IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/agecon/v32y2005is1p201-210.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The poverty of sustainability: rescuing economics from platitudes

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel W. Bromley

Abstract

The idea of sustainability has become confused and incoherent. If sustainability is to regain a plausible pertinence to economic policy it must be understood to encompass two realms: (1) human interaction with nature; and (2) human interaction with others with respect to their interaction with nature. The on‐going redefinition of the purposes of nature requires that institutions—norms, rules‐property regimes—undergo constant evolution so that human action conduces to nondestructive action. Caution in the social realm is the greatest risk to environmental sustainability.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel W. Bromley, 2005. "The poverty of sustainability: rescuing economics from platitudes," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 32(s1), pages 201-210, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:bla:agecon:v:32:y:2005:i:s1:p:201-210
    DOI: 10.1111/j.0169-5150.2004.00024.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0169-5150.2004.00024.x
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.0169-5150.2004.00024.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. James, Harvey S., Jr., 2005. "For a Sustainable Agriculture, We Need More Adam Smith, Not Less," Working Papers 26047, University of Missouri Columbia, Department of Agricultural Economics.
    2. Kitessa, R.J., 2018. "On the design and implementation of environmental conservation mechanisms : Evidence from field experiments," Other publications TiSEM cda8497d-6dcf-4092-b815-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Hagedorn, Konrad, 2004. "Institutionen der Nachhaltigkeit," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 39.
    4. Miguel Arato & Stijn Speelman & Guido Van Huylenbroeck, 2014. "The contribution of non‐timber forest products towards sustainable rural development: The case of Candelilla wax from the Chihuahuan Desert in Mexico," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(2), pages 141-153, May.
    5. Terrence S. Veeman, 2008. "Development, Productivity, and Sustaining Natural Capital," Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue canadienne d'agroeconomie, Canadian Agricultural Economics Society/Societe canadienne d'agroeconomie, vol. 56(1), pages 13-25, March.
    6. Harvey James, 2006. "Sustainable agriculture and free market economics: Finding common ground in Adam Smith," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 23(4), pages 427-438, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kittiya Yongvanich & James Guthrie, 2006. "An extended performance reporting framework for social and environmental accounting," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 15(5), pages 309-321, September.
    2. Peter Roberts, 2002. "The Scottish strategic and spatial context for sustainable development," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(3), pages 131-139.
    3. Maite Cubas‐Díaz & Miguel Ángel Martínez Sedano, 2018. "Measures for Sustainable Investment Decisions and Business Strategy – A Triple Bottom Line Approach," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(1), pages 16-38, January.
    4. Mechthild Donner & Anne Verniquet & Jan Broeze & Katrin Kayser & Hugo de Vries, 2021. "Critical success and risk factors for circular business models valorising agricultural waste and by-products," Post-Print hal-03004851, HAL.
    5. Claire Woods & Roger Urwin, 2010. "Putting Sustainable Investing into Practice: A Governance Framework for Pension Funds," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 92(1), pages 1-19, April.
    6. Cornelis Leeuwen & Jos Frijns & Annemarie Wezel & Frans Ven, 2012. "City Blueprints: 24 Indicators to Assess the Sustainability of the Urban Water Cycle," Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), Springer;European Water Resources Association (EWRA), vol. 26(8), pages 2177-2197, June.
    7. Pero, Margherita & Bottani, Eleonora & Bigliardi, Barbara, 2014. "Exploring Sustainability in Construction Supply Chains," Chapters from the Proceedings of the Hamburg International Conference of Logistics (HICL), in: Kersten, Wolfgang & Blecker, Thorsten & Ringle, Christian M. (ed.), Next Generation Supply Chains: Trends and Opportunities. Proceedings of the Hamburg International Conference of Logistics (HICL), Vol. 18, volume 18, pages 161-182, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Institute of Business Logistics and General Management.
    8. Euston Quah, 2015. "Pursuing Economic Growth in Asia: The Environmental Challenge," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(10), pages 1487-1504, October.
    9. CHEN, Helen S.Y., 2020. "Designing Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains," OSF Preprints m82ar, Center for Open Science.
    10. Jim Butcher, 2006. "The United Nations International Year of Ecotourism: a critical analysis of development implications," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 6(2), pages 146-156, April.
    11. Milazzo, M.F. & Spina, F. & Cavallaro, S. & Bart, J.C.J., 2013. "Sustainable soy biodiesel," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 806-852.
    12. Matthias Fischer & Harald Heinrichs, 2018. "Dimensions, Dialectic, Discourse. Three Political Perspectives on the Sustainability of the German Healthcare System," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-22, July.
    13. Parvathi Jayaprakash & R. Radhakrishna Pillai, 2022. "The Role of ICT for Sustainable Development: A Cross-Country Analysis," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(1), pages 225-247, February.
    14. Denise Ravet, 2011. "Lean production: the link between supply chain and sustainable development in an international environment," Post-Print hal-00691666, HAL.
    15. Anna Beniermann & Martin Glos & Heike Schumacher & Ingo Fietze & Stephan Völker & Annette Upmeier zu Belzen, 2023. "‘Sleep Blindness’ in Science Education: How Sleep Health Literacy Can Serve as a Link between Health Education and Education for Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-22, August.
    16. Okechukwu Ukaga, 2014. "Gilbert Silvius, Ron Schipper, Julia Planko, Jasper van den Brink and Adri Kohler: Sustainability in project management," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 455-457, April.
    17. Mara Del Baldo, 2012. "Corporate social responsibility and corporate governance in Italian SMEs: the experience of some “spirited businesses”," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 16(1), pages 1-36, February.
    18. Ju Liu & Bo Bengtsson & Helena Bohman & Karin Staffansson Pauli, 2020. "A System Model and An Innovation Approach toward Sustainable Housing Renovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-16, February.
    19. Megan Devonald & Nicola Jones & Sally Youssef, 2022. "‘We Have No Hope for Anything’: Exploring Interconnected Economic, Social and Environmental Risks to Adolescents in Lebanon," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-17, February.
    20. Nguyen Hoang Tien & Dinh Ba Hung Anh & Nguyen Minh Ngoc, 2020. "Corporate financial performance due to sustainable development in Vietnam," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(2), pages 694-705, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:agecon:v:32:y:2005:i:s1:p:201-210. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaaeeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.