Green capitalism and unjust sustainabilities

Resumé

Climate change and other global environmental challenges are pushing societies and political systems to critically reflect on the role of business as a problem and as a solution to these crises. Sustainability has become a commodity itself, to be traded, bought, sold and managed like all others. How lead firms in global value chains address sustainability issues has become a key competitive element and a source of value creation and capture – facilitating a process of ‘green capital accumulation’. In this article, I briefly examine how green capitalism is leading to new forms of inequality and provide an agenda for ‘just sustainabilities’ that can help building a social foundation for an inclusive and stable economic and productive system operating within our environmental planetary boundaries.