Ecological Economics and Business Legitimacy

Abstract

If we are to solve problems connected to the degradation of nature, the ever-increasing gap between rich and poor, financial crashes, and business (meso level) legitimacy, such work cannot be studied in isolation from the interplay between micro (individuals) and macro (systems) levels. To develop business legitimacy, a change process has to be implemented concurrently on the individual, practical, and systemic levels. Change can focus on reducing negative symptoms or, on the other hand, it can be seen as a shift taking place at a deeper level in order to eliminate the causes of the problems. On the systemic level, the hard-core principle of the dominating economy - that the market is made up of autonomous competing actors - is rejected in favor of a view of the market as an integrated network of interdependent cooperating actors. On the practical level, strategic planning is replaced by a partnership approach founded on dialogue- and network-based cooperation. On the individual level, ecological economics has significant implications for the definition of the economic actor. Instead of focusing solely on increasing profits and utility (the economic man), the economic actors put far more weight on the natural and social implications of production processes as well as products (the ecological man). The implications of this reasoning are that economic activity is not an end in itself but a means to strengthen the life processes in nature and society. If life processes are to be strengthened, then reputation building, “greenwashing, " and green economics must give way to an economy based on ecological knowledge and humanistic values.