The book explores the concept of responsibility in environmental governance, highlighting the need for decisive political action and the structural background conditions that generate unevenly distributed, socially unjust, and ecologically devastating consequences. It applies this approach to the study of food waste governance, uncovering a narrow focus on accountability, optimization, and consumer behavior change strategies and opening up spaces for more democratic solutions.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 267 pages
Publication date: 04 October 2023
Publisher: Springer International Publishing AG

Responsibility in Environmental Governance

This book provides a comprehensive study of the notion of responsibility in environmental governance. It starts with the observation that, although the rhetoric of responsibility is indeed all-pervasive in environmental and sustainability-related fields, decisive political action is still lacking. Governance architectures increasingly strive to hold different stakeholders responsible by installing accountability and transparency mechanisms to manage environmental problems, yet the structural background conditions affecting these issues continue to generate unevenly distributed, socially unjust, and ecologically devastating consequences.

Responsibility in Environmental Governance develops the concept of responsibility as an analytical approach to map and understand these dynamics and to situate diverse meanings of responsibility within larger socio-political contexts. It applies this approach to the study of food waste governance, uncovering a narrow governance focus on accountability, optimization, and consumer behavior change strategies, opening up spaces for organizing more democratic solutions to a truly global problem.

Dimension: 210 x 148 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9783031137310
Edition number: 1st ed. 2022