ABSTRACT
Environmentalism, in all its forms, was born in environmental movements. There are many theories about what makes up a social movement, and some of these are outlined in this chapter. At the outset, what needs to be understood is that social movements are largely noninstitutional. They occupy a political terrain that is often quite separate from more established institutionalised political forms such as pressure groups, parties, and the administrative and parliamentary systems of the state. It was within these non-institutional, more informal realms of society and its politics that environmental movements emerged. It is safe to say that without the environmental movements there would be little or no ‘greening’ of government and corporations.
