The concept of sustainability lies at the core of the challenge of environment and development, and the way governments, business and environmental groups respond to it. Green Development provides a clear and coherent analysis of sustainable development in both theory and practice.





Green Development explores the origins and evolution of mainstream thinking about sustainable development and offers a critique of the ideas behind them. It draws a link between theory and practice by discussing the nature of the environmental degradation and the impacts of development. It argues that, ultimately, 'green' development has to be about political economy, about the distribution of power, and not about environmental quality. Its focus is strongly on the developing world.





The fourth edition retains the broad structure of previous editions, but has been updated to reflect advances in ideas and changes in international policy. Greater attention has been given to the political ecology of development, market-based and neoliberal environmentalism, and degrowth. This fully revised edition discusses:








the origins of thinking about sustainability and sustainable development, and its evolution to the present day;







the ideas that dominate mainstream sustainable development (including natural capital, the green economy, market environmentalism and ecological modernisation);







critiques of mainstream ideas and of neoliberal framings of sustainability, and alternative ideas about sustainability that challenge 'business as usual' thinking, such as arguments about