Promises, Promises

This chapter begins by clarifying the approach taken to the analysis of the economics of sustainability in this book. It then explores the origins of the term sustainability, tracing both its etymology and its emergence as a historical practice. It examines how the early 20th-century conservation movement advanced two distinct understandings of sustainability and how these approaches were instrumental in shaping the field of ecological sciences and the establishment of national parks as we know them today. The discussion then moves to a critical turning point in the history of sustainability—the 1972 publication of the Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth . The chapter concludes by analyzing the tension introduced by the report—the conflict between the imperative for infinite economic growth and the reality of a finite world. It details the efforts of major international bodies, including the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), to reconcile this underlying tension through global policy.