Blueprint for a Sustainable Economy

Ten years ago Blueprint for a Green Economy changed the face of economic and environmental policy. It made front page news and introduced the public as well as the professionals to the central role that the environment should play in economic and public policy decisions. Ten years on, David Pearce and Edward Barbier have written the sequel to show what has been achieved, how to consolidate that and what remains to be done. In the clear language which made the earlier book so accessible and influential, they examine the efforts to define and implement the concept of sustainable economic development, its relationship to the use of 'natural' capital and human welfare, and its influence on recent environmental policy debates. They show how far environmental concerns have been integrated into everyday economic decision making--through the valuation of environmental goods and services, cost-benefit techniques, indicators for sustainable development, and the use of market-based instruments for environmental policy making around the world. Yet large, new challenges exist. Global environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss and trade-environment linkages require greater cooperation towards new international agreements, institutions and distributive measures. The complex problems facing many poor economies such as deforestation, land degradation, overpopulation and resource exhaustion will demand the increasing use of environmental economics in development policy making. In all these areas, the authors demonstrate how sustainability can be brought from the periphery to the center of economic management. The book provides a blueprint for the start of a century in which our ultimate dependence on the environment will have to be at the heart of the business and policy decisions we take if we are to achieve genuinely sustainable development for economies all around the globe.

David Pearce is Professor of Environmental Economics at University College London.