In a chapter on ecological economics, The Encyclopedia of Earth (http://www.eoearth.org/article/ An_Introduction_to_ Ecological_Economics:_ Chapter_3#Growth_vs._Development) discusses the distinction between growth and development.
“Growth is destructive of natural capital and beyond some point will cost us more than it is worth—that is, sacrificed natural capital will be worth more than the extra man-made capital whose production necessitated the sacrifice. At this point growth has become anti-economic, impoverishing rather than enriching. Development, or qualitative improvement, is not at the expense of natural capital. There are clear economic limits to growth, but not to development. This is not to assert that there are no limits to development, only that they are not so clear as the limits to growth, and consequently there is room for a wide range of opinion on how far we can go in increasing human welfare without increasing resource throughput. How far can development substitute for growth?”
This is an interesting and germane topic for environmental managers. A potential goal of this subtopic collaboratory is to develop our own professional position paper on this issue.
January 15, 2008 by
John Morelli | Filed under: Growth vs. Development | No Comments »
Welcome to the discussion!
How does the issue of growth vs. development affect the way we approach our responsibilities as environmental managers?
Your comments and suggestions are welcome here. Please give some thought to how you would like to see this topic explored or expanded and post your thoughts on the discussion forum under the “Growth vs. Development” topic thread.
Posted below you will find abstracts and reference citations of articles that have been collected in support of this topic. Some may have links to the full text documents.
December 19, 2007 by
Brian Butler ,
Brian Butler | Filed under: Growth vs. Development,Literature Review | No Comments »
The authors of this paper explore the relationships made between sustainable development (SD) and stakeholder relationship management (SRM) using corporate, stakeholder and conceptual perspectives. The dimensions incorporated when exploring these relationships include economic, social and environmental. The authors provide a model in the context of the paper to help visualize their perspective and/or argument on the interrelations of these concepts. The core of the model is essentially the core of the business where management systems are first and foremost. The next ring around the “corporate core” indicates the management approach and corporate social responsibility. Corporate concept and the idea of corporate sustainability is the third ring, and the last, is societal concepts and sustainable development. This visual example portrays the authors’ presentation/interpretations on the relationships of business in society and the importance/ease to managers in implementing programs. The authors present the case that the programs such as SD and SRM help access the “corporate core”. “Win – win opportunities do not simply exist, but that they are created and defined in a societal context”. The article itself is very technical where a lot of principles and concepts are introduced within parameters and is hard to follow/understand if not educated in the field. The authors explain that sustainable development, corporate social responsibility and sustainable development have converged to very similar concepts in recent years.
