Introduction: Critical and transformative perspectives on global sustainability governance

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book reviews prominent conceptual and analytical lenses critical of mainstream approaches to sustainability governance. It addresses the role of religion in sustainability governance and religious actors’ potential contribution to sustainable development, and argues that “one should take seriously the claim that there is a religious answer to the global ecological crisis.” The book suggests that transformative global sustainability governance research calls for empirically oriented social scientists to reflect on the normative ramifications of their work and for normative oriented political theorists not to neglect the empirical grounds for their argumentation. It focuses on well-being and links it back to the question of growth by calling for a move beyond Gross Domestic Product – both as a measure of prosperity and a wider economic paradigm rooted in a growth-centred capitalism.