Cover page of the GAIA special issue Sustainable Economy: Perspectives of Change
Weekly shopping tours for fancy clothes. The newest smartphone. Trading conflict minerals from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Relocating workplaces to low-wage countries. Many of our consumption and production patterns are unsustainable. Should we continue like this, we will be endangering not only our own livelihoods but those of future generations as well. We must change our business models and consumption practices. We must adopt change-based perspectives. With their focus on social innovations, sustainable economy approaches promise to advance transformation towards sustainability.
This special issue presents conceptual and empirical analyses on the drivers and obstacles, as well as social and economic implications, of sustainable economy approaches,conducted within the Social-Ecological Research (SOEF) funding priority of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the SOEF funding measure Sustainable Economy. The papers included in this issue range from aggregated assessments of structural effects to single, sector-specific case studies. They introduce, among other things, new governance approaches, strategies for involving new actors in the development of sustainability innovations, innovative cohousing initiatives, and potential paths of transformation for sustainably managing supply chains.
The papers are open access and can be accessed here.
The guest editor gratefully acknowledges funding by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) within the Social-Ecological Research (SOEF) funding priority and the SOEF funding measure Sustainable Economy for this special issue of GAIA.
