Abstract

This article advocates evolutionary institutionalism as a conceptual platform to launch a systematic approach to environmental economic geography. Evolutionary institutionalism interprets industrial transitions through the lens of innovative behaviour that is shaped by reciprocal economic and non-economic processes and periodically restructures economies in the form of new techno-economic paradigms (TEP). In this approach, environment–economy relations need not be zero-sum games, as is often assumed. Rather, as a result of innovation and choice, these relations have been recalibrated historically and can be redefined again towards developing a green TEP in which development and sustainability are co-imperatives. It is argued that the mandate of environmental economic geography is to assess and prescribe how place makes and should make a difference to a green TEP and the article sketches a research agenda to promote this goal. This research agenda focuses on the themes of regions as institutions, remapping resource use and sustainable value chains.

DOI: 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00115.x