The implications of ecological thought for social welfare

Relatively little attention has been given by the discipline of social policy to ecological critiques. Yet if those critiques are even marginally accu rate, in terms of the explanations which they offer and the assessments which they make, then this is a neglect which cannot continue indefi nitely. The aim of this article is to help rectify such neglect. The article begins by reviewing the principal approaches which ecological thought takes to social welfare, noting various similarities and dissimilarities to other ideologies. It then contrasts a productivist with a non-productivist, or ecological, model which the author believes could assist in the redesign, and Greening, of social welfare.