Since the early 1980s, there has been a lively discussion about the rhetoric of economics. Ecological economists, however, so far have not tried to incorporate this discussion into their work. This paper is a first step towards including the discourse on rhetoric into the self-awareness of ecological economics. After a brief outline of what this discourse is about, the importance of metaphors as one aspect of rhetoric is examined. Connections of the rhetorical discourse to ecological economics as a post-normal science are shown. It is argued that two rhetorics of ecological economics can be distinguished: internal and external rhetoric. While the former refers mostly to methodological issues, the latter is of particular importance for the political impact that ecological economics can have. Finally, some suggestions for research are made.
In the discourse about sustainable development, "constant natural capital" is frequently referred to as a criterion for ecological sustainability. But what is "natural capital"? The concept will be analyzed by presenting arguments in favour of using the term and different versions of sustainability (strong and weak). Subsequently, a critique of the "natural capital" concept is brought forward, from an ecological as well as from an economic perspective. Following this critique, the use of material inputs and the material input per unit of service (MIPS) as a measure for the environmental impact potential is suggested. Dematerialisation is understood to be an alternative management rule for sustainability. In conclusion, a change of perspective is proposed. Due to the conceptual and measurement problems associated with the "constant-natural-capital" criterion (which refers to a stock), it seems more reasonable from a scientific as well as from a practical perspective to add flows (i.e. material inputs) to a decision criterion for whether a development is sustainable or not.