THE PRIVATE SECTOR ENGAGEMENT PARADOX: The Proliferation of Finance and Market Driven Sustainability Tools Alongside the Acceleration of Environmental Degradation

Abstract

Despite widespread engagement of the private sector in the development, and implementation of finance and market driven policy interventions during the past three decades, we are witnessing the alarming acceleration of critical environmental challenges impacting the planet. This chapter reviews the plausibility of a counterintuitive explanation for these trends: that the correlations between the proliferation of private sector engagement in, and reinforcing of finance and market driven solutions alongside the acceleration of environmental crises, is not owing to poor policy design and implementation challenges, but rather to highly successful, but competing, sustainability transformation projects.