The Treadmill of (Diversifying) Production

A key issue in the debate between treadmill of production (To P) theorists and ecological modernization theorists centers on the effect of modernization on the environmental sustainability of societies. This article proposes that due in part to a focus on case study evidence, ecological modernization theorists often observe trends toward environmental sustainability only in specific and nonrepresentative cases rather than general trends in typical cases. The existence of specific cases (including nations and organizations) that appear to be improving environmental performance as part of the modernization process may not be due to a general trend toward sustainability associated with modernization but rather, due to a trend toward increased variability of environmental performance in institutions in late modernity. The environmental performance of institutions may be on average getting worse, as To P theorists expect, but the variability across institutions has increased, which leads to some extreme cases that appear to be “ecologically modernizing.”