Organizing sustainable development: from diffusion to translation

Policy changes towards global sustainable development have important consequences for how these policies are organized. New and alternative models of organizing tend to emphasize indirect control rather than direct control and supervision. However, our understanding of their effects and consequences is not very well elaborated. The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of specific characteristics and effects of organizing alternative environmental policies towards sustainable development. The paper is based on a field study of the latest attempt in Sweden to work towards sustainable development. In 1998, the Swedish government formulated a programme for local investments aiming at positive environmental effects and increased employment rates. In this article, we have posed more general questions on how to understand and to theorize upon the organizing of sustainable development. We suggest a view of the implementation of environmental policies towards sustainable development as a chain of translation. These translations highlight unintended consequences of the policies, e.g. the creation of a temporary linguistic community allowing local and global 'time spaces' to merge. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.