The green economy: reconceptualizing the natural commons as natural capital

Boehnert, J ORCID: 0000-0002-8990-0325 (2016) 'The green economy: reconceptualizing the natural commons as natural capital.' Environmental Communication, 10 (4). pp. 395-417.

Abstract

The green economy is an emergent approach to sustainable development launched at Rio+20. Herein environmental decision-making is increasingly achieved through economistic processes and logic. The natural commons are quantified and managed as natural capital. This paper summarizes the trajectory of the project and its ideological framework. It examines various conceptualizations of economic approaches to the environment and considers philosophical, methodological, and political problems associated with the green economy project. In the face of very different definitions of what constitutes a green economy, environmental communicators face a situation characterized by discursive confusion as the complexity of natural capital accounting processes conceal new political configurations. Counter movements argue that the green economy program is performing ideological work that uses language of environmentalism to obscure an intensified agenda of neoliberal governance and capital accumulation. The concept now has contradictory meanings. Environmental communicators have an important role to play in exposing the contested nature of the project and in helping to define the emerging green economy.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	green economy, commons, ecological economics, natural capital, neoliberalism
Divisions:	Bath School of Design
Date Deposited:	11 Dec 2023 19:38
Last Modified:	11 Dec 2023 19:38
ISSN:	1752-4032
URI / Page ID:	https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/15916

	Request a change to this item or report an issue
	Update item (repository staff only)