Combating climate change will increasingly impact on production industries and the workers they employ as production changes and consumption is targeted. Yet research has largely ignored labour and its responses. This book brings together sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, historians, economists, and representatives from international and local unions based in Australia, Brazil, South Africa, Taiwan, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the USA. Together they open up a new area of research: Environmental Labour Studies. The authors ask what kind of environmental policies are unions in different countries and sectors developing. How do they aim to reconcile the protection of jobs with the protection of the environment? What are the forms of cooperation developing between trade unions and environmental movements, especially the so-called Red-Green alliances? Under what conditions are unions striving to create climate change policies that transcend the economic system? Where are they trying to find solutions that they see as possible within the present socio-economic conditions? What are the theoretical and practical implications of trade unions' "Just Transition", and the problems and perspectives of "Green Jobs"? The authors also explore how food workers' rights would contribute to low carbon agriculture, the role workers' identities play in union climate change policies, and the difficulties of creating solidarity between unions across the global North and South. Trade Unions in the Green Economy opens the climate change debate to academics and trade unionists from a range of disciplines in the fields of labour studies, environmental politics, environmental management, and climate change policy. It will also be useful for environmental organisations, trade unions, business, and politicians.

This book is a theoretically rich and empirically grounded account of UK trade union engagement with climate change over the last three decades. It offers a rigorous critique of the mainstream neoliberal and ecological modernisation approaches, extending the concepts of Marxist social and employment relations theory to the climate realm. The book applies insights from employment relations to the political economy of climate change, developing a model for understanding trade union behaviour over climate matters. The strong interdisciplinary approach draws together lessons from both physical and social science, providing an original empirical investigation into the climate politics of the UK trade union movement from high level officials down to workplace climate representatives, from issues of climate jobs to workers’ climate action. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers in environmental politics, climate change and environmental sociology.

This third volume in the Gaia Future Series shows how readers can create a healthy, sustainable and environmentally sound world without sacrificing wealth and happiness. It reveals the hidden costs of many "profitable" enterprises and the sacrifices we make to satisfy the market. Maps and photographs throughout.

Designing the Green Economy explores realistically, and in detail, the world s enormous potential for human and ecological regeneration. It also explains why this potential has been suppressed or distorted by industrial institutions thus creating economic crisis, growing inequality, and environmental destruction.Today the great divide between waste and green economies can be narrowed by emerging legal, institutional, and market approaches to production and environmentalism. Milani explores the practical and theoretical implications of fully unleashing these new productive forces to create community-based ecological economies. Milani argues that neither sustainability, social justice nor economic stability can be secured without comprehensive redesign of the economy along ecological principles. He looks at key sectors of the economy including manufacturing, energy, and money and finance to illustrate how this redesign can, and is, taking place through both incremental grassroots initiatives and transformative politics."

Green jobs, employment that contributes to protecting the environment and reducing humanity's carbon footprint, will be a key economic driver of the 21st century. This report explores the role green jobs will play within the various industries, energy production, construction, transportation, energy-intensive industries, recycling and re-manufacturing, and agriculture and forestry.

The International Handbook features chapters by leading scholars from around the world in a unique collection exploring the multi-disciplinary field of political ecology. This landmark volume canvasses key developments, topics, issues, debates and concepts showcasing how political ecologists today address pressing social and environmental concerns. Introductory chapters provide an overview of political ecology and the Handbook. Remaining chapters examine five broad themes: issues and approaches; governance and power; knowledge and discourse; method and scale; connections and transformations. Across diverse topics and perspectives, these chapters amount to a wide-ranging survey of current research, making the International Handbook an indispensable reference for scholars and students in political ecology.

Topics covered include environmental business ethics, environmental operational and strategic management, green politics, green economics and green technologies.