Geoscience Reference
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transparency and participation are the new principles and values that provide social
movements and civil society the resources to gain a more powerful position in
environmental reform processes. Within the environmental movement this trans-
formation goes together with a bipolar or dualistic strategies of cooperation and
confl ict, and internal debates on the tensions that are a by-product of this duality.
Typical studies in the ecological modernisation traditions are David Sonnenfeld's
(1996) study on the environmental movement in South-East Asia and Leonardus
Rinkevicius (2000) on the environmental movement in Lithuania, while increas-
ingly various strands of social movement studies resembles ideas of ecological
modernisation in discussing changing tactics, strategies, alliances and discourses of
the environmental movement (e.g., in the works of John Dryzek et al. 1997;
2003).
And fi nally, EM studies concentrate on changing discursive practices and frames,
and the emergence of new ideologies in political and societal arenas. Neither the
fundamental counter-positioning of economic and environmental interests nor a
total disregard for the importance of environmental considerations are accepted any
longer as legitimate positions. Intergenerational solidarity in the interest of preserv-
ing the sustenance base seems to have emerged as the undisputed core and widely
shared principle, although differences remain on interpretations and translations
into practices and strategies. The classical ecological modernisation study in this
theme is the dissertation of Maarten Hajer (1995), while many have followed with
case studies and further explorations of the ecological modernisation discourse, such
as recently Davidson and Mackendrick (2004) and Keil and Desfor (2003). Numer-
ous studies focusing on the sustainable development discourse resemble ecological
modernisation ideas and frames.
Industrial Transformation and Beyond
EM perspectives have been applied in studying environmental reforms in a variety
of sectors and geographies, focusing of different indicators and processes of environ-
ment-induced social change. Usually, in studying empirical socio-ecological trans-
formations various themes (as mentioned above) come together. Arguably the three
most studied transformations within EM are industrial reforms (of individual com-
panies, sectors, industrial networks, industrial parks and regions, industrial prod-
ucts or chains, self regulations, certifi cations, technological change, R&D, reporting
and auditing), environmental policies (policy integration, new instruments, policy
styles, prevention, partnerships and alliances, vertical relations between local-
national-international policy systems) and utility provisioning (greening of network-
bound system such as those related to water, energy, waste and transport; consumer
and citizen involvement in these systems, socio-technological change, new manage-
ment and organisational styles, differentiation and monitoring, pricing, demand side
management).
A signifi cant number of concepts have emerged that are used to study empirical
processes that are not too far beyond the research agenda of EM. Industrial trans-
formation is arguably the most overarching concept that brings together empirical
studies in these three - and various other - fi elds of environmental reform. The
International Human Dimensions Program on Industrial Transformation started
originally with a more narrow focus on industrial processes and products, but has
considerably widened its scope in the new millennium. To a signifi cant extent,
