Overuse, Scarcity, and the Debate About Sustainable Development

This chapter lists five exemplary areas where overuse of natural resources can be observed: those include climate change, the overuse of renewable resources, the use of nonrenewable resources and its consequences, the destruction of ecosystems, species, and landscapes, as well as threats to human health. The economic reasons for an overuse of natural resources are discussed briefly. The most important factors in this context are poorly defined property rights and public good characteristics inherent in some natural resources. Besides economic factors, a variety of other contributing factors such as population growth, economic growth, economic structure, consumption patterns, or technology are mentioned. As a consequence to the overuse of natural resources, sustainability and environmental policies, such as the Flagship Initiative for a Resource Efficient Europe by the European Union as well as “Green Growth” initiatives, for instance by the OECD or the UNEP have been initiated and their main aspects are presented.

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Notes

An overview on the arguments regarding the necessity to protect biodiversity can be found, for instance, in Bergstrom and Randall (2010, pp. 380, 400–401).

Especially the aspects discounting of future damages and the role of economic growth play in environmental degradation are discussed extensively. See, e.g., Bergstrom and Randall (2010, Chap. 7) and Neumayer (2010) for the debate on discounting.

The question whether economic growth automatically improves environmental quality is at the center in the debate about the environmental Kuznets curve. The environmental Kuznets curve postulates an inverted-U relationship between pollution and economic development. Neumayer (2010) presents an overview on economic growth and the environment as well as the environmental Kuznets curve, and Tietenberg and Lewis (2009) also discuss the Kuznets curve.

Measures to examine weak sustainability include Genuine Savings and the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) or Genuine Progress Indicators. The most important indicators for strong sustainability are physical indicators like ecological footprints and material flows as well as hybrid indicators combining physical indicators with monetary valuation, such as the Greened National Statistical and Modelling Procedures (GREENSTAMP), the so-called sustainability gaps, and the sustainable national income according to Hueting (SNI) (Neumayer 2010).

An overview over international as well as European environmental policy can be found in von Weizsäcker (2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

1. Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany Larissa Talmon-Gros

1. Larissa Talmon-Gros