The author identifies and critically defines three contemporary paradigms related to different conceptualizations and approaches to environmental sustainability and economic development: the hegemonic paradigm of neoliberal market capitalism, as expressed through notions of sustainable development and green growth, and the latent paradigms of the commons and degrowth. The categorization is used to critically examine emerging alternative economy narratives and initiatives, with a particular emphasis on the concept of circular economy. The author continues by outlining possible synergies between the proposed normative understanding of initiatives that transcend the framework of the dominant paradigm – so-called “alternatives to development” (Latouche, 2009) – and methods of co-creating multi-media scenarios of alternative futures. The latter category is introduced as a range of tools that hold promise for societal empowerment, potentially enabling more inclusive, organized, critical, systemic, generative and reflexive questioning and co-creation of shared knowledge, concepts and designs for alternative socio-institutional futures and transition pathways that go beyond the post-political consensus.
