Recognizing the dark side of sustainability transitions

Recent scholarship has revealed that sustainable transitions are not universally positive processes and may not have an equally beneficial impact for all. In this essay, we adopt the definition of the dark side of transformations offered by Blythe et al. (Antipode 50:1206–1223, 2018) to further explore this topic by revisiting our earlier paper—"Moral entrepreneurship: Thinking and acting at the landscape level to foster sustainability transitions"—which was published in Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions in 2017. By critically reflecting on our own work, we want to caution against an insufficient examination of the dark side of sustainability transitions and highlight the need to grapple with and portray the multifaceted nature of past and present transition processes, particularly around the issues of racism and colonialism. The conversations about the dark side of sustainability transitions will help us avoid similar or different types of problems with injustice and inequality as we develop and implement future sustainable transitions.