IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lue/wpaper/138.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What is sustainability economics?

Author

Listed:
  • Stefan Baumgärtner

    (Department of Sustainability Sciences, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany)

  • Martin F. Quaas

    (Department of Economics, University of Kiel, Germany)

Abstract

While economists have been contributing to the discussion of various aspects of sustainability for decades, it is just recently that the term “sustainability economics” was used explicitly in the ecological, environmental, and resource economics community. Yet, the contributions that use the term “sustainability economics” do not refer to any explicit definition of the term, and are not obviously joined by common or unifying characteristics, such as subject focus, methodology, or institutional background. The question thus arises: What is “sustainability economics”? In this essay, we make an attempt at systematically defining and delineating what “sustainability economics” could be in terms of its normative foundation, aims, subject matter, ontology, epistemology, and genuine research agenda.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan Baumgärtner & Martin F. Quaas, 2009. "What is sustainability economics?," Working Paper Series in Economics 138, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:lue:wpaper:138
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Forschungseinrichtungen/ifvwl/WorkingPapers/lue/pdf/wp_138_Upload.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Becker, Gary S., 1978. "The Economic Approach to Human Behavior," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226041124, December.
    2. Baumgärtner, Stefan & Becker, Christian & Frank, Karin & Müller, Birgit & Quaas, Martin, 2008. "Relating the philosophy and practice of ecological economics: The role of concepts, models, and case studies in inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability research," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 384-393, October.
    3. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    4. Becker, Christian, 2006. "The human actor in ecological economics: Philosophical approach and research perspectives," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 17-23, November.
    5. Funtowicz, Silvio O. & Ravetz, Jerome R., 1994. "The worth of a songbird: ecological economics as a post-normal science," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 197-207, August.
    6. Illge, Lydia & Schwarze, Reimund, 2009. "A matter of opinion--How ecological and neoclassical environmental economists and think about sustainability and economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 594-604, January.
    7. Becker, Christian & Faber, Malte & Hertel, Kirsten & Manstetten, Reiner, 2005. "Malthus vs. Wordsworth: Perspectives on humankind, nature and economy. A contribution to the history and the foundations of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 299-310, May.
    8. Ayres, Robert U., 2008. "Sustainability economics: Where do we stand?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 281-310, September.
    9. Muller, Adrian, 2003. "A flower in full blossom?: Ecological economics at the crossroads between normal and post-normal science," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 19-27, April.
    10. Stigler, George J & Becker, Gary S, 1977. "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 76-90, March.
    11. Peter Söderbaum, 2007. "Towards Sustainability Economics: Principles and Values," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 205-225, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Baumgärtner, Stefan & Becker, Christian & Frank, Karin & Müller, Birgit & Quaas, Martin, 2008. "Relating the philosophy and practice of ecological economics: The role of concepts, models, and case studies in inter- and transdisciplinary sustainability research," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(3), pages 384-393, October.
    2. Castro e Silva, Manuela & Teixeira, Aurora A.C., 2011. "A bibliometric account of the evolution of EE in the last two decades: Is ecological economics (becoming) a post-normal science?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 849-862, March.
    3. Remig, Moritz C., 2015. "Unraveling the veil of fuzziness: A thick description of sustainability economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 194-202.
    4. Becker, Christian, 2006. "The human actor in ecological economics: Philosophical approach and research perspectives," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 17-23, November.
    5. Christian U. Becker & Jack Hamblin, 2021. "Conceptualizing Personhood for Sustainability: A Buddhist Virtue Ethics Perspective," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-13, August.
    6. Spash, Clive L., 2013. "The shallow or the deep ecological economics movement?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 351-362.
    7. Klara Helene Stumpf & Stefan Baumgärtner & Christian U. Becker & Stefanie Sievers-Glotzbach, 2015. "The Justice Dimension of Sustainability: A Systematic and General Conceptual Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 7(6), pages 1-35, June.
    8. Lo, Alex, 2014. "The Problem of Methodological Pluralism in Ecological Economics," MPRA Paper 49543, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Pelenc, Jérôme, 2014. "Développement humain responsable et aménagement du territoire. Réflexions à partir de deux réserves de biosphère périurbaines en France et au Chili [Responsible Human Development and Land-Use Plann," MPRA Paper 56094, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Gébert, Judit, 2015. "Mit is kell fenntartani?. Fenntarthatóság a képességszemlélet perspektívájából [Sustaining what?. Sustainability in terms of the capability approach]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(9), pages 972-989.
    11. Teixeira, Aurora A. C. & Castro e Silva, Manuela, 2015. "Relational environment and intellectual roots of 'ecological economics': An orthodox or heterodox field of research?," Economics Discussion Papers 2015-52, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    12. Drupp, Moritz A. & Baumgärtner, Stefan & Meyer, Moritz & Quaas, Martin F. & von Wehrden, Henrik, 2020. "Between Ostrom and Nordhaus: The research landscape of sustainability economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 172(C).
    13. Nilsen, Heidi Rapp, 2010. "The joint discourse 'reflexive sustainable development' -- From weak towards strong sustainable development," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 495-501, January.
    14. Stern, David I., 1997. "Limits to substitution and irreversibility in production and consumption: A neoclassical interpretation of ecological economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 197-215, June.
    15. Mollie Painter-Morland & Geert Demuijnck & Sara Ornati, 2017. "Sustainable Development and Well-Being: A Philosophical Challenge," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 146(2), pages 295-311, December.
    16. Jacob D Rendtorff, 2019. "Sustainable Development Goals and progressive business models for economic transformation," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 34(6), pages 510-524, September.
    17. Plumecocq, Gaël, 2014. "The second generation of ecological economics: How far has the apple fallen from the tree?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 457-468.
    18. Ozgur Isil & Michael T. Hernke, 2017. "The Triple Bottom Line: A Critical Review from a Transdisciplinary Perspective," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(8), pages 1235-1251, December.
    19. Clive L Spash, 2009. "Social Ecological Economics," Socio-Economics and the Environment in Discussion (SEED) Working Paper Series 2009-08, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economics; efficiency; epistemology; fairness; future; justice; human-nature-relationship; ontology; philosophy of science; sustainability; uncertainty;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q0 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - General
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • B0 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:lue:wpaper:138. 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: Joachim Wagner (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://leuphana.de/institute/ivwl.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.