This article seeks to provide a critical perspective on the roles and effects of standards in governing new markets for sustainability. Departing from a narrow, technocratic interpretation of standards as tools to differentiate within existing markets, we examine the work of standards in configuring and enacting a specific type of environmental market, which we term growth-oriented. Through a case study of one such market for green bonds, the article shows how standards have been strategically enrolled to perform three key roles within an overall operative of growth: (1) codifying and solidifying a dominant conception of the product category, (2) protecting green bonds from stigmatizing iterations, and (3) constructing a lenient zone of qualification. Our work advances on the existing literature by offering a more power-sensitive and spatially explicit conceptualization of environmental standards. It also provides novel theorization of how growth-oriented articulations of the green economy are rendered economic by bringing “just about enough” information, assurance, and promises of green into the market frame. We conclude by reflecting on some of the tensions involved in market-based projects by revealing how the imperative for growth through categorical leniency runs the risk of environmental considerations being subordinated.

本文旨在就标准在管理新市场的可持续性方面的作用和影响提供批判性观点。不同于将标准作为在现有市场中进行区分的工具的狭隘、技术官僚主义的解释，我们研究了标准在配置和制定特定类型的环境市场方面的工作，我们称之为以增长为导向。通过对这样一个绿色债券市场的案例研究，本文展示了标准如何被战略性地纳入以在整体增长操作中发挥三个关键作用：(1) 编纂和巩固产品类别的主导概念，(2)保护绿色债券免于污名化迭代，以及 (3) 构建宽松的资格区域。我们的工作通过提供对环境标准更敏感和空间明确的概念化来推进现有文献。它还提供了新的理论，说明如何通过将“几乎足够”的绿色信息、保证和承诺带入市场框架，从而使绿色经济的增长导向表达变得经济。最后，我们通过揭示通过绝对宽容来实现增长的必要性如何冒着环境考虑被从属的风险，从而反思了基于市场的项目中涉及的一些紧张局势。