Concluding Remarks

47 59). Thus, trading limits on the use of natural resources and the decoupling of GDP from emissions are both not able to help green capitalism secure environmental sustainability.

Finally, I will shortly discuss consumer demand and the functioning of the market in relation to environmental sustainability. Two of the defining features of any green capitalism framework are corporate social responsibility and consumer demand for ‘green’ products as a way to incentive businesses to keep up with their environmentally-friendlier practices. The problem with this idea has already been shortly touched upon earlier in this chapter, when I discussed Hahnel’s argument that the notion of consumer sovereignty and economic democracy on the marketplace is a false reality, since richer individuals have more ‘dollars to vote with’ and thus have an unequally large share of influence on the marketplace in comparison to those who are poorer. He also argues that, apart from the biases already stemming from the previously described system, further biases are created by large corporations that exercise their influence over the wants, needs and desires of consumers as a way to increase their profits. Not to mention the process of greenwashing that I discussed in the previous chapter, where businesses are not completely honest about their sustainability practices, but instead try to convey an image of environmentally-friendly practices as a way to increase profits.

To summarise my arguments of this section: I believe market-based solutions to not be a viable option for securing environmental sustainability. First, I argued against the notion that a system of competitive capitalism is necessary when it comes to allocating the funds and resources, and providing the right incentives to create the technological innovations that green capitalism has built its framework around. I have argued that there is an unequal divide between the extent to which more profitable, but less environmentally-friendly research projects and more environmentally-friendly ones receive funding, resources and support. Second, I argued that it is impossible to reach a state of environmental sustainability with the help of markets that trade limits on the use of natural resources and revaluating the value of GDP to include the value of nature, because the system simply does not counter the destructing forces of the growth imperative mentioned in the previous section. Finally, in line with Hahnel’s argument, I have shown that the idea of consumer sovereignty as a way to reach sustainable production practices does not work. All in all, I have concluded that the market-based solutions of green capitalism are not viable when it comes to securing environmental sustainability.

48 it has allowed capitalism to continue its aim to secure the growth imperative. Green capitalism, which would function mainly on renewable energy sources, can no longer rely on fossil fuels and thus it is the question whether such a form of capitalism is even able to exist at all. Second, I looked at the growth imperative, which I believe to be the main factor of environmental pollution and degradation within the capitalist system. Green capitalism’s starting point is the idea that green growth should be a main goal. I have argued that on the one hand, the growth imperative has been responsible for environmental degradation up until this point, while on the other hand, as long as green capitalism holds on to the growth imperative, a state of environmental sustainability cannot be reached. I have tried to show the ways in which environmental sustainability and continuous economic growth cannot be compatible. Finally, I have tried to argue that market-based solutions are not able to combat the environmentally-related problems for a few reasons: the market does not provide a fair distribution of research funds towards eco-friendly technologies, trading limits on natural resources and decoupling GDP from emissions has not proven to be successful, and practices like greenwashing and unequal consumer influence on the marketplace prevent the incentivisation of actual green business-practices.

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49

Conclusion and Discussion

In this thesis, I have tried to answer the research question: can green capitalism secure environmental sustainability? My overall conclusion is: no, green capitalism will not be able to secure environmental sustainability. In the three chapters of this thesis, I have built up to this argument step-by-step.

The first chapter was called Capitalism and Environmental Sustainability. Here I provided conceptualisations for both concepts and discussed the ways in which they relate to each other. This was not an easy task, since both concepts are somewhat contested. With the help of Fraser and Jaeggi, I described how capitalism can be described as a system with (1) a division between the owners of the means of production and those who sell their labour, (2) a free labour market and (3) the growth imperative. One of the diving features of the social order of capitalism is that it treats nature as an infinitely replenishable source that will continuously provide resources to be used in the processes of production, transportation and consumption. Environmental sustainability, as inspired by Hahnel, can be described as a framework in which the physical stocks of major categories of natural resources and sinks have to be maintained. Andrew Dobson’s ‘critical natural capital’ framework explains that some critical natural capital has to be maintained in order to avert large-scale environmentally-related disasters. I closed off this chapter with the conclusion that environmental degradation should be seen as a consequence of the processes that take place within capitalism, and that it is not an accidental by-product of it.

In the second chapter, I fully delved into the framework of green capitalism. I have described it as a system in which economic growth is harmonious with the earth’s natural resources. Proponent of the framework Graciela Chichilnisky provides the three building blocks that are necessary for a transition towards environmental sustainability, namely: (1) limits on the use of natural resources, (2) new types of markets to sell these limits and (3) carbon-negative technologies. I have supplemented her discussion of a revaluation of the GDP measurement as a result of these new types of markets with another measure related to environmental sustainability and GDP, namely that of decoupling GDP from emissions. Then, three overarching arguments in favour of the framework have been touched upon. First there is the idea that, along the lines of Schumpeterian creative destruction, green capitalism will provide the necessary incentives for innovating in such a way that environmental sustainability can be secured. Second, proponents believe that this system can safeguard private-public cooperation and that such cooperation is a necessity when it comes to securing environmental sustainability.

Finally, there is the idea that it is much more feasible to make our current system more eco-friendly than to come up with a whole new social order. After discussing my concerns with these arguments, I closed off this chapter with the conclusion that they do not hold up.

50 In the final chapter of my thesis, I fully delved into the reasons why I believe green capitalism to not be able to secure environmental sustainability. First, capitalism has been dependent on the special properties of fossil fuels for its inner workings, so transitioning to a system without these fuels might prove to be difficult. Then, I illustrated the ways in which the growth imperative prevents green capitalism from being able to secure environmental sustainability. On the one hand, I believe the growth imperative to be the cause of much of the environmental damage that has already been done, while on the other I have tried to illustrate that it is not a possibility to secure environmental sustainability while holding onto the idea of the growth imperative. In the final part of this chapter looked at markets and market-based solutions. I first explained that I do not believe that markets will be able to provide the necessary incentives for green innovations, since there is a bias against environmentally-friendly technologies when it comes to the funding of research. Then, I argued that market-based solutions, like the one proposed by Chichilnisky, are not a viable option when it comes to securing environmental sustainability. Finally, I refuted the notion that consumers encouraging the green practices of businesses via the market-mechanism will be enough to provide the necessary incentives for environmental sustainability to be secured.

All in all, it can thus be concluded that the main argument of my thesis is that green capitalism will not be able to secure environmental sustainability. While the main focus of my thesis has been to show the ways in which green capitalism frameworks lack the capacities that are necessary in establishing environmental sustainability, I can understand that readers might be left wondering what a framework that would be able to successfully secure environmental sustainability would look like.

Because the main goals of my thesis have hopefully been achieved, namely to contribute to the academic discussion surrounding environmental sustainability, challenge the belief that capitalism is the default framework when it comes to problem-solving, and have readers possibly rethink their stance on the green capitalism framework, I must conclude that conceptualising a whole new framework towards environmental sustainability goes beyond the scope of this thesis. However, constructing such a framework would be an interesting venture for future research. What I can say is that my thesis showed a few factors that one should take into account when coming up with such a framework. First, because fossil fuels have such unique properties that allow for high efficiency, which cannot yet be simulated by renewable energy sources, a possible conclusion would be that our energy consumption would have to dramatically decrease in an environmentally-friendly framework. This ties in neatly with the next characteristic: a framework that seeks to secure environmental sustainability must move beyond the growth imperative for all the reasons that I have discussed in the third chapter of this thesis. Finally, the third logical conclusion that flows from my thesis is that the market-based solutions discussed in my thesis have no place in such a framework. The discussion whether the

51 distribution of resources would ideally be done from a top-down or bottom-up approach also goes beyond the scope of this thesis, but could also be an interesting starting point for future research.

To close this discussion off, there are of course some more questions that one might be left with after reading this thesis that I want to shortly touch upon. One could be whether there might be some aspects of green capitalism that could be beneficial to include in a framework that seeks to work towards environmental sustainability. While this goes beyond the scope of this thesis too, it would an interesting puzzle to figure out which parts of green capitalism could actually be beneficial in different configurations and social orders. Finally, if after reading this thesis the reader agrees with me that green capitalism will not be able to secure environmental sustainability, this would give a very bleak prospect for the near future. I have tried to stress the necessity of taking action against environmentally-related issues and climate change as soon as possible. If it is indeed the case that green capitalism will not be able to combat environmentally-related issues, even though most national and international governments, as well as other international governing bodies, continue to rely heavily on some form of the green capitalism framework in their environmental policies, I unfortunately will have to conclude that the necessary changes will probably not been taken as long as green capitalism and green growth are the leading frameworks.

52

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