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Prospects for an Environmental Economic Geography: Linking Ecological Modernization andRegulationist ApproachesAuthor(s): David GibbsSource: Economic Geography, Vol. 82, No. 2 (Apr., 2006), pp. 193-215Published by: Clark UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30033058 .

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Economic Geography 82(2): 193-215, 2006. z 2006 Clark University. http://www.clarku.edu/econgeography

Prospects for an Environmental Economic Geography: Linking Ecological Modernization and Regulationist

Approaches David Gibbs

Department of Geography, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, United Kingdom

[email protected]

Abstract: Although the "new" economic geography has explored links between the subdiscipline's traditional areas of study and cultural, institutional, and political realms, environmental issues remain comparatively underresearched within the subdiscipline. This article contends not only that the environment is of key importance to economic geography, but also that economic geographers can make an important contribution to environmental debates, through providing not just a better analysis and theoretical understanding, but also better policy proscription. Rather than claim new intellectual territory, the intention is to suggest potential creative opportunities for linking economic geography's strengths with those insights from other theoretical perspectives. In particular, this article focuses upon linking insights from ecological modernization theory, developed by environmental sociologists, with regulationist approaches.

Key words: economic geography, environment, ecological modernization, regulation theory.

Few economic geographers have developed a serious engagement with environmental issues. (Dicken 2004, 17)

As the quotation from Peter Dicken attests, the environment has rarely been an important subject for the majority of economic geographers. There have been some sporadic attempts to address the issue in the past (Walker, Storper, and Gersh 1979; Stafford 1985), as well as a growing number of more recent contributions (see, e.g., Angel 2000; Bridge 2000; Bridge and McManus 2000; Hudson 2001; Gibbs 2002),

but these efforts have not been translated into a major research focus for the subdiscipline (see Angel 2000 on the historical roots of this neglect). Although the "new" economic geography has made important forays into the cultural, institutional, and political (Yeung 2003; see also the articles in Environment and Planning A, vol. 33, 2001, and Antipode, vol. 33, 2001), environmental issues remain comparatively underresearched within the subdiscipline. There are, however, a number of key reasons why economic geographers may want to engage with an environmental agenda. First,

This article draws upon research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (Grants R000237997 and R000239428). An earlier version was presented at the conference Environmental Economic Geography: State of the Art and Prospects, University of Cologne, 23-28 May 2004. I am grateful to Dietrich Soyez and Christian Schulz for giving me the opportunity to present the paper at that conference and to the conference participants for their comments on it. I am also grateful to Arthur Mol and Rob Krueger for their comments on a revised version of the article. Three anonymous reviewers provided a helpful and insightful critique of the article, and I am grateful for their suggestions and those of Henry Yeung on expanding and restructuring the article. All errors and omissions remain my responsibility.

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194 ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY APRIL 2006

there are important implications for future research in economic geography consequent upon environmental change. In relation to this point, there is general scientific agreement that we are experiencing major environmental changes as a consequence of human activities, the most important of which are enhanced atmospheric global warming, climate change, sea-level changes, biodiversity loss, deforestation, and habitat destruction. The consequences of these environmental changes are likely to have major implications for future economic activities. For example, climate change could have a range of related outcomes, including shifting patterns of agricultural production, storm and flood damage (which has already imposed a heavy burden upon the insurance sector), desertification, water shortages, and increased movement of migrant workers.

Second, there are implications for the subdiscipline's existing objects of study. Thus, the causes of much environmental degradation are (at least partially) produced by sectors that have been extensively studied by economic geographers. Perhaps the most obvious of these sectors is the automobile sector and its contribution to carbon emissions, but much high-technology-related development also has negative environmental consequences. Far from being the clean industries of popular imagination, the high-technology sectors of locales such as Silicon Valley may be significant polluters and may provide unhealthy working conditions (Pellow and Park 2002). Indeed, the economic success of such areas, as measured in conventional gross domestic product (GDP) terms, which economic geographers have sought to analyze and propose policies for replication in less prosperous regions, frequently lead to traffic congestion, poor air quality, groundwater pollution, and the loss of landscape amenities. Similarly, the rapid growth of many Asian economies, which has also received attention from economic geographers (Yeung and Lin 2003), is having major impacts upon the quality of water and air, the loss of habi- tats, and mineral extraction (Angel and Rock 2000), and the increased demand for oil and

mineral resources and a host of consumption goods (Harris and Udagawa 2004). Although Schoenberger (2003) argued that the need to address environmental problems in many of these countries has opened up opportunities for environmental consultan- cies and pollution-control manufacturers in a new form of "spatial fix" for capitalism, for the most part, the environmental impacts have received much less attention than the purely economic consequences. Debates around globalization are also relevant in this regard, with a range of environmental impacts arising from the expansion of global trade, manufacturing production, growing consumption, increased airline travel, and biodiversity prospecting by transnational corporations (TNCs)1 (Angel 2000). Finally, there is the question of the relevance of the subject and the role of economic geographers in policy-related research (Peck 1999). Despite the growing importance of environmental policy and the incorpora- tion of sustainability aims into policy at all spatial scales to link economic, environmental, and social outcomes, economic geographers have largely been absent from these debates, resulting in "an apparent discon- nect between the interests and capabilities of economic geography and many 'real- world' problems," including environmental degradation (Bridge 2002, 364). In total, then, there are good reasons why economic geographers should pay much greater attention to environmental issues in their own work. However, given that a large body of research on the environment exists outside the subdiscipline (both within and outside geography), does it matter whether economic geographers contribute to the debate? Can economic geographers bring any additional insights into environmental research? If so, what is the distinctive contribution and insights that they can make?

1 The globalization of waste disposal and recycling may also be added here. Much of the electronics and plastics waste from the United Kingdom, for example, is increasingly disposed of or recycled in China, often under environmentally hazardous conditions for the workforce.



VOL. 82 No. 2 ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 195 What are the benefits for the subdiscipline? How can economic geographers engage with these debates both theoretically and empirically? In this article, I argue that economic geographers can make an important contribution by providing not just a better analysis and theoretical understanding, but also better policy proscription. In so doing, my aim is not necessarily "to claim new intellectual territory," but "to suggest potential creative opportunities" (Bridge 2002, 372) for linking economic geography's strengths with insights from other theoretical perspectives. As Soyez (2002, 203) suggested in relation to incorporating environmental perspectives, "a better understanding of other knowledge domains as well as an integration of other disciplines' findings would contribute to broaden and deepen existing approaches. Thus more boundary-permeating work lies ahead for Industrial (and Economic) Geography." As a modest begin- ning, in this article, I explore the potential to link work in environmental sociology on ecological modernization, with its central focus upon the economy-environment interface, with work in economic geography from a regulationist perspective. Work from an ecological modernization perspective has perhaps gone the furthest in investigating the processes at work and has proved influ- ential in policy formulation (Carolan 2004). However, the way in which the two approaches conceptualize the economy-environment relationship differs. As Angel (2000, 610) argued, a key area for investigation is

the capacity for, and determinants of, reforms of existing production systems and modes of social regulation to bring about substantial improvements in the environmental performance or economic activity (both production and consumption), and to do so in ways that support other societal goals, such as improvements in social welfare.

By combining elements of ecological modernization with insights from regulationist work in economic geography, we can gain a better understanding of these capacities and determinants.

I argue that this boundary-permeating endeavor will enable us to move beyond the relative rigidities of both ecological modernization and regulationist work, opening up opportunities to explore the potential for ecological sustainability within different development options and the ways in which this potential may be promoted through policy initiatives, while seeing the latter as a material and discursive process. It offers a way to combine high-level theoretical work within economic geography with the kinds of everyday interventions and outcomes that are examined in ecological modernization. Combining these two approaches will open up opportunities for debate about the future trajectory of economic activities, avoiding both the overoptimism of normative ecological modernization approaches and the pessimism of some political economists. In this manner, we can begin to think through the economic and societal forms, as well as institutional changes, that are needed for greater ecological sustainability.

Such an approach also offers opportunities for economic geographers to engage more substantively with environmental debates. I suggest that there are a number of key concerns within economic geography for which existing expertise provides an entry point into these environmental debates. For example, ecological modernization, at least in its stronger formulations, can offer a substantive political challenge to neoliberal ideologies, and further work in this area could help to progress economic geographers' well-developed critiques of neoliberalism and to promote more progressive agendas. Similarly, there are opportunities to examine how existing objects of study, such as the impacts of globalization, articu- late with shifts toward ecological modernization. For example, recent work on corporate production strategies and their spatial organization has revealed that the development of global production standards has improved environmental performance as corporations develop firm-based standards that exceed national legislation (Angel and Rock 2005). It is in these kinds of areas where economic geographers, with their




expertise in combining theoretical insights with careful empirical work, have much to offer in exploring the potential for greater articulation between the economic and environmental spheres.

In the next two sections of this article, I outline the main arguments of ecological modernization research and present a critique of ecological modernization research. I then examine some of the key insights to be gained through a regulationist perspective, followed by an exploration of the potential contribution of using regulationist approaches to rethink ecological modernization. In the following sections, I explore how the linkages between the two approaches could be developed and the value-added that may be gained from linking the two and provide some foci for potential empirical work. In the conclusion, I draw the main arguments together.

Ecological Modernization At the heart of ecological modernization

is a relatively optimistic view of the potential for technological change to lead to solutions for environmental problems (Buttel 2000a). As Roberts and Colwell (2001, 424) observed, "ecological modernisation suggests that it is possible to integrate the goals of economic development, social welfare and environmental protection, and that through this reconciliation synergies will be generated which can be harnessed and put to good use." The concept was first developed in the 1980s by Huber (1982) and

Janicke (1985). Huber (1982, 1985) argued that industrial society should undergo a transition toward an ecologically rational organization of production on the basis of a changed relationship between the economy and ecology. He termed this transition an "ecological switchover" and, using a biolog- ical metaphor, stated that through this process, "the dirty and ugly industrial cater- pillar will transform into a[n] ecological butterfly" (Huber 1985, 20). Ecological modernization envisages the progressive modernization of the institutions of modern society-the basic argument is that the

central institutions of modern society can be transformed to avoid an ecological crisis (Mol and Spaargaren 1993). It can be compared to approaches based on deep ecology or ecol- ogism that see the need for a thoroughgoing and radical restructuring of society (see, e.g., Bliihdorn 2000), An ecological modernization approach would involve structural change at both the macroeconomic level, through broad sectoral shifts in the economy, and the microeconomic level, for example, through the use of new and clean technologies by individual firms (Gouldson and Murphy 1997). Over time, as Buttel (2000b, 30) observed, there will be a shift toward "improvement in the efficiency of conver- sion of raw materials into finished products and to [a] reduction in the quantity and toxi- city of the waste stream from industry."

The concept of ecological modernization has been developed as both a theory and a guide to more pragmatic policy action. As a theoretical concept, it has been used to analyze changes to the central institutions in modem society that are deemed necessary to solve the ecological crisis. In this use of the concept, ecological modernization represents a major transformation, or Huber's "ecological switchover," of the process of industrialization to a different basis that takes account of the need to main- tain the sustenance base. Theoretically,

the social dynamics behind these changes, that is the emergence of actual environment- induced transformations of institutions and social practices in industrialised societies, are encapsulated in the ecological modernisation theory. This theory tries to understand, interpret and conceptualise the nature, extent and dynamics of this transformation process. (Mol 2002, 93)

Ecological modernization indicates the possibility of overcoming environmental crises without leaving the path of modernization (Mol and Spaargaren 1993). The assumption is that processes of production and consumption can be restructured on ecological terms through the institutionalization of ecological aims (Mol 1994). This does not simply mean taking environmental factors



VOL. 82 No. 2 ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 197

into account, "but also ensuring that they are structurally 'anchored' in the reproduction of these institutional clusters of production and consumption" (Spaargaren, Mol, and Buttel 2000b, 6).

From the initial formulations in the 1980s, a number of approaches have developed in ecological modernization theory (for overviews, see Mol and Spaargaren 2000; Spaargaren, Mol, and Buttel 2000a; Mol and Sonnenfeld 2000). Mol (1999) identified three broad phases in the development of the theory. In the first phase, developed by Huber (1982, 1985) and Jinicke (1985), there was a heavy emphasis on the role of technological innovation, a critical attitude toward the state, and a belief in the power of market forces and actors to deliver change. Huber's perspective was that ecological modernization offers a way out of ecological crisis through more industrialization, albeit with changed production and consumption. However, this view has been criticized for overemphasizing the industrial and technological aspects and neglecting the social context within which they occur. In Huber's initial work, the ecological switchover is a logical, necessary, and inevitable stage in the development of the industrial system. From this perspective, technological developments are largely autonomously determined and engender change in industrial systems and their relations with the social and natural environment. From a policy perspective, the dominant role envisaged for technological change means that in Huber's approach, the state has little role in redirecting the processes of production and consumption.

The second phase of work, from the late 1980s onward, placed less emphasis on technological determinism as a driving force, had a more balanced perspective on the role of state and market forces in the process of ecological modernization, and emphasized institutional and cultural dynamics (Harvey 1996; Mol 1999). For example, Hajer (1993) proposed that there are two interpretations of ecological modernization: the initial "techno-corporatist" interpretation of Huber, which emphasizes the "economization of

nature" and elitist decision-making structures, and another interpretation that not only stresses changes in production and consumption, but does so through greater democratization, redistribution, and social justice. Hajer further developed the second interpretation of ecological modernization, drawing on the work of Beck (1992), as reflexive ecological modernization, whereby political and economic development proceed on the basis of critical self-awareness involving public scrutiny and democratic control. Christoff (1996) characterized these two interpretations as "weak" and "strong" versions of ecological modernization (see Table 1). The third phase of work on ecological modernization theory has paid more attention to consumption processes and has attempted to deal with criticism that ecological modernization is a Eurocentric approach (Mol 1999). Fudge and Rowe (2001, 1528-29) summed up this third phase as one in which:

environmental problems are conceptualised as challenges for (preventative) social, tech- nical, and economic reform; market dynamics and economic agents are seen as increasingly important; the nation-state is transformed towards the more decentralised and consensual styles of governance which characterise ecological modernisation; social movements modify their roles so that reform ideologies take preference over confrontation with the state; and intergenerational solidarity towards environmental protection is assumed.

Ecological modernization is also used to describe a more pragmatic political program to redirect environmental policy making (Huber 1985). Proponents of ecological modernization have argued that this process is already at work in countries like Japan, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark as material flows have become delinked from economic flows, with a decline in the use of natural resources and emissions (Mol 2002). As a pragmatic political program, ecological modernization approaches suggest that this process will engender support from private-sector businesses, given that it can have benefi-




Table 1

Characteristics of "Weak" and "Strong" Ecological Modernization

'"Weak" Ecological Modernization "Strong" Ecological Modernization

Technological solutions to environmental problems Broad changes to institutional and economic structure of society incorporating ecological concerns

Technocratic/corporatist styles of policy making by Open, democratic decision making with participation scientific, economic, and political elites and involvement

Restricted to developed nations who use ecological Concerned with the international dimensions of the modernization to consolidate their global economic environment and development advantages

A single, closed-ended framework on political and A more open-ended approach with no single view, but economic development multiple possibilities with ecological modernization

providing orientation

Source: Derived from Christoff (1996).

cial outcomes (Hajer 1995; Harvey 1996). It is claimed that business can gain advantages in a number of ways: through greater efficiency owing to reduced pollution and waste production; avoiding future financial liabil- ities, such as the potential cost of the cleanup of contaminated land; improved recruitment and retention of the workforce because of the creation of a better work environment; the potential for increased sales of more "environmentally friendly" products and services; and the sale of pollution-preven- tion and pollution-abatement technologies (Dryzek 1997). As a political program, a shift toward ecological modernization would involve a number of interrelated measures: the restructuring of production and consumption toward ecological goals, including the development and diffusion of clean production technologies; the decou- pling of economic development from the relevant resource inputs, resource use, and emissions; the exploration of alternative and innovative approaches to environmental policy, such as "economizing ecology," by placing an economic value on nature and introducing structural tax reform; the integration of environmental policy goals into other policy areas; and the invention, adoption, and diffusion of new technologies and production processes. (Mol 1999, 171) suggested that

environmental reforms in environmental policy can be classified as ecological modernisation

if they move away from a pure hierarchical, state-dictated model of environmental change; if they increase flexibility and involvement of non-state actors via negotiations, market mechanisms and dynamics, and "self-regulation" within legal and state-set boundaries; and if the technological dimensions of environmental reform do not remain limited to only technological devices of one product, emission or production process step, but include higher aggregation levels, production-consumption chains and economic networks, and organisational adaptations of socio-technological complexes.

Despite the growing importance of ecological modernization as both a theory and a pragmatic program, relatively few geographers, and even fewer economic geographers, have explicitly engaged in the ecological modernization debate (for an exception, see the special issue of Geoforum 2000). However, strong parallels with ecological modernization can be seen in the work of Hayter and Le Heron (2002) and Hudson (2000, 2001). Hayter and Le Heron drew upon research by Freeman (1992) on tech- noeconomic paradigms (TEPs) to develop his suggestion that a "green paradigm" will form the basis of future economic development. This paradigm, they suggested, will involve both technological and institutional changes. It will revolve around the dema- terialization of the economy, the internal- ization of environmental values by industry, and the prioritization of the environment



VOL. 82 No. 2 ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 199 within research and development (R&D), as well as take-back strategies and a shift toward selling services, rather than products. In Freeman's original theorization, new TEPs arise when the economy is confronted by crises that cannot be solved by the existing TEPs. However, far from being a technological determinist argument, in a similar manner to ecological modernization, emphasis is placed on the development of a set of matching institutional forms, including business organization, labor relations, R&D structures, and international regulatory forms. While Hayter and Le Heron (2002) did not use the term, there are strong parallels between their view of a green TEP and ecological modernization. As they noted,

In a green TEP, environmental imperatives become explicit motives for systemic change. In a green paradigm, innovation priorities are oriented to radically reducing the use of energy and materials in transportation, construction and manufacturing systems ... the resource management phase of the ICT is replaced by the phase of eco-development as ecological definitions of productivity recognise the non-industrial values of nature and seek to provide practical definitions for the idea of sustained development. (Hayter and Le Heron 2002, 20)

Similarly, Hudson (2000, 2001) developed the idea of "eco-Keynesianism" as a way of resolving the competing pressures of gener- ating profits, providing work, and protecting the natural environment. He argued that this would be "a radically reformist attempt to combine environmental and social sustainability while respecting the profitability imperatives of a capitalist economy" (Hudson 2001, 321). Although his "sustainable eco-capitalism" has a much stronger emphasis on social justice, as with ecological modernization, it similarly involves the widespread use of clean technologies and environmentally friendly production. Other geographers have similarly drawn implicitly upon the concepts of ecological modernization. Soyez (2002), for example, used the

term eco-modernization as a synonym for ecological modernization.

In total, then, it could be argued that ecological modernization has a well-developed perspective on how to conceptualize economy-environment relationships and a set of policy prescriptions that, if taken as a whole, would engender the development of a new economic trajectory. Concepts derived from work on ecological modernization have certainly become incorporated into the policy agenda, even if their actual implementation has been limited and they are drawn from the "weak" conceptions in Table 1 (Watts 2002; Barry and Paterson 2003).

Ecological Modernization: A Critique

Although I do not contend that institutional changes and environmental improvements have not occurred or that the changes advocated by the proponents of ecological modernization are not desirable, there are a number of problems with ecological modernization as a theory. One criticism of ecological modernization as both theory and discourse is that it can help to legitimate an environmental policy-making culture that absolves private-sector businesses and major corporations of their environmental respon- sibilities (Bliihdorn 2000; Buttel 2000a). Indeed, this may be one reason for its widespread popularity. While ecological modernization may be predicated upon the potential transformation of capitalist economies, it is also liable, as a discourse, to be "corrupted into yet another discursive repre- sentation of dominant forms of economic power" (Harvey 1996, 82), resulting in greater dominance of global resources by transnational industry, national governments, and "big science" in the name of sustainability. Harvey (1996, 380) suggested that "the discourse would not have had the purchase it evidently has had without a significant tranch of support from the heart- land of contemporary political-economic power." As he stated:




many corporations, like IBM, saw a great deal of profit to be had from superior environmental technologies and stricter global environmental regulation. For the advanced capitalist nations, struggling to remain competitive, the imposition of strong environmental regulations demanding high-tech solutions promised not only a competitive advantage to their own industries but also a strong export market for the more environmentally friendly technology they had developed. (Harvey 1996, 382)

Second, despite a focus on the institutional reorganization of society, ecological modernization approaches often contain little detailed analysis of the forms of institutional adaptation or change that are required. The appearance of institutional changes is presented as evidence that "ecological rationality" has started to challenge "economic rationality" (Mol 2002). Although Janicke (1997) focused on the "environmental capacity" of states to make the shift to ecological modernization and others have argued that the integration of social and environmental movements into the policy- making process is driving the process forward (Weidner 2002), there is still little detail of the form of institutional adaptation or change required at the nation-state level, let alone at subnational scales. This is a product of the undertheorization of the state in ecological modernization. In early accounts, the role of the (central, regional, or local) state was seen as minimal (Huber 1982, 1985). In later accounts, there was a more sophisticated understanding that the state performs an enabling and contextually steering role. One argument is that ecological modernization sublimates the "enabling state" as the institutional response that will secure the efficient functioning of the market economy within a framework of state regulation (Blowers 1997). Blowers argued that this enabling state will deliver ecological modernization through corporatist relationships between government and industry, although co-opting environmental movements when necessary. Certainly, many accounts have recognized the continued importance of the nation-state, albeit one

that is no longer solely responsible (if it ever was) for environmental governance (Sonnenfeld and Mol 2002b). This failure to conceptualize the state and the social processes at work adequately means that the type of embedded cultural transformations that will sustain factors, such as environmental improvements, reduced consumption, and greater equity, are unlikely to be realized (Cohen 1997, 1998; Jamison and Baark 1999).

Third, ecological modernization lacks a theory of power relations. In some accounts, the assumption often appears to be that the logic of ecological modernization is so obvious (and profitable for business) that its widespread adoption is simply a matter of time as long as a mix of international civil society and environmental nongovernmental organizations keep up the pressure (McCarthy 2004). As Leroy and van Tatenhove (2000, 197) commented, "as nobody seems to oppose it-and as the theory lacks power relations, there is hardly any room for opposition at all, ecological modernisation is assumed to occur almost automatically." In other accounts, ecological modernization will only occur if

sufficient societal, political, administrative, and organisational capacity is available and then only in response to the strength of specific hypothesised variables, such as strong corporatist institutions, the innovative character of legal and informational systems, and a certain regulatory proficiency. (Andersen 2002, 1395)

However, the reasons why such changes should have occurred and when and where are not addressed. The implementation of policy, however, is about the exercise of political and economic power, and although this is rarely made explicit, ecological modernization is a fundamentally political concept (Owens 1994; McCarthy and Prudham 2004). Whether it can be introduced depends upon "who is in control, who sets agendas, who allocates resources, who mediates disputes, who sets the rules of the game" (Wilbanks 1994, 544). Ecological modernization is thus as much an ideolog-




ical and political issue as it is an ecological and economic one (O'Connor 1994). While I do not suggest that proponents of ecological modernization are unaware of these issues, the driving force behind the development of "environmental capacity" and institutional reorganization is rarely made explicit, although there is a strong emphasis upon market-based measures and pressures from civil society (Weidner 2002). Similarly, while some authors have argued that "ecological subversion" may reverse the "semi-permanent character" (Mol 2002, 94) of the ecological modernization process, the motivation for it is not made explicit (Andersen 2002).

Harvey (1996, 401) therefore argued that ecological modernization needs a more radical edge to it if it is to lead to any substantive changes:

And that requires confronting the fundamental underlying processes (and their associated power structures, social relations, institutional configurations, discourses and belief systems) that generate environmental and social injus- tices. ... Alternative modes of production, consumption, and distribution as well as alternative modes of environmental transformation have to be explored if the discursive spaces of the environmental justice movement and the theses of ecological modernisation are to be conjoined in a programme of radical political action.

To some extent, this point is recognized in the work of Hajer (1995) and his "argumentative approach." Here, politics comes in "as a struggle for discursive hegemony in which actors try to secure support for their definition of reality" (Hajer 1995, 263). In this case, the discourse of ecological modernization, at least in its weak version, is "politically attractive since it provides a way of accommodating radical environmental critics, and of motivating the need to restruc- ture the industrial core of the ailing Western economies, thus giving new strength to beliefs in the possibility of socio-political mastery and control" (Lundqvist 2000, 28). However, ecological modernization is not (yet, at least) a distinct social theory; to

become so, it "must ultimately be a theory of politics and the state-that is, a theory of the changes in the state and political practices (and a theory of the antecedents of these changes)" (Buttel 2000a, 58). It is here that exploring developments in economic geography that have approached environmental issues from a regulationist perspective may provide a means of reconfiguring ecological modernization.

Regulationist Approaches A substantial body of work in economic

geography in recent years has used concepts drawn from political economy as a means to understand economic change (Peck 2000). From a political economy perspective, the economy is viewed as both an object of regulation and a focus of struggle between local actors and groups, each of which may achieve different outcomes as a result of the types of policies and regulations that are introduced (Cocklin and Blunden 1998). Regulation theory analyzes society and its institutions at three interactive levels: the mode of production, the regime of accumulation, and the mode of social regulation. In regulationist terminology, the concept of the mode of social regulation focuses attention on institutional structures, political practices, regulatory mechanisms, social networks, and norms that (together with production strategies) ensure the reproduction of a particular regime of accumulation. The mode of social regulation

should not be reduced to state institutions, but also embraces a series of "softer" (and often analytically quite intractable) forms of regulation, such as consumption norms, societal expectations, economic habits and conventions, and cultural practices, which together define the social context of the accumulation process. (Peck 2000, 64)

A mode of regulation will stabilize for a while, but ultimately the extant mode of regulation for a particular regime of accumulation cannot resolve the contradictions and gives way to a period of crisis and transformation. In these periods of crisis, new




structural forms emerge, some of which may form the basis of a new period of stability and hence a new mode of regulation, and others of which may be short-lived experi- ments. Regulation theory does not predict the exact form of an emerging regime of accumulation, but is a conceptual framework for understanding processes of capitalist growth, crisis, and reproduction. It focuses on relationships, mainly at the macroeconomic level, between the accumulation process and the ensemble of institutional forms and practices that together constitute the mode of social regulation (Peck and Miyamachi 1994). These institutional forms and practices guide and stabilize the accumulation process and create a temporary resolution of the crisis tendencies that are seen to be endemic in the accumulation process. The mode of regulation is neither predetermined nor inevitable, since structural forms are the outcome of social struggles and conflict (Painter 1991). The mode of regulation is the means of institutional- izing these struggles between competing interests that lead to the bounds that reproduce and legitimate the balance between production and consumption within a particular regime of accumulation (Marsden et al. 1993).

Angel (2000, 615) suggested that a regulationist approach "will likely be the most significant platform through which the environment is brought into economic geography" for two main reasons. First, the historical periodization of capitalist production is helpful in understanding contemporary environmental problems because it allows for the material constraints that are imposed by the environment upon the economy to be disentangled from the political challenges that it poses. Second, it provides an effective framework for examining the processes of environmental regulation (or "real" regulation), in which the mode of regulation also includes a social mode of environmental regulation. A third reason may be that whereby a regulationist approach articulates the kinds of technological changes that are envisaged in ecological modernization accounts with institu-

tional changes and, in so doing, offers an explanation for change that couples, rather than collapses, the two (Bridge and McManus 2000). However,

the critical challenge will be to go beyond the application of economy-environment relations to an analysis of how the dynamics of economy-environment relations requires a rethinking of regulation theory itself.... It is far from clear that the current periodisation of economic transformation proposed by regulation theory matches up to the changing patterns of economy-environment relations within advanced industrial economies. (Angel 2000, 615)

The regulation of ecological relations is therefore as important as the usual objects of regulationist analysis (Robertson 2004). Indeed, it is in this respect that some economic geographers have attempted to link explanatory insights from a regulationist perspective to environmental analysis (see Gibbs 1996, 2002; Gandy 1997; Bakker 2000; Bridge 2000; Bridge and McManus 2000; Krueger 2002; McManus 2002). The regulation approach tends to conceptualize the environment as external to accumulation and as a condition for social regulation (Drummond and Marsden 1995). Viewed in this way, the environment is an extra- economic object of social regulation and a site of struggle between actors and groups at various scales. Political economy approaches have been useful in advancing work on economy-environment relations in that they highlight the fact that policy development and implementation are essen- tially social and political processes, rather than problem-free, as much work in ecological modernization has assumed.

Regulation Approaches: Rethinking Ecological Modernization

Recent work in political economy on economy-environment relations has focused upon the discursive practices and mate- riosocial structures through which regula-




tions, decisions, and policies that affect sustainable outcomes are formulated and interpreted and around which struggles and conflict occur (Gibbs and Jonas 2000). Adopting such an approach enables the consideration of policy making for sustainability in relation to its wider role in processes and structures of "economic governance" and "social regulation." The emphasis is thus on environmental policy making as a material and discursive process, rather than as a normative outcome, as in ecological modernization. This argument can be developed by drawing upon the work of Jessop (1990, 1995, 2002), who conceptualized the state as an "institutional ensemble" and characterized state power as reflecting the inter- relationship between the interests of politi- cians and state managers and the promotion of interests by social and economic forces (Jonas, While, and Gibbs 2004). Jessop's (1995) neo-Gramscian concept of "strategic selectivity" suggests that some actors and institutions have the ability to formulate, secure, and implement specific policies, while others do not. The argument, then, is that

conceiving of the state as a loosely articu- lated "institutional ensemble", state strategy emerges as a key concept because of the need to generate support for state projects and the resulting challenge in terms of bringing coherence to the range of competing capitalist class interests, and those of its potential strategic allies, in and around the state. (Jonas, While, and Gibbs 2004, 154)

In this manner, the state may act to regulate "by strategic articulation between institutionally ordered realms of logic" (Robertson 2004, 366), that is, between capital and ecological relations. From this perspective, we can begin to reconceptualize ecological modernization accounts, in which the focus upon ways of integrating economic and environmental aims in some developed states suggests a process of strategic selectivity at work. The extent to which this has happened and replaced a more narrow focus upon economic competitive- ness and GDP growth is open to question,

reflecting internal struggles within the state. For example, Barry and Paterson (2003) outlined the ways in which the United Kingdom's New Labour government, elected in 1997, quickly downgraded its emphasis on ecological modernization, while in Sweden, despite a major policy emphasis upon creating an "ecologically sustainable society," relatively little progress has been made because of the opposition of industrial interests and the limited engagement of the trade unions (Lundqvist 2000; Haley 2005).

In accounting for such processes at work, there is also a need to take account not only of local structures and processes, but also of the constraints and opportunities that are derived from the wider modes of regulation operating at wider spatial scales. Doing so assists us in addressing the questions raised earlier as to why, when, and where the changes that are associated with ecological modernization have occurred or may occur. Thus, Bridge (2000, 253, emphasis added) suggested that

a regulation approach to the transformation of nature has potential advantages as a method for analysing relationships between industrial restructuring and environmental change.... It is able to illustrate how crisis tendencies can emergence [sic] from the form and rate at which nature is incorporated into production; the mechanisms by which contradictions express themselves as a challenge to accumulation at particular times and in particular places; and how these challenges stem from a failure of existing practices and institutions to ensure continued access to resources or effectively regulate the impacts of production on the environment.

Although adopting a regulationist perspective is a useful way of avoiding the normative approaches that are frequently found in much research on ecological modernization, the difficulty is that "the production of nature (or the 'management of the environment') is an intrinsic aspect of the social construction of regimes of accumulation in capitalism" (Jonas, While, and Gibbs 2004, 154). In this regard, one can draw on the work of Altvater (1993), Fitzsimmons (1991),



204 ECONOMIc GEOGRAPHY APRIL 2006

O'Connor (1998), and Smith (1984), among others, who have focused upon the contradictions involved in the capitalist appropri- ation of nature. In this work, "attempts have been made to explicate the ways in which industrial production can also generate bio-physical and socio-political conditions that are antithetical to further accumulations by exceeding the regenerative and assim- ilative capacities of the environment" (Bridge 2000, 239). The argument is that "the environmental degradation associated with energy and materials-intensive economic development has created both a material crisis of production and a legitimization crisis for capital" (Angel 2000, 611). O'Connor extended the analysis from a focus on forces and relations of production to include the conditions of production, arguing that the former tend to degrade the ecological conditions they depend upon-the second contradiction of capitalism. From this perspective, a tendency toward ecological crisis may therefore be just as endemic to capitalism as a falling rate of profit or overaccumula- tion (Drummond and Marsden 1995). For example, Smith (1984, 59) noted that

in its uncontrolled drive for universality, capitalism creates new barriers to its own future. It creates scarcity of needed resources, impoverishes the quality of those resources not yet devoured, breeds new diseases, develops a nuclear technology that threatens the future of all humanity, pollutes the entire environment that we must all consume in order to reproduce, and in the daily work process it threatens the very existence of those who produce the vital social wealth.

Nature is therefore a condition for, and an object of, struggle and strategic action in the search for post-Fordist institutional and spatial fixes. While the second contradiction of capitalism suggests that ecological conditions for production are being constantly undermined, there is also a need to examine attempts to produce at least a temporary fix to the problem of nature, which is where drawing upon ecological modernization analyses to inform political economy approaches may be useful. As

Hudson (2001, 313) stated, a "critical issue relates to the extent to which this second contradiction can be held in check and systems of social and political regulation and governance can be constructed to ensure that production and consumption move to more environmentally-and socially- sustainable trajectories." An important question in this regard is whether the shifts in practice that supposedly constitute ecological modernization are now entrenched as a constituent part of the mode of social regulation-do they provide a kind of "sustainability fix"? (While, Jonas, and Gibbs 2004).

Drawing upon regulationist approaches calls into question the drivers of ecological modernization and the processes that will lead to the supposed shift to the restructuring of production and regulation (the sustainability fix) that this approach suggests. Linking ecological modernization to a regulationist approach raises the question of the extent to which the kinds of political, social, cultural, and economic changes that are outlined in ecological modernization accounts can be interpreted as an incipient mode of regulation. Thus, does the current mix of reductions in the intensity of materials and use of resources, environmental policies, the adoption of environmental management systems, green consumerism, clean technologies, and corporate environmentalism make up the constituent elements of a new mode of social regulation? From a regulation theory perspective, the extent to which these elements may (or can) cohere into a mode of regulation will be the outcome of social struggle and conflict. It would mean a reconstitution of the mode of regulation (and mode of production through ecological modernization, for example, adopting clean technologies and recycling products) to achieve an ecologically sustainable society. In this sense, political economists could see ecological modernization as one of a number of alternative strategies of regulation or new collective will that have the potential to have a radical impact upon the conditions of existence of a regime of accumulation (Jessop 1990). Conversely, for



VOL. 82 No. 2 ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY 205 those who are working from an ecological modernization perspective, incorporating concepts that are drawn from regulation theory raises questions about the ecological sustainability of different development options, rather than defining a single, post- Fordist development path that is based on ecological modernization (Jonas, While, and Gibbs 2004; Peck and Tickell 1994). Regulationists would suggest that rather than involving some unproblematic transition, the regulatory mode is usually concerned with perpetuating the existing socioeconomic order and defending the distribution of power within that order. For Peck and Tickell (1994, 307), there are fundamental barriers to the kind of institutionalized solution offered by ecological modernization. They questioned

whether further accumulation is ecologically and economically sustainable. Based as it is on the transformation of nature, capitalism requires that nature is, effectively, an infinite resource. Yet as environmental resources are progressively degraded and as the end is in sight for oil (the commodity which both liter- ally and metaphorically fueled Fordism), it is becoming increasingly clear that capitalism has perilously transformed all of nature.

Hence, any strategy that seeks to redefine the object of regulation is necessarily radical because it provides a challenge to that social order. In consequence, existing power structures form a major barrier to promoting the ecological modernization agenda, a factor that is rarely mentioned in ecological modernization approaches. Conversely, ecological modernization offers the prospect of a different mode of development, not simply the doom and gloom of regulationists.

The Potential Benefits of Boundary-Permeating Work

Obviously, a call for more boundary- permeating work between ecological modernization and regulationist approaches is easier to do than it is to develop in practice. We are still in the relatively early stages

o1 developing such an environmental economic geography, and there are a number of areas that need further investigation. In this section, I try to progress the arguments I have presented so far in more detail, in an attempt to show the benefits from work that draws upon a combination of these two theoretical perspectives.

First, I suggest that drawing upon elements of a regulationist approach provides ecological modernization with a clearer theoretical basis, notably in relation to power relations and the role of the state. In ecological modernization theory, the role of the state is to act through negotiated, consensual governance modes-where ecological modernization is not occurring, it is seen as a failure of current mechanisms and incentives (Hills 2005). Regulation theory, however, suggests that rather than a simple failure of governance, these state initiatives and policies will be subject to contestation and conflict between and among various groups of actors. Thus, while ecological modernization recognizes that social, political, and institutional transformations are necessary (and, in ecological modernization terms, possible), it has little to say about the social processes and agencies that are required for these transformations to take place. As a social theory, it lacks the kind of historical analysis that regulation theory can provide. Thus "if 'strong ecological modernisation' is to provide the necessary restraint on the capitalist global market, the questions of how the transformation will take place, over what timescale, and by the agency of what subjects, remains largely unanswered" (Low 2002, 48). A regulationist perspective indicates that political struggle and agency will be crucial and that the form of any post-Fordist solution is open to contestation. In a similar manner to Goodwin, Cloke, and Milbourne's (1995, 1258) work on rural research, "by drawing on regulation theory, we can locate and conceptualise [ecological modernization] within a framework which acknowledges that this is part and parcel of more general attempts to regulate the continuing contradictions and crises of capitalism." Adopting




the institutional forms and practices that are associated with ecological modernization may represent only a means to resecure conditions for capital accumulation (McManus 2002). Much may depend upon whether "weak" or "strong" forms of ecological modernization are adopted (see Table 1). If weak forms are adopted, "the current proliferation of sustainability projects and products represents little more than a strategy to secure conditions for the contin- uance of accumulation-as-usual" (MacBride 2004, 341). If a mode of social regulation splinters, then the accumulation system may be able to incorporate it as a new source of growth-this may help explain some of the enthusiasm for ecological modernization, since it offers some firms, as well as some nation-states (see, e.g., the case of Sweden; Lundqvist 2000), opportunities for growth (Bridge and McManus 2000; Bakker 2002). As Schoenberger (2003) argued, environmental problems may represent a new spatial fix for capital. Thus, while ecological modernization represents one way to manage ecological contradictions and crisis tendencies within capitalist production, this does not mean that the

contradictions have been resolved in any final sense. Instead, they represent alternative ways to manage the contradictions and to put off the point at which their impacts on accumulation become intolerable. In the process, these new regulatory components postpone the emergence of ecological contradictions as a full-fledged crisis and underpin an institutional framework conducive to renewed accumulation. (Bridge 2000, 254)

Second, although political economy approaches are helpful in alerting us to the immanently destructive character of capitalist production and warning us not to be overoptimistic about the processes identified in ecological modernization, the alternative scenarios from a neo-Marxist perspective would seem to be either overly utopian or unduly pessimistic. Some form of strong ecological modernization may therefore be possible, and it may be the case that "ecological processes are being increasingly valued

and incorporated within regimes of accumulation" (Bridge 2000, 241). Indeed, while some have been critical of ecological modernization approaches and their perhaps-overoptimistic "win-win" scenarios, seeing the development of sustainable capitalism as impossible (see O'Connor 1994), "the chances of a systematic non-capitalist alternative are at least equally distant (Hudson 2005, 212). An ecological modernization approach, while not overcoming the ecological contradictions of capitalism, may provide a temporary fix and involve "relative (but significant) changes into more environmentally sound directions" (Mol 2002, 97), rather than lead us into what may be a futile search for some form of "absolute" sustainability. Ecological modernization may therefore represent an alternative way "to manage the contradictions and to put off the point at which their impacts on accumulation become intolerable" (Bridge 2000, 254). While ecological modernization is open to a substantive critique for its theoretical short- comings, as a normative dimension, it is more coherent and offers "a framework to describe and design a pragmatic political programme to redirect environmental poli- cymaking" (von Malmborg and Strachan 2005, 152). Here, the state has a key role to play in devising strong environmental targets, encouraging macroeconomic restructuring away from resource- and energy-intensive sectors, and developing the cross-fertilization of ecology and economy (von Malmborg and Strachan 2005), as well as developing forms of "real" regulation.

Third, one of the key challenges for economy-environment research is "to find a way of transposing the grand abstractions of political-economic events that shape the environmental histories of particular regions ... [and] ... to show how differences within the emerging regulatory landscapes ... are constructed through specific geographies of struggle" (Bridge and Jonas 2002, 3). Given its high level of abstraction, regulation theory needs a means of engaging with environmental issues and concerns that, while maintaining theoretical coherence,




manages to capture the messiness and contingency of everyday life (Bridge and McManus 2000). The distinction is between regulation theory as "theorized history" and as "distinctive politico-economic method" (Peck and Miyamachi 1994) and the ways in which economic geographers can engage in "empirically-grounded research which uses regulation theory as a method for examining the implications for ... the environment of socio-economic restructuring" (Bridge 2000, 241). In contrast to this high level of abstraction, ecological modernization contains the kinds of useful suggestions for "concrete trajectories towards social change" (Mol 2002, 98) that are largely absent from regulationist accounts. Again, drawing upon elements of both regulationist and ecological modernization approaches helps us understand the potential to develop an economy that is based on strong forms of ecological modernization.

Tensions and Potential Research Foci

In this section, I sketch out four key areas in which I think productive research could be conducted and in which there are tensions to be resolved between regulationist and ecological modernization approaches-- institutional form, neoliberalism, globalization, and consumption.2 First, what may a new institutional fix for environmental problems look like?

The leading target of institutional innovation in the future ... is the creation of arrange- ments that facilitate the transition from a narrow economic and profit oriented technological focus to one that resolutely incorpo- rates green dimensions in technological change. This needs to be seen as spanning all spheres of economic activity, from conception through to production and final consumption. (Hayter and Le Heron 2002, 401)

2 Note that these areas were chosen to be illus- trative, rather than definitive.

The new institutional fix for environmental problems may vary across space, and there may be different national forms of ecological modernization or institutionally specific forms of capitalism or, as Sonnenfeld and Mol (2002b, 1457) termed it, "environmental glocalization." Indeed, Le Heron and Hayter (2002, 25) suggested that the geography of any future environmental paradigm

raises interesting questions about: the locus of creation of leading edge environmental inno- vations; their diffusion within and among countries (as well as within and among industrial sectors); regional development implications, for example, with respect to most rapidly industrialising countries and resource regions; and, in more micro-terms, the nature of location dynamics.

Here, then, is a set of questions that need empirical investigation. There is a need to examine institutional forms, given that both ecological modernization and regulation theories strongly emphasize them. As Peck (2000, 65) stated, "one of the challenges of real-time regulatory analysis is to trace how the logics and illogics of emergent institutions are combined and (for regulationists in particular) to explore how they cohere and conflict at the macro level." However, there are problems in this regard that are related to the intertwining of accumulation and regulation and the fact that institutions are not functional/deterministic, as well as the problems of ex-post identification. There are dangers in simply reading off conclusions from the forms outlined in ecological modernization, as well as a compounding of the problem if institutions are seen as causal. Thus, certain institutions and services may be necessary for ecological modernization, but this does not mean that they are sufficient to ensure it (Mol 2002). A key focus needs to be upon the role of the state. Whereas ecological modernization places considerable faith in cultural shifts within self-regulating corporations and pressure from civil society operating within an "enabling state," a regulationist approach suggests that the state retains a key role and



208 ECONOMIc GEOGRAPHY APRIL 2006

that social movements are engaged in struggle and conflict with the state and with business.

Second, there are clear tensions between the types of reform proposed by ecological modernization and the current de facto mode of social regulation that is represented by the dominance of neoliberalism.3 Effectively, strong forms of ecological modernization represent a political challenge and an alternative to neoliberalism, which has both "rolled back" and restructured state environmental controls and engendered substantive environmental impacts, bringing into question issues of equity and distribution (McCarthy and Prudham 2004). While environmentalism has acted as a brake on some of the worst excesses of neoliberal attacks on the environment, ecological modernization "says very little about neoliberalism per se, and seems remarkably sanguine about the capacity of liberal markets and voluntarism to redress environmental problems" (McCarthy and Prudham 2004, 280). For example, from an ecological modernization perspective, Sonnenfeld and Mol (2002a, 1322) suggested that social forces "are getting a grip on the contradictory developments of environmental and political reform," albeit that this purchase is contingent upon continued political reform. Similarly, Weidner (2002, 1359) suggested that critics of neoliberal globalization "frequently exaggerate when it comes to environmental policy" and that there are positive outcomes to be gained. Conversely, regulation theorists have offered a more thoroughgoing challenge to neoliberalism (Peck and Tickell 2002), albeit rarely from an environmental perspective (although for recent examples, see Mansfield 2004; Bakker 2005). McCarthy and Prudham (2004, 281) argued that neoliberalism is not just a political project with environmental impacts; rather the "changing regulation of the environment has been central to neolib-

eral, capitalist modernity." Indeed, the incor- poration of environmentalism into a "weak" form of ecological modernization has become central to corporate discourse and within the institutions of government, such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (Goldman 2001; Hartwick and Peet 2003). While advocates of ecological modernization may place their faith in the development of international environmental civil society to tame the excesses of neoliberalism, the reality is somewhat different. For example, there are key contradictions between ideas that are drawn from ecological modernization and the dominant neoliberal forms of trade policies (Mol 2002; McCarthy and Prudham 2004). Indeed, ecological modernization, with its emphasis upon voluntary regulation and faith in civil society, may be overoptimistic about the potentially progressive nature of trade agreements, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (McCarthy 2004). McCarthy (2004) outlined how international trade agreements, such as NAFTA, far from improving environmental governance, have a deleterious effect on environmental quality, health, and equality. A key area for future research will therefore be to investigate whether the "process of codifying and commodifying the ecological relations around us is ... a project of mobil- ising ecological forces in the service of neoliberal hegemony" (Robertson 2004, 362), as a temporary sustainability fix or whether it represents a more fundamental shift in capitalist development whereby an "ecological rationality" is attaining equal weight with "economic rationality" (Mol 2002). In either case, we need to explore how forms of environmental governance are shifting, the institutional and organiza- tional forms associated with this shift, and the ways in which it involves processes of reregulation in particular nation-states.

Third, an important area of future research revolves around

the contribution of the globalisation of economic, social, and political processes to the dynamic of energy- and materials-intensive

3 I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting that attention should be paid to these tensions.




capitalist accumulation. Of critical concern here is whether globalisation necessarily involves a deepening and broadening of the environment/development crisis, or whether the processes of globalisation themselves can be harnessed to a goal of improved environmental performance. (Angel 2000, 612)

Areas for investigation include the differences in environmental practices by TNCs in their home and host countries; the role of international organizations, such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization, in regulating environmental performance; and the influence of consumer and supply-chain pressures upon producers in the rapidly industrializing economic spaces of Asia and elsewhere. In relation to the latter point, "despite ever-improving production efficiencies and process technology, the Asia-Pacific region still continues to see economic growth rates that outpace the ability of technology to prevent the release of pollutants" (Welford and Hills 2003, 330). Where ideas of ecological modernization have taken purchase in the region, they have tended to be "weak" versions-for example, Hills (2005, 215) suggested that it may be an appropriate approach to address environmental concerns "in a way that does not jeopardise economic growth in the Pearl River Delta Region or in Hong Kong." Moreover, pressure on companies to behave environmentally in countries may vary by country of origin- for example, while Western TNCs in Vietnam may be under pressure from domestic and global "civil society organizations," investors from South Korea or Taiwan have less to fear (Mol 2002). As Dicken (2004) has repeatedly pointed out, nation- states still matter, and this is no less true with regard to environmental issues. There are opportunities, then, to explore the different types of regional and national flavors of ecological modernization that are consequent upon globalization (Mol 2002). For example, while Angel and Rock (2005) concluded that the development of global production standards by major TNCs has improved environmental performance in Asian countries, as TNCs develop firm-based

standards that exceed national legislation, other research in Mexico has indicated that long-established TNC branch plants may have little engagement with corporate standards and lax environmental performance (Salgado 2005).

Finally, another starting point for future research is Hudson's (2001) comment that within economic geography too much emphasis has been placed upon "production pollution" and not enough on "consumption pollution." Similar criticisms have been made of ecological modernization, that it is both conceptually and analytically (over) concerned with production4 (Carolan 2004), and of economic geography, that it is overly concerned with industry (Yeung and Lin 2003). Political economy approaches also largely fail to address consumption issues, despite the central contention that regimes of accumulation encompass both production and consumption norms. In early accounts of a transition from Fordism to post- Fordism, for example, although changing consumer tastes were cited as one cause of shifting production methods, this point was, and remains, considerably undertheorized (Peck 2000). Such a focus means that environmental problems are conceived as production problems that can largely be solved through the application of technology (Carolan 2004; although see Mol and Spaargaren 2004 in reply to this charge). Greater attention to the processes of consumption and a shift from economic geography's continued preoccupation with production are required to develop an environmental economic geography. Con- centrating upon the supply-side may be an easier route than focusing upon consumption, but taken in isolation, it carries with it the dangers of encouraging the development of a closed-loop throwaway society. In contrast, addressing the issue of consumption raises a whole set of questions regarding

4 See also, for example, the related field of industrial ecology that has a strong focus upon reorganizing production along eco-efficient lines, but has only rarely focused on consumption issues.




the political and economic viability of reducing and/or regulating consumption, given consumption's centrality to economic growth, political objectives, values, and lifestyles (Hobson 2003).

Conclusions The basic assumption underlying this

article is that existing modes of economic development and organization are not sustainable because of their environmental consequences. Given this assumption, there is a need, at the very least, to ameliorate these consequences and, more profoundly, to shift industrial society to a more ecologically rational organization. To date, work from the perspective of ecological modernization has gone furthest in trying to conceptualize how the latter may occur and the political program that may follow from it. A small number of geographers have (implicitly and explicitly) adopted elements of ecological modernization in their own work, yet there are a number of problems with ecological modernization, particularly that it provides little sense of how the desired institutional and cultural changes will come about or the power relations that are involved. Instead, it "assumes that existing institutions and structures can internalise environmental problems through efficiency, restructuring and creativity" (Hobson 2003, 152), although recent work by Mol (2002, 103) recognized that "while various developments point towards an institutionalization of the environment in the economic domain, there is no fundamental reason or principle preventing the stagnation or reversal of this process of ongoing institu- tionalisation." Exactly how the proposed transformation (or reversal) to (or from) ecological modernity will take place, over what time scale, and by which agency still remains unclear (Low 2002).

In contrast, work from a regulationist perspective has been stronger on concep- tualizing the relationships between institutional forms and practices and the struggles and competing interests that make up a mode of social regulation. It is here that

work by economic geographers offers useful insights into the potential for greater ecological rationality in economic development. Thus, an advantage of regulation theory is that it "offers no guarantees that a successor regime will happen along, just as it rejects the idea that new 'institutional fixes' are the result either of spontaneous forces or political fiat" (Peck 2000, 67). Rather, a variety of regulatory discourses have been proposed, from state intervention to free- market environmentalism, all of which claim to be the most effective way of dealing with environmental degradation (Gandy 1997). Taking a regulationist approach, I suggest, is different from either ecological modernization or work on TEPs, in which the motivation for the necessary technological and institutional changes seems to come from a rational recognition of the need for change or a paradigmatic shift, especially with regard to innovation (Hayter 2004). The cross-fertilization of ecological modernization with economic geography approaches, with their emphasis upon the role of social relations, can therefore improve our understanding of the link between economic processes and environmental outcomes (Bridge 2002).

Hence, the benefits of drawing upon a regulationist approach for those who are concerned with advancing an ecological modernization agenda are that it makes clear the nondeterministic nature of post-Fordism and that the future form of the economy is open to shaping and debate. It emphasizes the need to consider both economic and social processes as an integrated whole and indicates that sustainable development will need to be promoted at a variety of levels and scales. Thus "capitalism may have invi- olable laws but is has a plurality of logics, some of which may be more accordant with a sustainable mode of production than others" (Drummond and Marsden 1995, 56). Such political economy approaches can provide a theoretical vantage point from which to view the kinds of current, on-the-ground initiatives that have been examined in ecological modernization and, in practical terms, could




contribute to devising appropriate policy outcomes. In theoretical terms, reinter- preting environmental problems through a combination of the two approaches will involve an investigation of the creation of the institutional basis of sustainable economies or the form of the mode of social regulation that is associated with ecological modernization and to examine whether such developments can cohere to resolve the crisis of capitalism that stems from environmental problems. Thus, a regulationist approach is helpful in exploring the ways in which contradictions emerge among economic growth, environmental protection, and social equity. At the same time, using ecological modernization approaches helps to link the grand and high-level abstractions of regulationist approaches to the concrete outcomes and contingencies of everyday life. Focusing upon the political and social processes that are involved in struggles over economy-environment-equity issues is central to any future understanding of how ecological modernization can be advanced, both theoretically and through policy prescription. Such an interlinked approach will enable us to focus upon the contradictions that emerge in relation to economy- environment relations and the challenges that emerge from the failure of existing practices and institutions to address problems that arise at the interface of environmental protection, economic growth, and social equity (Gibbs and Krueger 2004).

Yet incorporating regulationist approaches with ecological modernization will not just be a simple matter of drawing upon the best elements of each. Rather, a substantial amount of work needs to be done in reframing regulationist approaches. The strength of the regulation approach to date has been its ability to link economic restructuring to social and political processes and to link political-economic shifts at the local, national, and international scales (MacKinnon 2001). As such, it has obvious merits in exploring debates over ecological modernization by linking potential forms of economic restructuring to environmental processes and investigating the necessary

interventions to achieve improved environmental performance at various spatial scales. However, while regulationist approaches are valuable in providing a conceptual framework, they have been subject to criticism for operating at a high level of abstraction that is remote from the "concreteness" of everyday activities, such as those examined in accounts of ecological modernization, and failing to develop midrange concepts to link them. One way to investigate this issue further and to develop such midrange concepts could be through an exploration of the discourses that help to legitimate particular regimes of accumulation and modes of regulation. Such discourses are a significant component of a mode of regulation to facilitate the requisite degree of certainty and stability in the accumulation process. Increasingly, environmental discourses are becoming a significant component of a mode of regulation to stabilize contradictions that are inherent in the relationship between capital and the environment. For example, "the function of the sustainability discourse remains that of facilitating the requisite degree of certainty and stability in the accumulation process" (Bridge and McManus 2000, 21). One approach to developing the theoretical framework proposed in this article could, therefore, be to explore the role of corporate actors in propagating distinctive environmental discourses, both to understand and to situate these discourses within a regulationist framework. By such means, we could endeavor to provide "empirical support for translating the abstraction of 'modes of social regulation' into the particulars of language, metaphor, and narrative and the 'concreteness' of the actors and institutions from and through which discourse flows" (Bridge and McManus 2000, 21).

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