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Emerging economies are struggling to make their development plans sustainable. India, for example, has adopted the co-benefits approach in its climate policy to integrate interconnected environmental, economic and social issues. The literature treats co-benefits as a politically neutral technocratic policy instrument for reducing greenhouse gases. But, what are the real potential benefits and limits of the co-benefits approach in the Indian institutional context? Drawing on discursive institutionalism, we highlight the interplay between ‘co-benefits’, the discursive processes through which it has evolved, the interests it has given expression to, and the Indian institutional context that mediates these processes. The successful adoption of this approach can be explained through the flexibility with which different actors interpret it and express their interests through storylines. Yet, this interpretive flexibility also explains the limited success in implementing this approach in India’s energy sector. To overcome existing limitations, we suggest the necessity of triple-loop transformational learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]