The Quest for Ecological Modernization 443from insurers who see the reduction of environmental damage and social conflict as
an important way for companies to reduce levels of risk.
These reconstituting forces are, in turn, reshaping the relationships between
firms, governments and ‘communities of interest’. Among the actors there are key
constituencies who will help to shape the dynamic and developing relationships
both within their actor-spaces and between themselves and other actors. From the
point of view of business it is now more essential (albeit to varying spatial and
sectoral degrees) that these relationships are constructed and constantly recon-
structed in ways that help to ensure its longer-term survival. These can be depicted
in Figure 20.1. However, neither the effects on businesses of the processes of
change that are identified here will not be even, and nor will be the impacts on the
‘communities of interest’. What is necessary in research terms then is to theoretically
and empirically understand the richness, complexity and contestability of business
responses to, and the management of, its environment. In short we need new con-
structed models of (potentially autonomous) business behaviour and relationships
which are embedded in the social, environmental and political contexts which they
are attempting to shape.
So far environmental and rural sociologists have tended to avoid these ven-
tures, leaving it to the environmental economists and ethical marketing specialists
to engage in the tracing of these new patterns. For instance, such discipline-specific
research is pursuing the following lines:
- The inclusion of sustainability and social responsiveness within corporate
accounting and reporting practices, and its relationships to the growing ethical
Figure 20.1 Changing relationships between key actors