‘Green’ Progressive Competitiveness: Promises, Contradictions and Alternatives for a Just Transition

A talk from Christian Pépin, Postdoctoral fellow, Industrial Relations School (Université de Montréal).

Abstract: In recent years, many Western governments adopted “green” industrial policies to accelerate the decarbonization of economies. Such state interventions often assume that helping businesses acquire the capacities to produce “green” commodities will be rewarded by ESG-oriented actors willing to pay a price premium for such goods. This accumulation strategy promises to rejuvenate a high-road, export-led growth model delivering good green jobs and thus, provide a capitalist-based pathway to a “just transition”. This presentation will analyze the economic and political forces threatening to undermine these socioeconomic goals while exploring alternative roads to a labor-centered ecological transition.

Christian Pépin is a comparative political economist specialized in state economic policies, finance and class politics. His current research focuses on the roles of industrial policies and public financial institutions under “green” capitalism, their impacts on the future of work, and their democratic and emancipatory alternatives.