Sustainability

Sustainability is one of the key concepts underlying our thinking about corporate responsibilities, particularly with respect to the environment and inter-generational justice, but also in relation to corporate governance and the long-term economic viability. The advantages of the discourse of Sustainability are that it brings together contemporary economic and moral imperatives in the context of scientific knowledge. Its disadvantages relate to its open-ended content, its systematic ambiguity, and the internal tensions between economic growth, human survival and global justice. The essays in this volume reflect these strengths and weaknesses from a variety of viewpoints - economic, scientific, social and philosophical. They illustrate and illuminate the varied and contested content and utility of this currently popular concept and point to its multiple implications for the development of corporate responsibilities.

Contents: Introduction: the sustainability phenomenon, Tom Campbell and David Mollica. Part I Sustainabilities: Environmentally benign growth: sustainable development, John S. Dryzek; Sustainability: an interdisciplinary guide, John Pezzey; The very idea of sustainability, Charles V. Blatz; 2 concepts of sustainability, Steve Vanderheiden; The '4 spheres' framework for sustainability, Martin O'Connor; Sustainability: a dissent, Julianne Lutz Newton and Eric T. Freyfogle; Sustainable development: modern elixir or sack dress?, J.G. Frazier; The shaky ground of sustainable development, Don Worster. Part II Science-Based Sustainabilities: Ecologically sustainable development: origins, implementation and challenges, R. Harding; The sustainable biosphere initiative: an ecological research agenda, Jane Lubchenco et al.; The concept of environmental sustainability, Robert Goodland; Ecological sustainability as a conservation concept, J. Baird Callicott and Karen Mumford; Principles of ecosystem sustainability, F. Stuart Chapin III, Margaret S. Thon and Masaki Tateno; Scientific consensus on sustainability: the case of the natural step, Paul Upham; Allocation, distribution, and scale: towards an economics that is efficient, just, and sustainable, Herman E. Daly; Georgescu-Roegen versus Solow/Stiglitz, Herman E. Daly; Toward some operational principles of sustainable development, Herman E. Daly. Part III Economics-Based Sustainabilities: Sustainability: an economist's perspective, Robert M. Solow; The conditions for achieving environmentally sustainable development, Edward B. Barbier and Anil Markandaya; The evolution of preferences: why 'sovereign' preferences may not lead to sustainable policies and what to do about it, Bryan Norton, Robert Costanza and Richard C. Bishop; Sustainable development: a critical review, Sharachchandra M. Lélé; Are we consuming too much?, Kenneth Arrow, et al.; Sustainable development: is it achievable within the existing international political economy context?, Georgia O. Carvalho; Capital theory and the measurement of sustainable development: an indicator of 'weak' sustainability, David W. Pearce and Giles D. Atkinson. Part IV Equities: Intergenerational equity and sustainability, Emilio Padilla; Human development and economic sustainability, Sudhir Anand and Amartya Sen; John Stuart Mill's utilitarianism and the social ethics of sustainable development, Martin O'Connor; Discounting the future, John Broome. Part V Politics and Policy: Sustainable development and global governance, Clive George; New ethics for old? Or, how (not) to think about future generations, Terence Ball; Environmental science, sustainability and politics, Tom O'Riordan; Sustainability and beyond, Dale Jamieson; Name Index.

Tom Campbell is a Professorial Fellow at Charles Sturt University, Australia and David Mollica is from Australian National University, Australia