieg1099 Sustainable development
Wbieg0856
References
Brand, U. 2010. “Sustainable Development and Eco-
logical Modernization the Limits to a Hegemonic
Policy Knowledge.” In Innovation: The European
Journal of Social Science Research, 23(2): 135–152.
Brand, U., A. Brunnengräber, S. Andresen, et al. 2013.
“Debating Transformation in Multiple Crises.” In
World Social Science Report 2013:Changing Global
Environments, edited by UNESCO/OECD/ISSC,
480–484. Paris, OECD Publishing and UNESCO
publishing.
Brand, U., and M. Wissen. 2013. “Crisis and Con-
tinuity of Capitalist Society–Nature Relationships:
The Imperial Mode of Living and the Limits to
Environmental Governance.” Review of International
Political Economy, 20(4): 687–711.
Castree, N. 2008. “Neo-Liberalising Nature: The
Logics of Deregulation and Reregulation.” Envi-
ronment and Planning A, 40(2): 131–52.
Deutscher Frauenrat. 2011. “Cornerstones of
the Deutscher Frauenrat’s Position on a Green
Economy.” Deutscher Frauenrat, Green Econ-
omy Cornerstones. http://www.frauenrat.de/
leadmin/user_upload/infopool/informationen/
dateien/2011-2/120221_DF_green_economy_
eng_nal.pdf (accessed March 28, 2016).
European Commission. 2011. “Roadmap to A
Resource Ecient Europe.” Communication
from the Commission to European Parliament,
the Council, the European Social and Eco-
nomic Committee and the Committee of the
Regions. http://eurlex.europa.eu/legal-content/
EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52011DC0571&
from=EN (accessed March 28, 2016).
Fischer-Kowalski, M. 2011. “Analysing Sustainabil-
ity Transitions as a Shift between Socio-Metabolic
Regimes.” Environmental Innovation and Societal
Transitions, 1(1): 152–159.
Görg, C. 2011. “Societal Relationships with Nature:
A Dialectical Approach to Environmental Politics.”
In Critical Ecologies. The Frankfurt School and Con-
temporary Environmental Crises,editedbyA.Biro,
43–72. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Haberl, H., M. Fischer-Kowalski, F. Krausmann,
et al. (2011). “A Socio-Metabolic Transition
towards Sustainability? Challenges for Another
Great Transformation.” Sustainable Development,
19(1): 1–14.
Hackmann, H., and A.L. St Clair. 2012. Transforma-
tive Cornerstones of Social Science Research for Global
Change. Paris: ISSC.
Kallis, G. 2011. “In Defense of Degrowth.” Ecological
Economics, 70(5): 873–880.
8
Richardson wbieg0690.tex V1 - 05/13/2016 6:30 P.M. Page 9
k
k k
k
SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION
Kemp, René, D. Loorbach, and J. Rotmans. 2007.
“Transition Management as a Model for Manag-
ing Processes of Co-Evolution towards Sustainable
Development.” International Journal of Sustainable
Development&WorldEcology, 14(1): 78–91.
Lander, E. 2011. The Green Economy: The Wolf in
Sheep’s Clothing.Amsterdam:TNI.
Lang, M., and D. Mokrani. 2013. Beyond Development:
Alternative Visions from Latin America.Amsterdam:
Transnational Institute, Rosa Luxemburg Founda-
tion.
Markard, J., R. Raven, and B. Truer. 2012. “Sustain-
ability Transitions: An Emerging Field of Research
and its Prospects.” Research Policy, 41(6): 955–967.
Marx, K., and F. Engels. 1998. “The Communist
Manifesto.” In Socialist Register 1998: Communist
Manifesto Now, edited by L. Panitch, C. Leys. Social-
ist Register, 34: 240–268. (Original work published
in 1848.)
OECD. 2011. “Towards Green Growth.” http://
www.oecd.org/greengrowth/48012345.pdf
(accessed March 28, 2016).
Perreault, T., J. McCarthy, and G. Bridge, eds. 2015.
The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology. London:
Routledge.
Robbins, P. 2004. Political Ecology: A Critical Introduc-
tion. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Røpke, I. 2009. “Theories of Practice: New
Inspiration for Ecological Economic Studies
on Consumption.” Ecological Economics, 68(10):
2490–2497.
Schneider, F., G. Kallis, and J. Martinez-Alier. 2010.
“Crisis or Opportunity? Economic Degrowth for
Social Equity and Ecological Sustainability.” Journal
of Cleaner Production, 18: 511–518.
Shove, E., and G. Walker 2008. “Transition Manage-
ment and the Politics of Shape Shifting.” Environ-
ment and Planning A, 40(4): 1012–1014.
Shove, E., and G. Walker. 2010. “Governing Tran-
sitions in the Sustainability of Everyday Life.”
Research Policy, 39(4): 471–476.
Spaargaren, G. 2011. “Theories of Practices: Agency,
Technology, and Culture Exploring the Rele-
vance of Practice Theories for the Governance
of Sustainable Consumption Practices in the New
World-Order.” Global Environmental Change, 21(3):
813–822.
UN DESA (United Nations Department of Eco-
nomic and Social Aairs). 2011. The Great Green
Technological Transformation: World Economic and
Social Survey 2011. New York: DESA.
UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme).
2011a. Towards a Green Economy: Pathways to Sus-
tainable Development and Poverty Eradication.Nairobi:
UNEP.
UNEP. 2011b. Decoupling Natural Resource Use and
Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth. http://
www.unep.org/resourcepanel/publications/
decoupling/tabid/56048/default.aspx (accessed
March 28, 2016).
Verbong, G., and F. Geels. 2010. “Exploring Sustain-
ability Transitions in the Electricity Sector with
Socio-technical Pathways.” Technological Forecasting
and Social Change, 77(8): 1214–1221.
WBGU (German Advisory Council on Global
Change). 2011. World in Transition: A Social Contract
for Sustainability. Berlin: WBGU.
Wesely, J., G. Feiner, I. Omann, and N. Schäpke.
2014. “Transition Management as an Approach
to Deal with Climate Change.” In Proceedings of
the Transformation in a Changing Climate Conference,
Oslo, 2013, 43–52. University of Oslo.
9
Richardson wbieg0690.tex V1 - 05/13/2016 6:30 P.M. Page 10
k
k k
k
Please note that the abstract and keywords will not be included in the printed book, but
are required for the online presentation of this book which will be published on Wiley
Online Library (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/). If the abstract and keywords are not
present below, please take this opportunity to add them now.
The abstract should be a short paragraph of between 150– 200 words in length and there
should be 5 to 10 keywords
Abstract: “Social-ecological transformation” is an umbrella term which describes recent political,
socioeconomic, and cultural shifts resulting from attempts to address the social-ecological crisis. On
the one hand, think tanks and international organizations have issued reports which provide for an
interpretation of the crisis and propose ways out of it. Their common denominator is that economic
growth can be reconciled with social and environmental objectives. On the other hand, there is an
academic debate in progress which at least in part addresses the crisis in more fundamental ways,
challenging not only existing technologies and market structures, but also the underlying patterns of
production and consumption. It is informed by social ecology, practice theory and political ecology.
This entry presents these two strands of the debate and suggests a combination of political ecology
and critical political economy as a means for better understanding the crisis and for informing the
emancipatory strategies designed to address it.
Keywords: environmental crisis; environmental politics; political ecology; sustainability
... Secondly, to distil the "common problem' that transdisciplinary aims for the viewpoint abstracts from the origin disciplines of CBA -disaster risk reduction, community-based natural resource management, sustainable development -to suggest that its common denominator is adjustments to the currently destructive social metabolism -the material flow or exchange between 'nature' and 'society'. As a third step, the viewpoint argues that a socio-ecological transformation incorporates changing the social metabolism that makes adaptation necessary in the first place (Brand and Wissen, 2017). This also contributes to several attempts in the literature to utilise CBAs potential for transformation and social change (Dodman and Mitlin, 2013;Fox et al., 2021;Nath, 2024). ...
... By examining the activities of the three disciplines placing them in a social-ecological system (SES) and describing their relation to CBA it is possible to name the social metabolism as a common denominator. The social metabolism makes up the physical material interaction between a social and ecological system (Brand and Wissen, 2017) and can as such reveal overproduction and -consumption of resources which is an essential information for communities to shift towards sustainable practices and the identification of vulnerabilities. DRR can be described as a response, CBNRM as stabilisation, and SD as an optimization of the social metabolism in its current destructive form. ...
... It became increasingly clear that ecology and social inequality must be thought together leading to the widely used term social-ecological transformation as a remedy (Brand&Wissen 2017). A socioecological transformation as a concept has very different meanings along academic and practical lines but fundamentally refers to what we think is the reparation and stewardship of the social metabolism in an equitable and sustainable manner (Brand and Wissen, 2017;Bruckmeier, 2016;De Molina and Toledo, 2014). This brings CBA into play. ...
Preprint
Full-text available
Adaptation to the impacts of human induced global heating is inevitable. For a socially just and ecological sustainable adjustment to these new circumstances, we need to draw from diverse knowledge systems while, simultaneously, foster a social-ecological transformation. We approach these concerns through the concept of community-based adaptation (CBA) and discuss remedies. Synergies with feminist knowledge systems and indigenous ways of living show the transdisciplinary essence of CBA. By abstracting from its origin and overlapping disciplines, revealing the social metabolism as a common problem, CBA is prone to achieve more equitable and sustainable adjustments. Transdisciplinarity itself and the current related CBA literature point beyond mere adjustments and call for a redesign of the social metabolism, thereby shifting from adaptation to global heating towards adaptation with nature by focusing on social provisioning. An engagement with transformative adaptation and heterodox economics further shows the potential of CBA to serve as an instrument in support of a social-ecological transformation by addressing root causes of vulnerability and by fostering epistemic justice. Reflecting these points back on the epistemological and ontological assumptions of CBA, the viewpoint proposes critical realism as a guiding philosophy of science to move forward.
... Awareness around the environmental crises has led to discussions around the need to "green" the social market economy (SME) towards the social ecological market economy (SEME). Despite the name, the SEME does not present a real socio-ecological transformation of the German market economy, but rather an incorporation of limited environmental sustainability goals on the margin (e.g., Brand and Wissen 2017b). Proponents have suggested that a true SEME could "reconcile the propelling function of markets with the checks and balances provided and executed by the state" (Altenburg et al. 2008, p. 132), and some have suggested that Germany already has a SEME, pointing to the "success" of the energy transition (Kritikos 2018). ...
... The Social Market Economy (SME) has contributed to prosperity, a high quality of life, and relative political stability in Germany, yet it cannot be guaranteed to do so due to inherent deep ecological and social contradictions (Wendler 2023). As sustained economic growth can no longer guarantee long-term social welfare, there is a pressing need for a shift towards a growth-independent, ecologically stable, and sufficient social and economic systems, a "socio-ecological transformation" with profound changes to existing ways of life (Brand and Wissen 2017b). Such a transformation arguably also directly contradicts the growth imperative and hitherto accepted ideas around emancipation and progress, which mean that democratic legitimacy for such action has so far not been possible suggesting a "glass ceiling" to transformative change (Hausknost 2020). ...
Article
Full-text available
The IPCC (2022) underscores the urgent need to transform economic and social systems to stay within the ~1.5 °C warming threshold, with the pressure placed on states to lead the processes of transformation. Germany’s market economy is currently neither socially nor ecologically sustainable, requiring a socio-ecological transformation towards sustainable consumption and production systems. As the imperatives of the modern democratic welfare state require high levels of material welfare, economic growth and legitimation through (over)consumption, there is currently a “glass ceiling” to any such transformation. Through a combination of empirical research methods, including 11 expert interviews, a gamified citizen workshop with 22 citizens, and a local stakeholder workshop with 27 stakeholders, this paper explores the readiness and perspectives of German citizens, experts, and local stakeholders for a socio-ecological transformation. The findings highlight the contradictory role given to the state in the transformation, the difficulties of transforming “imperial modes of living”, and the collective evasion of responsibility, which suggests a “glass ceiling” to transforming the German market economy into a genuinely social and ecological model.
... Therefore, social innovations are needed that enable alternative practices and forms of economic activity (Brand & Wissen, 2016). These should not strive for growth and profit maximization but address urgent problems without creating new ones (Bruckmeier, 2016). ...
... The openness of this transformation agenda and the setting of concrete steps allow for repetitive reflection and adaptation (Luks, 2019). Fundamentally, considering the status quo in the face of multiple crises of financial, economic, natural, energy, and food systems provides sufficient legitimacy for change (Brand & Wissen, 2016;Sievers-Glotzbach & Tschersich, 2019). Putting these multiple crises into a broader context, the consideration of inter-and intragenerational justice is a commonly accepted perspective in transition and transformation research, giving the reason for change (Brand et al., 2021;Görg et al., 2017;Schneidewind, 2018). ...
Thesis
Full-text available
Germany's energy system is undergoing significant transformations driven by the Energiewende, a comprehensive transition to renewable energy sources. This thesis investigates the role of energy cooperatives (ECs) in this transition, specifically examining whether they serve as social-ecological transformative actors challenging the traditional Energy Economy and contributing to an Energy Democracy. Utilizing an analytical framework based on the social-ecological transformation and the concepts of Energy Democracy and Energy Economy, a systematic review was conducted on the empirical state of German ECs. The findings reveal that while ECs possess transformative elements such as regionality, collaboration, and environmental consciousness, they do not significantly challenge established social-ecological inequalities. ECs exhibit a high degree of social exclusivity and face substantial barriers in influencing political and economic contexts. Consequently, although ECs are not fully transformative actors, they do contribute to the advocacy for a decentralized and collectively managed energy system, embodying the principles of Energy Democracy within the constraints of the existing capitalistic driven Energiewende.
... Estas aproximaciones forman parte, hoy, de estos espacios de discusión política y ciudadana sobre energía y geopolítica. Este marco interpretativo que consolida en organizaciones que participan de estas discusiones, dialoga con la ecología política y busca describir los cambios políticos, socioeconómicos y culturales resultantes de las acciones para abordar la crisis socioecológica actual (Brand & Wissen, 2017). El término se produce desde una posición crítica a aquellas estrategias desarrolladas en marcos de acuerdos de desarrollo sostenible que invisibilizan las condiciones que, desde esta perspectiva, son la base operativa de la crisis ecológica. ...
Technical Report
Full-text available
La transición energética justa se ha instalado en las agendas de los tomadores de decisiones, organizaciones y academia.En este escenario, la idea de una transición energética justa atrae distintas miradas que convergen y disputan el término, estableciendo una variedad de agendas. En el de debate coexisten múltiples enfoques, con sus similitudes y diferencias, tanto al momento de observar el problema como al momento de establecer lineamientos y estrategias de acción para su superación. En la confluencia de estas diversas agendas y perspectivas, es posible observar sus tensiones y los aspectos en común entre ellas. El sentido de urgencia de una transición sociotécnica que pueda hacerse cargo de la crisis climática muchas veces es planteado en contraposición a la necesidad de una transformación profunda y de largo plazo que se haga cargo de las desigualdades del sistema desde su raíz ética y a su vez no refuerce las vulnerabilidades sociales existentes. Además, las distintas miradas articulan la transición energética justa desde comprensiones diferentes sobre lo que constituye una transición, un sistema energético o la justicia. Nos encontramos entonces ante el desafío de poner en diálogo las distintas visiones, conviniendo los criterios susceptibles de ser articulados y reconociendo la relevancia de las problematizaciones que subyacen desde cada representación de la transición energética justa, de modo de facilitar la construcción de acuerdos y la pronta acción. Con este fin, a través del presente documento realizamos una revisión de antecedentes y conceptualizaciones desde estas distintas perspectivas, y la incidencia de cada una en la observación en comprensión de las problemáticas derivadas de la operación de los sistemas energéticos. Este documento nace desde la iniciativa de un grupo de investigadores e investigadoras del Núcleo de Estudios Sistémicos Transdisciplinarios (NEST.R3), y se basa en las reflexiones realizadas a partir de una serie de talleres de revisión y discusión sobre los distintos marcos interpretativos que apelan a una transición energética justa. Nos proponemos reconocer además las tensiones presentes entre los puntos de vista que iremos a ilustrar, y la forma en que se modulan desde esas tensiones las cuestiones de las cuales una transición energética justa puede hacerse cargo. A partir de esta revisión esperamos establecer los elementos críticos de las distintas perspectivas y proponer conceptos de rango medio que faciliten el diagnóstico y la acción.
... Within the Global North, the paradigm of "socio-ecological transformations" describes "political, socioeconomic, and cultural shifts resulting from attempts to address the socioecological crisis" (Brand & Wissen, 2017b, p. 1). 9 In this tradition, critical social scientific debates on the climate crisis have called attention to the structural causes of the challenges involved in order to explain the apparent paradox of why, despite so much knowledge and decades of climate governance, not enough has been done (Brand & Wissen, 2017a;Dietz & Brunnengräber, 2015;Domingues, 2021;Lessenich, 2016). Brand and Wissen (2017b) consider the economic and financial crises of 2007-2008 as the starting point for identifying multiple crises: the ecological crisis, a crisis of political representation and parties, an increase in migration in search of asylum and refugee (the so-called "refugee crisis"), and the care crisis. All of these are situated in what the authors called the imperial mode of living. ...
Article
Full-text available
Climate movements led by students and the youth worldwide (and in particular, those in richer economies) have been recognized as having a formidable voice and making important contributions towards a more radical societal transformation to face the climate crisis. However, little is said about the contribution of popular sectors, who have been mobilizing for decades and demanding broader structural transformations—with proposals that tackle environmental issues more broadly and the climate crisis in particular—but who are not directly involved in climate politics arenas, such as the United Nations Climate Change conferences. Usually portrayed as vulnerable, as those most affected by climate events, as victims and receivers of adaptation strategies, or, as resilient, rarely do popular sectors appear as agents of transformation. Critical scholars have advocated for understanding the climate crisis as part of multiple crises, including the biodiversity crisis, a crisis of care, and a crisis of democracy. Situating our article within this scholarship, we argue that the scholarly and societal debate on climate change will further benefit from broadening the scope of which social subjects are considered as part of the climate movement. Based on our research with rural popular feminist movements in Brazil, and in particular, the coalition Marcha das Margaridas, we address the following questions: how are their diagnostics of, and proposals to, overcome the climate crisis embedded in their broader project of transformation? Additionally, how does their political identity within class, gender, and rural categories of inequality inform their positions?
Chapter
In the preceding chapters, we described the concept of social metabolism in detail and synthesized it in a basic model. We also distinguished three major historical social metabolic regimes, and presented a visual, theoretical framework based on the concepts of entropy, evolution, sustainability, and cooperation.
Chapter
Full-text available
Vor fünfzig Jahren beschlossen die Vereinten Nationen eine grundlegende Veränderung der globalen Wirtschaftsordnung. Die »New International Economic Order« (NIEO) war der erste alternative Globalisierungsentwurf: ein Projekt zur Überwindung kolonialer Wirtschaftsstrukturen zwischen dem Globalen Süden und dem Globalen Norden. Damals verhinderten reiche Industriestaaten die Umsetzung dieses Reformprogramms. Die Beiträger*innen fragen angesichts globaler Armut, der Klimakatastrophe, zunehmender internationaler Konflikte und der Krise des Kapitalismus nach der heutigen Relevanz der NIEO - und zeigen die Dringlichkeit einer radikalen Transformation der Weltwirtschaft auf.
Chapter
Full-text available
Die sozialökologische Transformation ist in aller Munde. Dies gilt sowohl für die politischen Debatten wie auch für die Wissenschaft. Dabei wird zunehmend deutlich: Multiple Krisen lassen sich nicht mehr nur mit Hilfe schrittweiser (Umwelt-)Politiken lösen, sondern es sind strukturelle Veränderungen notwendig. Die Beiträger*innen des Bandes arbeiten Gerechtigkeitsfragen und die gesellschaftspolitische Brisanz ökologischer Verteilungskonflikte im Kontext der Transformation heraus. Durch ihre Analysen unter Bezugnahme auf unterschiedliche Dimensionen von Umweltgerechtigkeit machen sie diese greifbar und liefern Kontextwissen für eine längst überfällige Diskussion.
Article
Full-text available
Over the last two million years, humans have colonized almost the entire biosphere on Earth, thereby creating socio-ecological systems in which fundamental patterns and processes are co-regulated by socio-economic and ecological processes. We postulate that the evolution of coupled socio-ecological systems can be characterized by a sequence of relatively stable configurations, here denoted as ‘socio-metabolic regimes’, and comparatively rapid transitions between such regimes. We discern three fundamentally different socio-metabolic regimes: hunter-gatherers, agrarian societies and industrial society. Transitions between these regimes fundamentally change socio-ecological interactions, whereas changes and variations within each regime are gradual. Two-thirds of the world population are currently within a rapid transition from the agrarian to the industrial regime. Many current global sustainability problems are a direct consequence of this transition. The central hypothesis discussed in this article is that industrial society is at least as different from a future sustainable society as it is from the agrarian regime. The challenge of sustainability is, therefore, a fundamental re-orientation of society and the economy, not the implementation of some technical fixes. Based on empirical data for global resource use (material and energy flows, land use), this essay questions the notion that the promotion of eco-efficiency is sufficient for achieving sustainability, and outlines the reasons why a transition to a new socio-metabolic regime is now required. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Book
The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology presents a comprehensive and authoritative examination of the rapidly growing field of political ecology. Located at the intersection of geography, anthropology, sociology, and environmental history, political ecology is one of the most vibrant and conceptually diverse fields of inquiry into nature-society relations within the social sciences. The Handbook serves as an essential guide to this rapidly evolving intellectual landscape. With contributions from over 50 leading authors, the Handbook presents a systematic overview of political ecology's origins, practices and core concerns, and aims to advance both ongoing and emerging debates. While there are numerous edited volumes, textbooks, and monographs under the heading 'political ecology,' these have tended to be relatively narrow in scope, either as collections of empirically based (mostly case study) research on a given theme, or broad overviews of the field aimed at undergraduate audiences. The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology is the first systematic, comprehensive overview of the field. With authors from North and South America, Europe, Australia and elsewhere, the Handbook of Political Ecology provides a state of the art examination of political ecology; addresses ongoing and emerging debates in this rapidly evolving field; and charts new agendas for research, policy, and activism. The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology introduces political ecology as an interdisciplinary academic field. By presenting a 'state of the art' examination of the field, it will serve as an invaluable resource for students and scholars. It not only critically reviews the key debates in the field, but develops them. The Handbook will serve as an excellent resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate teaching, and is a key reference text for geographers, anthropologists, sociologists, environmental historians, and others working in and around political ecology. © 2015 Tom Perreault, Gavin Bridge, and James McCarthy. All rights reserved.
Article
Aim: Adenocarcinoma is one of the most common malignant tumors of the small intestine complicating Crohn disease. However, the coexistence of both neoplasms with diverticulosis of small bowel in young age makes this coincidence rare and clinical diagnosis very difficult. Case presentation: We report a case of a woman admitted to our department with acute abdominal pain and fever. The surgical and histological investigation, revealed a rare coexistence that has never been mentioned in the published medical literature. Conclusions: Ileal diverticulosis is not frequent and often asymptomatic as well as adenocarcinoma of small bowel. In this case, those diseases along with Crohn disease leaded the patient to acute symptoms.
Book
"The Green Growth Strategy, outlined in this book, provides recommendations and measurement tools to support countries' efforts to achieve economic growth and development, while at the same time ensure that natural assets continue to provide the ecosystem services on which our well being relies. The strategy proposes a flexible policy framework that can be tailored to different country circumstances and stages of development."--Publisher's description.
Article
Within the environmental social sciences, theories of practices are used by an increasing number of authors to analyze the greening of consumption in the new, global order of reflexive modernity. The use of practices as key methodological units for research and governance is suggested as a way to avoid the pitfalls of the individualist and systemic paradigms that dominated the field of sustainable consumption studies for some decades. With the help of practice theory, environmental governance can be renewed in three particular ways: First, the role and responsibilities (not) to be assigned to individual citizen-consumers in environmental change can be specified. Secondly, objects, technologies and infrastructures can be recognized for their crucial contribution to climate governance without lapsing into technological determinism. Third, the cultural framing of sustainability can be enriched by looking into the forms of excitement generated in shared practices of sustainable consumption. We conclude by discussing the need to investigate the globalization of practices from a post-national perspective in both science and policy.