This contribution to the Symposium on Ecosystem Restoration and EU Law is concerned with the changing features of sustainability. It argues that the Commission is gradually articulating, next to the consolidated objective of sustainable development, an ecological understanding of sustainability. It discusses the meaning and relevance of such new understanding, by asking how ecological sustainability is formulated as a policy objective and jurified in the legislation stemming from the Green Deal. It then reflects on the distinction between ecological sustainability and sustainable development. The contribution finally presents some thoughts on the relevance that the ongoing process of complication of the legal construction of sustainability may have for the Green Deal.

This short Introduction outlines the purpose and structure of the Symposium on Ecosystem Restoration and EU Law. It opens by highlighting the potential relevance of the ecological move taken by the EU political institutions in the framework of the Green Deal. It then presents the issues addressed in the Symposium and the main overall argument emerging from its four contributions: whilst the EU ecological policy reflects the intention to shift from the traditional understanding of environmental protection as social regulation to a genuinely ecological and holistic vision, the functional rationale of such a move remains, for the moment, elusive and under-specified. Clarifying such rationale is an inescapable but complex task, as it requires a fresh discussion on the relationship between law and ecology, as well as a true understanding of the implications of ecosystem restoration for the evolving features of the EU polity.

This article seeks to unpack the potential and limits of markets as instruments of economic planning in sustainability capitalism. Recent policies for sustainability transitions in the United States (USA) and the European Union (EU) (eg, Infrastructure Law, EU Green Deal) have signaled aspirations for a more prominent role of the state in coordinating the economy, while still relying primarily on market mechanisms for such coordination. Yet, could the market itself be conceptualised and structured as a political instrumentality for the achievement of social objectives? An important part of the puzzle of sustainability transitions is the transportation sector, and specifically the transition to Electric Vehicles, or New Energy Vehicles (NEVs). I explore the comparative legal constructions of markets for NEVs in China – the current global leader in NEVs – the USA, and the EU. Drawing from this case study, I first argue that law makes planning possible within markets, as the functional power of market processes can be strategically deployed for the achievement of politically set objectives. Acknowledging the deliberate and artificial character of markets raises the question of what we want markets for, broadening the scope of the political possibilities enclosed in them. I, then, proceed to challenge the enduring argument of the epistemic deficit of central planners, which morphs into prescriptions of decentralisation. I show that arguments against legal centralism and planning cannot stand on just epistemological grounds and are inevitably political. Finally, I attempt to outline the limits of planning within markets – and thus, to a certain extent, the limits of the constitutive function of law – for broader projects of social transformation.