Quantifying economic sustainability: Implications for free-enterprise theory, policy and practice

Sally J. Goerner, Bernard Lietaer and Robert E. Ulanowicz

Ecological Economics, 2009, vol. 69, issue 1, 76-81

Abstract: In a previous paper (Ulanowicz, Goerner, Lietaer, and Gomez, 2009), we combined thermodynamic, network, and information theoretic measures with research on real-life ecosystems to create a generalized, quantitative measure of sustainability for any complex, matter/energy flow system. The current paper explores how this metric and its related concepts can be used to provide a new narrative for long-term economic health and sustainability. Based on a system's ability to maintain a crucial balance between two equally essential, but complementary factors, resilience and efficiency, this generic explanation of the network structure needed to maintain long-term robustness provides the missing theoretical explanation for what constitutes healthy development and the mathematical means to differentiate it quantitatively from mere growth. Matching long-standing observations of sustainable vitality in natural ecosystems and living organisms, the result is a much clearer, more accurate understanding of the conditions needed for free-enterprise networks to produce the kind of sustainable vitality everyone desires, one which enhances and reliably maintains the health and well-being of all levels of global civilization as well as the planet.

Keywords: Economic; sustainability; Economic; development; Resilience; Triple; Bottom; Line; Network; analysis; Thermodynamics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (53)

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