The book is a concise introduction to an emerging field within economics. Drawing on numerous disciplines, including environmental science, environmental and ecological economics and optimal growth theory, sustainability remains a hazy and complex subject.

The author set out with two objectives: one, to bring some order into the proliferating measures, models and management of sustainability; and two, to facilitate access to a complex inter-disciplinary subject area. The book points to practical ways of assessing and enhancing the long-term environmental and economic sustainability of our economies.

The result is a fully international study that should bridge the gap between disciplines and prove to be an essential guide to anyone interested in one of the most important concepts in the social sciences.

Contents

1. Introduction: What's Economics Got to Do with It? Part 1: Ecological Sustainability: How Much Nature Do We Need? 2. How Much Nature Do We Have? 3. How Much Nature Do We Need? Can We Sustain Its Use? 4. What Should We Do About It? Part 2: Economic Sustainability: How Much For Nature? 5. What is the Value of Nature? 6.Accounting for Economic Sustainability. 7. What Should We Do About It? 8. Bridging the Gap: Ecologial and Environmental Economics. Part 3: Sustainable Development: What Else Do We Need? 9. A Cure-All Paradigm? 10. What Should We Do About It? 11. Some Conclusions: What's Countable? What Counts? What Should We Do About It?

Author Bio

Peter Bartelmus is a Professor at the University of Wuppertal, Germany and since 2009, has been Visiting Scholar at Columbia University, USA.