Carsten Herrmann-Pillath’s article examines the role of the imaginary in utopian ideas in the eco-social transformation. Utopia has three essential functions: First, it provides a vantage point for critical evaluation of the status quo; second, it fosters motivation for change; and third, it gives direction to change. Since the crucial issue in eco-social transformation is the interface between the economy and the environment, we need to explore utopias that include the economy.

In current debates, economics usually plays the role of “realism”. Herrmann-Pillath argues that mainstream economics carries the seeds of a utopian turn when it recognizes that the concept of the “economic subject” is analytically free of “speciesism”. From this follows a strong moral imperative to recognize the rights of non-humans in economic systems, especially property rights. However, economics does not show how this can be practically achieved. This requires going beyond economics and appropriating moral and aesthetic practices to cultivate reciprocal relationships with nature.

These practices cannot emerge on a society-wide level, but must be rooted in the local. Therefore, the author proposes to consider ‘nature based solutions’ as a vehicle of utopian transformation, i.e. as an element of the communitization of landscapes. In this case, they are no longer merely eco-technological fixed points, but become aesthetic and moral media for reciprocal forms of living.