The Challenge of Sustainability: Is Integrating Environment and Economy Enough?

In: Policy sciences: integrating knowledge and practice to advance human dignity ; the journal of the Society of Policy Scientists, Band 25, Heft 4, S. 401-408

Abstract

A review essay on books by: Jim MacNeill, Pieter Winsemius, & Taizo Yakushiji, Beyond Interdependence: The Meshing of the World's Economy and the Earth's Ecology (New York: Oxford U Press, 1991); Robert Goodland, Herman Daly, Salah El Serafy, & Bernard von Droste [Eds], Environmentally Sustainable Economic Development: Building on Bruntland (Paris: UNESCO, 1991); & Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, & Jorgen Randers, Beyond the Limits: Global Collapse or a Sustainable Future (London: Earthscan Publishers, 1992 [see listings in IRPSPPD No. 29]). The relationship between sustainable economic development & the environment is examined in the course of reviewing these three books. MacNeill, Winsemius, & Yakushiji employ a framework of equity to examine the need & the means for integrating environmental & economic policy decisions, arguing for limitations on population growth to increase efficiency in economic development. Their work, a follow-up to the 1987 Brutland Report, is criticized for its cursory treatment of the conflict between economy & environment. Meadows, Meadows, & Rander illustrate the most likely general behavior of the world economic system, assuming continuation of present policies on economic & population growth & current rates of technological change. Goodland, Daly, Serafy, & von Droste explore sustainable development within the context of environmental factors, arguing that the integration of economy & environment in development policy will not necessarily ensure economic growth. 12 References. W. Howard