Eco-Social Policies: Is a Consensus between the Ecological, Social and Economic Possible?

Over recent years, academics, policy practitioners and activists have been calling for the ecological crisis to be integrated into social policy making. This is evident at the global level in the shift from the MDGs to SDGs, to current debates on Green (New) Deals and also what a Just Transition could mean for fossil fuel dependent communities.

Yet despite clear overlaps, environmental policies and social policies have historically been treated as two separate fields. And although both seek to address negative impacts of capitalist economies, the development of climate sensitive social policy is not an ‘add and stir’ exercise. For example, the climate crisis is fuelled by unsustainable economic growth, whereas economic growth is often seen as necessary to fund social policies. Claims that green growth offers a win-win situation where the social, ecological and economic can work hand-in-hand with minimal structural change is proving increasingly problematic. As such, eco-social policies – although a much needed policy framework – also pose a challenge to the field of social policy.

We welcome both theoretical and empirical papers across all scales of eco-social policy development that engage with the following questions:

• What does eco-social policy actually mean?
• Debates on post-growth, de-growth and Just Transition
• Discussions on climate justice and social policy
• Cases that explore the welfare state models in the Global North and/or differences in the Global South
• Scales of eco-social policy development and global interdependencies