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This conceptual article focuses on the environmental dimensions of sustainable development, which are essential for satisfying current and future human needs. It assesses ecological economics (EE) as an alternative base for a "strong" version of sustainable entrepreneurship (SE). EE recognizes the biophysical base of economic activity, critical natural capital (non-substitutability) and limits to market valuation and exchange. Contemporary entrepreneurial definitions, however, as well as recent SE framings, pre-suppose that functioning markets will achieve sustainable development. As discussed in this paper, because natural processes are non-linear and critical, and as thresholds are impossible to anticipate, markets are unreliable and principally at odds with the objectives of sustainable development. Our proposed alternative constitutes a way forward.

Since sustainable consumption (SC) research focuses primarily on consumer purchasing behaviors, there is a gap regarding how firms attempt to shape sustainable consumption in practice. Utilizing nine case studies, this gap is addressed by exploring the use of value propositions entailing product-service systems among Swedish fashion firms. The value propositions in use by the firms suggest that sustainable consumption may be extending beyond purchase to also include aspects of use and disposal, suggesting new reciprocal responsibilities for firms and consumers. Similarities are found in what elements firms incorporate in their value propositions (i.e. more sustainable textiles, repair and take-back systems), but differences in how these are elaborated, testifying to the inter-organizational dynamics that embed practices. The paper ends with the specific caution that take-back systems may send illusionary signals regarding recycling that legitimize increased consumption and further accelerate material throughput, which would be at odds with notions of strong sustainable consumption.

This paper explains how corporations can develop market-based activities to influence environmental policies. The empirical focus is on how Swedish apparel retailers qualify takeback systems for used clothes and textiles as steps toward creating circular fashion. An analysis of the qualities that retailers attach to take-back systems shows how qualification helps corporations feature fashion as potentially sustainable and able to develop circular material flows, with the aim to enroll staff, customers, and other stakeholders in new behaviors and patterns of responsibility. We apply the notion of corporate activism to demonstrate how corporations use qualification to engage in market-based activities with the aim of influencing the regulatory agenda.