THINKING ABOUT CRISES AND SUSTAINABILITY / HABITABILITY TRANSITIONS

FROM THE BUSINESS PHENOMENON: A THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTION

I. Introduction

The present work tackles the topic of the modern capitalist company in its relationship to
civilizational crisis and sustainability/habitability transitions. This paper revolves around
the following question, namely: is the modern capitalist company responsible for the
civilizational crisis and, if so, how business and organizational thinking might be
transformed in order to contribute to the sustainment and (re)production of human and
non-human life on the planet? The championed stance states that, since the modern
capitalist company is framed in the fundamentals of neoliberal-capitalism, it promotes
crises in different places and times, which flow together to undermine planetary resiliency.
Furthermore, the modern capitalist company´s modus operandi tends to be the standard
basis and / or the mirror for business and organizational practices in general. This fact
leads to the scatter of hazardous discourses and practices, which in turn, coalesce as a
singular crisis, bringing civilization from the point of decline to irreversible collapse. To
align business and organizational thinking with planetary and habitability frameworks, it
is necessary to examine and even exceed the approach of sustainability transitions, and
to use them as a means of augmenting the study of business ontological redesign.

To deal with the aforementioned thesis, first, we propose some connections between two
phenomena: modern capitalist company and civilizational crisis. From the above, we
present an analytical plotline on the possible turning from the sustainability transition
approach to the planetary and habitability perspectives in the business field. This work
followed a qualitative methodology for collecting and analyzing the data. The methods
consisted of argumentative texts construction, literature research-analysis and
codification through Atlas T.I.

II. The modern capitalist company as detonating civilizational crisis: a

theoretical reflection.
This section examines the role of the modern capitalist company in the onset of the
civilizational crisis. From a sociological-anthropological approach, the modern capitalist
company is anchored in the hegemonic system, and therefore asserts business practices
of the dominant culture that maximize profit over labor and raw resources, with an influx
of marketing campaigns that suggest they are beginning to be concerned with protecting
the natural environment. However, being anchored in hegemony often results in an
inability to consider alternative approaches, and in protecting investments through
political lobbying to slow down or derail a government’s commitment to sustainability,
habitability, and planetary resilience.

Modernity is coeval with various phenomena, including capitalism, a historical world-

economy founded on ceaseless accumulation of capital. Capitalism acts as the economic
dimension of modernity, and as such has synthesized, transformed, and globalized the
(post)modern capitalist world at unprecedented rates. The 1970s have ushered in
discourses, institutions and practices of neoliberalism that have expanded its mediations
in complex global interactions, far beyond the sphere of economics (Arévalo, 2014;
Dussel, 1996, 2014, 2015; Escobar, 2014; 2017; Gudynas, E. and Acosta, A. 2012;
Grosso, 2012; Harvey, 2007; Ong, 2007; Quijano, 2000; Quijano, 2016; Wallerstein,
1988, 1999, 2005, 2006, 2010).

Neoliberal capitalism is dynamic and flexible, so that each neoliberal project governs
according to its own idiosyncrasies and logics. Such projects have demonstrated
resilience, renewal and adaptation, making use of various strategies, among these, green
and social interventions that adopt the discourses of detractors (Peck, Jamie and Tickell,
2002). In parallel, neoliberal capitalism is anchored to broader liquid processes that form
a complex global assemblage of multiple outcomes and logics (Harvey, 2007; Ong, 2007;
Peck, Jamie and Tickell, 2002). Despite the linguistic-euphemistic leanings towards
sustainable societies, postmodern capitalism prioritizes economic growth for its investors,
and protects the interests of the privileged few by using violence and boosting
unsustainability and defuturization to achieve its goal of maximizing the investors’ return
(Escobar, 2007, 2013, 2017; Fry, 2015; Nandy, 2012; Schwittay, 2014; Segato, 2015;
Unceta, 2014).

Now, entrepreneurs and postmodern capitalist companies, as highlighted by Shumpeter

(1934 in Mintzberg et al., 1999, p. 169), extends capitalism’s reach by generating
processes of creative destruction referred to as visionary innovations. In the same way,
Dupuis (2010) argues on the preponderant role of big firms within the hegemonic
economic system. Thus, the postmodern neoliberal capitalist firm inherits and continues
to generate its foundations and logics by prioritizing the process of capital accumulation,
and as such, is responsible for crises triggered by such a system.

Dávila (2009) clarifies that within the universe of organizations there are firms in general
which include modern capitalist companies in particular. So then, the latter are specific
types of organizations, with traits that differentiate them from other organizations.
Precisely, from the contributions of Braudel (1997), Camisón, C. and Dalmau, J. I. (2009),
Coraggio (2007), Dávila (2009), Dupuis (2010), Dussel (2014) and Gibson-Graham
(2011), the following table 1 shows some of those features, namely:

Modern capitalist company´s distinctive traits

Concentration Exchange value Anthropocentrism
Rigid production methods Private market economy Subject as object
Accelerated production
Capitalist economy Money as commodity
rhythms
High productivity rates Wage labor Markets manipulation
Objective alienation Slave labor Investing
Private market
Subjective alienation Producing
exchanges
Intersubjective alienation Theft Innovating
Enclosure Unlawful transactions Diversifying
Discipline techniques Selfishness Selling
Work controlled by
Competitiveness Making profits
owners
Products controlled by Ceaseless
Individualism
owners accumulation of capital
Table 1 Modern capitalist company´s distinctive traits
Source: own elaboration from the quoted authors
According to Dupuis (2010), the modern capitalist company emerged in Europe during
the 17th century with the small artisanal manufacturing workshop1, and its global
expansion throughout subsequent centuries has given rise to large national, multinational,
and transnational manufacturing and trading companies. The latter, paradoxically,
present themselves as agents for sustainable development. However, they continue to
hone methods and rhythms of production that exploit labor and natural resources, in order
to ensure the incessant accumulation of capital.

As the agencies of neoliberal states reduce their government’s investment in impactful

projects, the government’s social and developmental functions are transferred to large
private corporations. In this way, modern capitalist companies apply brakes to
governmental agencies that in the past have reined in the accumulation of wealth in the
hands of the few, and at the expense of the social contract that places limits on individual
behavior. Modern capitalist companies justify their intervention in the name of
development and sustainability. However, instead of fulfilling these promises to the
neoliberal state, they end up promoting social and environmental crises (Arévalo, 2013).

In a recent lecture, Aktouf refers to the modern capitalist enterprise and the evident effects
of the logic operating in these organizations, as reasserting the Aristotelian idea that
pretending that infinity exists within the finite leads to destruction. Based on the concepts
of positive-negative feedback and thermodynamic physics, Aktouf concludes that
incessant capital accumulation by large corporations implies socio-natural crises, insofar
as they lead to actions against the laws of nature and life (Facultad de Ciencias
Económicas UNAL, 2015). Dussel (2014) states in concurrence that "life [...] is put at risk
by the formal criterion of capital. That criterion is defined as the increase in the rate of
profit, which is ultimately opposed to the very existence of life" (p. 222). Hence, if life itself
increases the entropy of the earth, which is a closed entropic system, then capitalism and

1
It should be noted that the origin of the modern capitalist enterprise is extensively debated.
its institutions such as the modern capitalist enterprise, by operating under a false
assumption of infinite resources, intensely accelerate these entropic effects.

From an anthropological approach, the modern capitalist enterprise operates in a

differentiated manner in various social contexts, so that the crises it promotes are
particular to each place and experience. For example, Mills (2003) asserts that global
factories (multi/transnational) use gender to diminish the value of work, agency and
relevance of women, children, and migrants, turning them into commodities that flow
through global economic networks. The strategies and consequent effects are particular
to each case. Often they elevate the status of the single woman or the subordinate
daughter to eliminate the moderating influence of the dominant female. In other cases,
the opposite occurs, elevating the status of wife or mother in individuals who have no
knowledge of and experience in wielding power. Additional strategies include jokes,
sexual harassment and association of women with the spheres of beauty or leisure rather
than productive activities. Citing cases in Hong Kong, the United States, Chile, Brazil and
Mexico, the author argues that "in any given setting the variable interplay of multiple
gender roles and meanings can produce a wide range of recruitment and disciplinary
regimes" (Mills, 2003, p.4). Different strategies, however, have one thing in common: they
serve to undermine natural social forces that would otherwise rein in the excessive
accumulation of capital.

In studying the case of a multinational corporation in Malaysia, Ong (1988), concludes

that people in the labor force, primarily women, are denied their power of agency and
decision making, and instead are managed as parts of a machine. When they fail, by
getting sick, they are classified as abnormal, and must be fixed and reinstated according
to the practices of Western medicine and psychology. However, access to Western
practitioners is not facilitated, and so in most cases, the workers are replaced to avoid
unproductivity. Moreover, by adhering to this approach, the company transforms workers'
cultural backgrounds, by alienating their bodies and using their customs and languages
for governance and manipulation.
Richard and Rudnyckyj (2009) cite evidence from a large steel company in Indonesia that
the modern capitalist enterprise emphasizes “management of the heart”, by subjugating
and controlling the expression of feelings and emotions, using this strategy as a key
mechanism for transforming workers into machines. In nature, affection works from
biological and cultural factors linked to reason, and as such it allows a powerful and
generalized connection between people. Adversely, it makes possible the transformation
and exploitation of an entire community, whose sole purpose becomes the reproduction
of capital. In this way, neoliberal practices impose the expansion of social inequalities,
widening the economic and political chasm between stakeholders and workers.

The Observatory of Multinationals in Latin America (OMAL) (2013), cites additional

studies of specific cases: the Repsol company in Ecuador, Argentina, and Bolivia; a
macro company in Belo Monte, Brazil; the Quimbo power plant and Canal Isabel II in
Colombia; illegal party financing and tax evasion in Spain; overfishing and utilizing non-
compliant production plants in free trade zones in El Salvador; Gas Natural Fenosa in
Nicaragua; the Hidralia corporation in Guatemala; the Endesa company in Chile;
widespread gender inequality in Morocco and Mexico; and labor exploitation throughout
Central America and the Caribbean. These cases testify that the harmful impacts
generated by these companies intersect several spheres: environmental, economic,
political, cultural, and social.

The environmental impact of multi/transnational companies contributes to air, water, and

land pollution, since their production methods cause massive loss of biodiversity,
destruction of territory, and displacement of populations. Economic fallout arises from
fraud, corruption, bribery, tax evasion, the appropriation of public sectors, and the
destruction of local economic practices. In the political sphere, these companies
transgress national sovereignty, influence governments, deteriorate democracies and
support groups outside the law to generate armed conflicts that facilitate their operations.
Large corporations also manipulate, control and/or privatize education and the media,
and undermine Indigenous peoples by attacking their culture, customs, and forms of
government, allowing further dispossession of land and appropriation of resources. In the
social dimension, modern capitalist enterprises promote the privatization of public
services, concretize gender inequalities, restrict trade union rights, and undermine labor
conditions (Greenpeace España, 2009; OMAL, 2013; Uharte, 2014). This cluster effect
demonstrates the nihilistic capacity of the hegemonic system, in which finite resources
are treated as infinite.

In response to the lauded innovations of neoliberal capitalism, Rosenblat examines the

share economy, in which modern capitalist companies such as Uber connect producers
with consumers through technology. In this way, the premise goes, companies promote
the flexibility of consultancy, as producers commission their assets, skills and time directly
with consumers. However, studies have shown that the share economy, by exploiting the
gray area of consultancy as regards salaries and employee benefits, ends up
disseminating the precariousness of people's labor, in which work-related crises are not
solved, and on the contrary are exacerbated. As a result, incomes do not increase, further
widening the wage inequities gap, and thus rendering a large pool of labor more
vulnerable to the economic cycle of expansion and contraction (2018).

Research has further demonstrated that as large multi/transnationals grow and reproduce
themselves in different contexts and in different ways, the crises and negative risks
associated with neoliberal capitalism are so persistent and predictable that they may be
classified as a counterpart of capital accumulation (Aktouf in Facultad de Ciencias
Económicas UNAL, 2015). With a foundation based on progress and indefinite
enrichment, and by equating rationalization with exploitation, neoliberal capitalist
modernity has globalized not only capital, but also multiple crises, including the
normalization of socio-natural violence. Violence is experienced by individuals in context
with their culture (Douglas and Wildavsky 1982), but its occurrence and aftermath
intertwine globally, giving rise to a humanitarian and civilizational crisis. Various authors,
including Bartra, 2010, 2013; Beck, 1992; Ehrenfeld, 2009; Escobar, 2014, 2016;
Gudynas, E. & Acosta, A. 2012; Houtart, 2013; Quezada, 2011; Toledo, 2013, refer to the
complex interweaving of these structures and processes as a risk to society, a multiple
debacle perpetrated by various responsible parties, chief among them, the modern
capitalist enterprise.

The following figure 2 was constructed from the contributions of various authors, such as
Amin (2003), Bartra (2010, 2013), Choquehuanca (2010), Escobar (2017), Harvey
(2007), Lander (2010), León-Portilla (1987), Millar (2014), Mills (2003), Anand, Gupta and
Appel (2018), Peck and Tickell (2002), Prigogine and Stengers (2002), Wallerstein (1998)
and World Wildlife Fund (n. d.). It demonstrates the complex interweaving of factors
involved in the civilizational crisis, which due to the world order thinking of players such
as neoliberal capitalism, is bringing humanity to the brink of collapse.
Figure 1 The huge civilizational crisis promoted by the hegemonic system and its modern capitalist companies (own elaboration from the quoted authors)
The modus operandi of the modern capitalist enterprise is overseen from the
metropolitan-dominant centers of the modern world, and has produced hegemonic
corporate epistemes. These systems have built-in constraints resulting from coloniality of
power and the myth of modernity2, and have become the standard global model for
thinking and conducting business and organizational matters in general. This has brought
colonial business thinking3 to a global level for all types of organizations, along with an
underlying value of truth, discourses, and praxis that generate civilizational crises in the
manner of a river’s current, a constant variation of motion on the surface and yet in
essence unchanged and inexorable in meeting its end goal.

III. Turning sustainability transitions approach in the business field toward

planetary and habitability perspectives: a theoretical reflection.

The previous section concludes that the modern capitalist enterprise, as a key institution
of neoliberal (post)modernity, contributes to the civilizational crisis, and yet serves as the
standard model for the conduction of business and for thinking about organizations in
general. This section will consider how business and organizational thinking can be
transformed in order to contribute to the sustainment and (re)production of human and
non-human life. Although there have been business ontological redesign/transitions
studies within the sustainability framework, the urgency of shifting towards habitability and
planetary perspectives makes it necessary to propose a more radical approach to their
application in the business sphere.

The concept of sustainability has historical roots, traced back to Hans Carl von Carlowitz
(1645–1714), who managed mining on behalf of the Saxon court in Freiberg. Despite the

2
The coloniality of power refers to the universal social classification based on the idea of race. This
establishes the places and roles that different peoples occupy in the power of modern world society, in such
a way that the mental and cultural discoveries of all dominated peoples are placed in a natural position of
inferiority (Quijano, 2000). The myth of modernity refers to evolutionism, where modern society is presented
as the most advanced stage and, therefore, responsible for civilizing the rest (Dussel, 2000).
3
Colonial philosophy and thinking refers to the repetition spirit existent in the periphery of the in-force
philosophy and thinking from the metropolitan centers of the modern world. This obeys to cultural
domination processes (Dussel, 1996).
court’s forest regulations, timber shortages devastated Saxony’s silver mining and
metallurgy industries, and in his seminal work, Carlowitz formulated ideas for sustainable
use of the forest, concluding that only so much wood should be cut as could be regrown
through planned reforestation projects (Brightman and Lewis 2017). Brightman and Lewis
thus postulated 1713 as a historic year for interest in sustainability; and as population
growth spurred public outbreaks in disease, the 18th century oversaw the publication of
related international essays and treatises regarding the effects of human activity on the
environment. This period culminated in 1824 when Joseph Fourier described what is now
called the greenhouse effect.

From the 1960s onwards, scientists and politicians became increasingly concerned about
the long-term sustainment of life on the planet. Environmental sciences were carving out
a place in academia, by posing questions on indefinite growth and the role of technology,
and by suggesting alternatives. The terms they incorporated, such as carrying capacity,
natural resources, climate and environmental transformations, and the future of the next
generations, drove the social construct of knowledge. In 1972, Goldsmith published "The
blueprint for survival", formally enunciating the concept of sustainability, around which
several publications, institutions and events took place4, leading to the Brundtland Report,
which concretized and disseminated a topic that had gained a foothold in popular culture.
Other relevant advances soon emerged: The Rio Declaration, The Sustainable
Development Goals, and The Paris Agreement (Brightman and Lewis, 2017; Henig,
2021a, 2021b; Kidd, 1992). Today, the topic is so broad that "it seems unlikely that a
single definition of sustainability will be universally accepted" (Kidd, 1992, p. 23), and in
consequence, “the meaning of the term is strongly dependent on the context in which it
is applied and on whether its use is based on a social, economic, or ecological
perspective” (Brown et al., 1987). The scope of interdisciplinarity and variety of topics on
the issue is indicated in the following figures 3, 4 and 5 from Toledo (2019) and

4
The most representative are: The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the U.N.
Conferences and Reports, IIASA, The Woodlands Conferences and Prices, The Magnuson Act, The World
Resources Institute, USAID, The Worldwatch Institute, and The Indian Science Congress Association
(Kidd, 1992).
Bettencourt and Kaur (2011) respectively.

Figure 3 The Interdisciplinarity of Sustainability (Toledo, 2019)

Figure 4 The main sustainability topics (Bettencourt and Kaur, 2011)

 Figure 5 The main sustainability topics (Bettencourt and Kaur, 2011)

As the figures suggest, the topic is nurtured by different approaches5, among them,
transitions to sustainability. When speaking of sustainability transitions, Elzen et al.
(2004), Grin et al. (2010), Loorbach et al. (2017), Markard et al. (2012), and Zolfahgarian
et al. (2019) refer to radical/structural, non-linear, multilevel, emergent and co-
evolutionary changes. These terms apply to institutional, organizational and technical
processes, and to the way social functions (technological, economic, political, cultural)
are fulfilled. They are meant to generate a new way of thinking about the design and
construction of socio-technical, socio-political and socio-ecological systems, leading to
more sustainable ways of life, production and consumption6.

The transition to sustainability approach gained traction in the late 1990s, due to the
growing recognition of civilizational crises that demanded radical transformations (Farla

5
Among other approaches are: environmental economics, industrial ecology, eco-innovation, sustainability
science, green economy, political ecology, environmentalism, and economic ecology.
6
The concept of sustainability has manifold interpretations (Garud and Gehman, 2012), so that it is
necessary to clarify what is the precise meaning of sustainability in unfolded transitions. Since the category
is broad and malleable, clarification is not an easy and safe task, it is a complex and hazardous one (Henig,
2021a).
et al., 2012; Geels et al., 2011; Gleik, 2003; IEA, 2011; Kohler et al., 2019; Markard et al.,
2012). This drew attention to the study of environmental, sustainability and innovation
sciences; the dynamics, mechanisms and governance of transitions to sustainability; the
destabilization and reorientation in established regimes7; and the emergence of new
regimes from the role and agency of niches8 (Hoogma et al., 2002; Kemp, 1994; Kemp
et al., 1998; Rip and Kemp, 1998; Schot, 1992; Schot et al., 1994; Geels and Raven,
2006; Voß et al., 2006). Research in the field has received increasing attention, and the
topics that have been addressed are diverse, and among them, the study of the role of
firms and industries in the process of transitions stands out9.

According to Kohler et al. (2019), companies play a vital role in sustainability transitions
by contributing to the development of new products, services, business models,
technologies and industries, as well as by designing and shaping discourses on broader
social problems, influencing policies and regulations, developing standards of industrial
behavior and shaping social expectations. Recently, the study of business has been
developed from the approach of sustainability transitions through the use and adaptation
of management theoretical frameworks (organizational strategy, organizational
resources, and institutional entrepreneurship, among others), addressing three main
topics: 1. The role of entrepreneurial actors in the creation and/or reorientation of
industries, novel technologies and the formation of innovation niches or systems; 2. The
role of such actors in promoting institutional change; and 3. The relationships and conflicts
between innovators and curators (Bakker, 2014; Karltorp and Sandén, 2012; Kohler et al.
2019; Planko et al., 2016). Moreover, development opportunities in this subfield include
work on industrial decline, firm change, transitions in multiple industries, further
elaboration of institutional theory, and innovation in business models (Kohler et al. 2019).

7
Regimes refer to dominant and established orders or configurations in a social system or subsystem
(Loorbach et al., 2017).
8
Niches have to do with protected spaces where radical innovations that compete with in-force regimes
take place (Loorbach et al., 2017).
9
For a review of the progress and challenges of sustainability transition studies see Kohler et al. (2019)
and Zolfagharian et al. (2019).
Unlike other approaches to sustainability that focus on short-term technocratic
perspectives, and on particular dimensions and groups, the sustainability transitions
approach is fitting for the study of business because of its focus on long-term systemic
transformations (Kohler et al. 2019). However, it is insufficient to radically transform the
thinking of business in order to avoid the impact of the crisis and to promote the extended
sustainment of human and non-human life on the planet. Despite its interdisciplinarity, the
primary reflective frameworks of the sustainability transition approach are anchored in
modern/capitalist ontologies (Hopkins et al., 2020). While issues associated with radical
social change are raised, there is a palpable absence of significant critiques on capitalist
modernity, and even more so when addressing business. The dominant system is taken
for granted and almost idealized, which restricts the possibility of thinking transformations
beyond it (Feola, 2019).

These ontologies end up producing oxymorons that, instead of reversing crises,

reproduce them. Such is the case of sustainable mining, which attempts to transition
towards sustainability without questioning the underlying economic privilege that
continues to fuel the current harmful extractive models. Instead, it transforms existing
beliefs and critical positions in order to obtain social legitimacy and give continuity to
dangerous practices (Kirsch, 2019). Consequently, this requires the risk-taking and
dangerous task of clarification, calling for an exploration of broader transition routes from
the dominant system to post-capitalist, civilizational and/or ontological transitions
(Escobar, 2014, 2016; Feola, 2019; Gibson-Graham, 2011). In quoting Escobar (2016),
Arévalo et al. (2020), signals the relevance of new rationalities that go beyond the
contemporary system and its sustainability discourses to ontological/radical transitions
focused on multiple possible options10 that sustain the complex fabric of human and non-
human life.

10
Among these are: The ecology of repair (Patel and Moore, 2018), sustainability as flourishing (Ehrenfeld,
2005, 2014), sustainability as social power (Toledo, 2019), and living within the rights of nature, as practiced
by Latin American Indigenous peoples.
Starting from the idea that globalization and sustainability are part of the same
anthropocentric/capitalocentric machinery, the inclusion of the humanities, social and
natural sciences has been postulated as necessary to habitability and planetary
approaches. Natural sciences in particular have to do with long-term planetary cycles,
including living and non-living processes, such as hydrologic, chemical, and metabolic,
(Asociación Peruana de Astrobiología, 2017)), and with how such processes have
historically provided and enabled the necessary conditions for the (re)production and
flourishing of human and non-human existence (Chakravarty, 2021; Henig, 2021b).
Planetary thinking has the power to shift from the centrality of anthropocentric globalizing
approaches that give precedence to human beings, reducing them to a single particular
species among other existing ones (Chakravarty in Futures of Sustainability, Universitat
Hamburg, 2021).

Within the planetary framework, the concept of sustainability becomes meaningless,

since it only accounts for the sustainability of human-centric globalizing/capitalist projects.
The importance of the habitability approach emerges, rooted mainly in astrobiology, and
with a central concern for life in its deepest sense (complex and multicellular life in
general) and how to make it sustainable in accordance with planetary processes. The
value of the habitability approach lies in its precision, which distances it from the debates
of biopolitics; the latter address the meanings and administration of life, while habitability
decentralizes the relevance of human beings and focuses on what makes the planet able
to sustain and guarantee the continued existence of complex life (Chakravarty, 2021;
Frank and Sullivan, 2014; Henig, 2021b).

Transitions in the business field that align with habitability and planetary frameworks11
would contribute to a radical ontological transformation of business thinking, and
organizational thinking in general, since it subordinates maintaining the current system of
capital to guaranteeing the sustainment and (re)production of human and non-human life.

11
According to the Asociación Peruana de Astrobiología (2017), planetary and habitability perspectives
provide frameworks whose role is to contribute to the development of specific alternatives that sustain
human and non-human life on the planet.
Additionally, it would identify and study companies and organizations that continue to
defend ontological transformations that interrupt and destroy the conditions and
processes that make it possible to sustain a dignified human and non-human way of life.
This would enable companies in constant transition to understand planetary and
habitability perspectives beyond modern Western science.

In moving beyond the human centric canon of thought, five clarifications are proposed.
First, Hopkins et al. (2020) warn that although critical alternative theoretical frameworks
have addressed the approach to transitions to sustainability, they are subordinated to the
mainstream, with the result that much of their potential remains untapped. Thus,
transitions that arise from alternative frameworks such as the habitability and the
planetary perspectives must be allowed to operate on their own terms.

Second, the distinction between habitability and biopolitics necessitates a dialogue

between the two approaches. Since the central concern of habitability is the sustaining of
life in its deepest sense, it would extend to abiotic/physical/chemical processes. The word
abiotic (lifeless) could be problematic, as it connotes scientific and modern, and therefore
subject to de-colonization, when the overriding principle of habitability is not
independence, but rather interdependence.

Third, identifying and studying companies and organizations that maintain a constant
concern for their ontological transformation stresses the relevance of such concern.
According to Dussel (2014), due to human limitations, every human empirical system is
imperfect (be it capitalist, socialist, communist or any other). These systems carry
inherent defects that generate endemic suffering for human and non-human victims.
Since these defects operate continuously in any given space or time, there will always be
victims, and, consequently, it becomes necessary to identify the victims and to transform
epistemologically and empirically any system that produces suffering. The victims of
systemic negative outcomes must always be the starting point of any critique, a signal of
alert and the source of ethical-normative interpellation of the system in transition.
Fourth, though the study of companies and organizations in transition towards a planetary
and habitability philosophy must be carried out from different perspectives, an overriding
principle to the understanding of the institutional logics12 of the identified companies and
organizations. In order to contribute to the re-design of fundamental beliefs and
assumptions of businesses and organizations within the habitability and the planetary
frameworks, the ontological transition/transformation must operate as a response to the
modern/capitalist business models that promote civilizational crises.

Fifth, although companies and organizations in transition to the planetary and habitability
frameworks can be identified across the planet, authors such as Feola (2019) Feola et al.
(2021), Truffer and Coenen (2012) and Markard et al. (2012), highlight the relevance of
transitions in the global south, territories where de-colonizing, anti/postliberal, anti/post-
capitalist and anti/post-developmentalist logics and analytical frameworks proliferate,
loaded with critical conceptions of sustainability and life. In the case of social
organizations with post developmentalism potential in Cauca, Colombia, Arévalo et al.
(2019), found evidence of transformation "through strategies such as the politics of
collective action or associativity, politics of language, mobilization or movigestion,
development of economies, oral tradition, internalization or formation of consciousness,
determination of key moments, affectivity, training at different levels, articulation,
awareness and construction, advocacy, realization of workshops, and transformation of
subject political culture (Arévalo, 2019, p. 18). Such organizations maintain a constant
concern for their ontological transition in line with planetary and habitability perspectives,
without labeling their efforts in these categorical frameworks.

IV. Conclusion.

The modern capitalist company nowadays represents big corporations and

multi/transnational businesses, and is a key institution of the neoliberal-capitalist

12
Institutional logics refer to “the socially constructed, historical patterns of cultural symbols and material
practices, assumptions, values and beliefs by which individuals [in an organization or other scales] produce
and reproduce their material subsistence, organize time and space, and provide meaning to their daily
activity” (Ocasio, Thornton and Lounsbury, 2017, p.510).
(post)modernity, not only globalizing its economic practices and capital, but also
contributing to the global reproduction of crises and negative risks as a result of its
criterion for decision-making: the increase in the rate of profit (Dussel, 2014). According
to Akotuf, in the Facultad de Ciencias Económicas UNAL, 2015, while the big companies´
capital increases in a positive curve, at the same time and as a counterpart, crises and
risks increase in a negative curve, breaking the natural laws of balance, since the cycle
is not based on infinite resources. The increases, both positive and negative, encapsulate
suffering as a way of life for much of the planet, and are leading not only to the collapse
of civilization, but to the collapse of humanity.

The modern capitalist company depicts and acts as the standard global model for thinking
and conducting business, and organizational matters in general, promoting the spread of
crisis discourses and praxis. The proliferation of crises that are differentially expressed
and lived in each context where they occur gives the appearance on the surface of infinite
permutations. However, underneath the surface, they flow together and influence each
other, giving rise to a great civilizational crisis, a complex interweaving of structures and
processes that make up a multiple debacle that must be solved if human existence is to
continue.

The rate of proliferation necessitates an urgent search for alternate routes to sustaining
and (re)producing human and non-human life on the planet. The questioning and
surmounting of transition approaches in the business field would shift the study of
business ontological redesign/transitions from sustainability to planetary and habitability
frameworks. Business and organizational thinking would be transformed in order to
decentralize human-centric projects and the role of capital, and to bring to the forefront
the importance and sustainment of human and non-human life. Entanglements and
relationalities of human and non-human beings, events and forces, in balanced, closed
cycles of biotics and abiotics are necessary for a habitable future.
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