Pluralism in Environmental Economics: A Survey of the Sustainable Economic Develoment Debate

It is claimed that the concept of ‘sustainable economic development’ is central to the new ‘practical’ environmentalism of the 1980s. Intuitively, sustainability perspectives seem to suggest that knowledge accumulated in the natural sciences ought to be applied to economic processes. They contain the proposition that there is a real prospect that increasing per capita real incomes over time can be achieved in an environmentally benign manner, or at least without posing severe environmental risks. A working definition of sustainable development might be as follows: Sustainable development involves maximising the net benefits of economic development, subject to maintaining the services and quality of natural resources over time. Economic development is broadly construed to include not just increases in real per capita incomes but also other elements in social welfare. Development will necessarily involve structural change within the economy and in society. Maintaining the services and quality of the stock of resources over time implies, as far as practicable, acceptance of the following rules: utilise renewable resources at rates less than, or equal to, the natural or managed rate at which they can regenerate; optimise the efficiency with which non‐renewable resources are used in the long run, subject to substitutability between resources, and technological progress.