Greening the economy: interrogating sustainability innovations beyond the mainstream

Abstract

Current international economic and environmental conditions have led to increasing calls for alternative pathways of development. Globally the language of a green economy is being promoted as a means to develop a ‘win-win’ for the economy and the environment. There are concerns, however, that the emerging frameworks for sustainable economic renewal marginalise social dimensions of sustainability and the already existing practices of sustainability innovation within the social economy. Using empirical evidence from Ireland this article examines the dimensions of this marginalisation by interrogating the dynamic landscape of environmentally-focused social economy enterprises (ESEEs) as additional spaces of sustainability innovation for a greener economy. It is found that while these enterprises can be cast as spaces of actually existing sustainable development tensions persist which together raise general questions about measuring and communicating sustainability as well as more foundational issues relating to permissible forms of sustainable economic renewal.