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Sustainable development is the globally embraced paradigm for integrating environment and development policies. Agreement ends with attempts at operationalizing the elusive notion of sustainability. A contentious debate among "environmentalists" and "environmental economists" has brought about a confusing proliferation of indicators and policy advice on sustainable development. Greening the monetary national accounts could moderate the debate by generating concepts and indicators which translate environmental concerns into the language of widely used economic variables. The implementation of sustainable growth and development requires more. "Eco-nomic" instruments of environmental cost internalization need to be combined with environmental legislation and regulation. Such reconciliation of environmental and economic policies should be supported by a "social compact" between government and civil society. The sustained implementation of sustainable development depends on it.
Statisticians avoid getting involved in data analysis, leaving data users on their own in interpreting the results of their work. This is particularly unfortunate in a new area of applied statistics such as environmental accounting with which few are really familiar. Earlier this year data producers and users explored, in a national seminar, possible policy applications of the results of a "green accounting" project in the Philippines. The main findings of the author's contribution to the seminar, on which the present paper is based, are that environmental accounts: (1) present evidence of sustainable economic performance in the country during the relatively short-time period of 1988–1994; (2) provide information for environmental cost internalization; (3) may guide investment to environmentally sound production processes; (4) help to specify and monitor policies of natural wealth conservation, distribution and management; and (5) reveal major data gaps. The paper concludes that environmental accounts help to assess the sustainability of economic growth in terms of broadly defined capital maintenance. The sustainability of development, however, would have to be measured by alternative or supplementary physical indicators linked to quantifiable standards or targets.
Sustainable development is the globally embraced paradigm for integrating environment and development policies. Agreement ends with attempts at quantifying the elusive notion of sustainability. A contentious debate among "environmentalists" and "environmental economists" has brought about a confusing proliferation of indicators and policy advice on sustainable development. Generating a common language by means of integrated physical and monetary environmental accounting could moderate the debate. Economic and ecological sustainability is thus distinguished and operationalised in terms of capital maintenance and dematerialisation of economic activity. Empirical results presented are not conclusive, however. Moreover, the reconciliation of environmental and economic policies requires more than comparable statistics strategies and instruments of environmental cost internalisation need to be evaluated and combined with those of raising resource productivity. A social compact between government and civil society should provide the necessary support for achieving consensus and partnership. The sustained implementation of sustainable development depends on it.
Nachhaltiges Wirtschaften bedeutet, alle ökonomischen und ökologischen Kosten offen zu legen: den Geldschleier wegzuziehen, der uns allzu oft den Blick vernebelt. Das Wachstum unserer Wirtschaft wird sich auf lange Sicht nur fortsetzen, wenn wir die Bedeutung der Natur für unsere Lebensqualität einzuschätzen lernen. Peter Bartelmus stößt mit diesem Buch eine Diskussion zwischen Wissenschaftlern und Entscheidungsträgern an. Dieser Austausch ist dringend geboten, denn Ökonomen und Umweltwissenschaftler müssen gemeinsam den richtigen Weg zum wahren Wohlstand finden. Hier werden Konzepte vorgestellt und diskutiert, die die Nachhaltigkeit von Wachstum und Entwicklung sichern sollen. Ökologische, soziale, wirtschaftliche und politische Faktoren - sie alle haben eine entscheidende Bedeutung bei der Planung einer nachhaltigen Zukunft.