Sustentabilidad

S.A.P. I . E N.S

Surveys

Sustainable development: An overview of economic proposals
Franck-Dominique Vivien
This paper is a revised version of an article originally published in French by VertigO-La revue électronique en sciences de l’environnement (Vivien, 2004).

The objective of sustainable development is open to many different interpretations. This article provides a comprehensiveoverview of the economic proposals related to sustainability through three bodies of work: the first, describing the point of view presented by the leading economic theory, puts forward the idea of sustainable growth as a necessary and sufficient condition to attain sustainable development; the second, inspired by the notion of limits, attempts to establish socio-environmental constraints withinwhich economic development should take place; the third, addressing Third World conditions, focuses on social inequalities and questions the meaning of the development concept.

Keywords: Economics, sustainable development, sustainable growth,
degrowth
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction 2. Sustainable Growth
2.1. Growth: necessary and sufficient 2.2. Sustainable Development: the sixth stage ofeconomic growth?

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Abstract

3. An economy for the environment: what limitations and what constraints
3.1. Critical natural capital and prescriptive constraint management 3.2. Industrial ecology and the ecological modernization of capitalism

4. Development: between alternatives and deconstruction
4.1. Eco-development 4.2. Unequal Exchange and “environmentalism of the poor” 4.3. Degrowthfor the future?

5. Conclusion

Published: 15 november 2008. Edited by: Eric Duchemin – Reviewed by two anonymous referees. © Author(s) 2008. This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

http://sapiens.revues.org/index227.html

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VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 2008

VIVIEN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: AN OVERVIEW OF ECONOMIC PROPOSALS

1. INTRODUCTION
For morethan thirty years now, issues arising from environmental considerations and the unequal distribution of wealth throughout the world have raised questions concerning the objective of continued growth. The concept of “sustainable development,” which was supposed to reconcile economic, social and ecological dynamics, was first introduced almost a quarter of a century ago (IUCN, 1980). Today, thisconcept is the source of strongly diverging interpretations in the field of economic analysis. To provide a clear understanding of sustainable development, we propose an overview of the diverging viewpoints, while aware of the difficulties inherent in making a success of this type of venture, for there is extensive literature on the subject; numerous definitions have been given and oppositions andaggregations may always be a subject of discussion. Many attempts have been made to carry out this type of exercise (Godard, 1994; Zaccaï, 2002). Although certain elements from previous research will inevitably appear in this text, the overview proposed here will differ from those presented in other works. Particular focus will be placed on the idea that issues concerning sustainable development revolvearound the concept of “sustainability” as much as they do around the concept of “development.” It is therefore not surprising to find authors who seriously challenge this notion in our analysis. To provide an overview of the subject, the discussions were grouped into three bodies of work; the first, describing the point of view presented by the prevailing economic theory, puts forward the idea ofsustainable growth as a necessary and sufficient condition for sustainable development; the second, based on the ecologist notion of limits to growth, attempts to establish the socioenvironmental constraints within which economic development must take place; the third, addressing the issues informed by the Third World experience, focuses on social inequalities and questions the meaning of the...