ABSTRACT

Diverse approaches towards sustainability transitions characterise the contributions to this book. Some assert that incrementalist discourses and interventions towards achieving green economic transformation are failing to respond to the critical social, economic and environmental challenges facing the country. Cumulative shifts, it is argued, which do not address the structural factors and vested interests which impede transitions to more sustainable pathways, will not achieve the transformational change required to deliver social and environmental outcomes. Others hold that transformative niches – in finance, innovation, partnership and skills development, could trigger systemic transitions by impacting both on vertical and horizontal regime- and landscape-level change to reconfigure the system-level structures hindering South Africa’s transition to sustainability. The reflections in this book as a whole, however, affirm that in spite of South Africa’s growing landscape of sustainability policies, projects and programmes, sustainable development has not been sufficiently mainstreamed in economic policymaking. In other words, despite the existence of transition visions, sustainable development narratives – of the green growth, green economy and green transformation varieties, are still largely marginal – in fact niche, to the core of the South African development narrative. Social and environmental justice activists need to coalesce their campaigns to craft a society-led call for transitions that meet the country’s goal of “ensuring environmental sustainability and an equitable transition to a low-carbon economy”.