## 2 Competing Theoretical Perspectives on Sustainability and Sustainable Development
It is also often the major perspective in ecological modernization literature [40; 41]. A central assumption of these approaches is that sustainability can be facilitated through competitive markets and pricing mechanisms. Accordingly, the focus is on technical solutions and innovative forms of governance [41], reformed production chains through bioeconomic [42; 43] and circular economic reforms [43; 44], and commodification of social and environmental aspects enabling the internalization of these as costs,benefits and products on the market [21; 39; 41]. Consequently, sustainability is rendered a technical issue, void of values, ideology and politics. From a consumption perspective, unsustainability is not something that can be solved merely with technical solutions and economic growth (green, or otherwise). Instead, unsustainability is primarily caused by unsustainable per capita consumption of a minority of the human population, which, in turn, is reproduced through specific forms of social and economic organization. Specifically, this minority consumes in accordance with the capitalist consumer societies' standards [19; 29; 45; 46]. Political ecology, one field in which the consumption perspective is represented, is an eclectic field of scholarship committed to unraveling sources of inequity, domination and social injustice in socio-ecological relations, especially those produced through supposedly objective techno-scientific practices, and to develop alternative conceptions to incite political change [38; 39; 46; 47; 48; 49]. Research on ecologically unequal exchange is a case in point. Simply put, it emphasizes that the overconsumption of Earth's resources is primarily driven by the wealthy minority of the world population that lives in accordance with Western consumer ideals, which includes most of the population in the EU. The high consumption levels of this minority drain other parts of the world of natural resources and, thus, produce an ecologically unequal exchange that also generates environmental degradation and reduces the development chances for the less fortunate majority of the world's population. Accordingly, attainment of sustainability would require political interventions that dismantle the social organization that produces the ecologically unequal exchange. Importantly, this encompasses the need to reduce the per capita ecological footprints of consumption to sustainable levels among the wealthy, high-emitting segments of the world population [46; 47; 48; 49; 50; 51]. Another body of research highlighting the consumption perspective is that of environmental and climate justice. Although it shares a focus on inequities and injustices in socio-ecological relations with political ecology, it has developed separately (with some overlap) and, thus, represents a somewhat different tradition [50]. A central argument is that unsustainability is intertwined with societal inequities, power asymmetries and injustices. [PERSON] et al. [51] (p. 2), have proposed that sustainable development should be redefined as \"... the need to _ensure a better quality of life for all, now, and into the future, in a just and equitable manner, while living within the limits of supporting ecosystems_\". Reflecting this emphasis on justice, scholars such as [PERSON] [45; 52], [PERSON] [29] and [PERSON] [53; 54] argue that ceilings on individual footprints of consumption should be imposed. This would require that the wealthy proportion of the world population reduces their ecological footprint by decreasing their consumption. These scholars argue that unsustainability is primarily due to unjust relations of power reproduced through current forms of societal organization and needs to be addressed and transformed through political intervention. Hence, these scholars stress that policy processes that render climate change and other socio-environmental issues as technical problems, impede justice-oriented politics and policies.