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This chapter introduces the field of ecological economics which emerged partly as a rejection of the neoclassical foundation of environmental economics. Ecological economists faulted mainstream economic approaches to environmental problems for focusing on the internalization of externalities while failing to address the core problem of increasing economic scale and its resulting strain on the natural world. This chapter shows how ecological economics depicts the economy as an open subsystem embedded within the Earth’s finite planetary system. It traces the historical development of the field from the work of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, who integrated thermodynamic theory into economic analysis to more recent work by Herman E. Daly. The chapter explores how ecological economists have theorized throughput—the matter-energy flowing from the environment as resources and back as wastes—as a crucial characteristic of all economic activity that irreversibly degrades available energy, by converting low-entropy stocks into high-entropy waste. It concludes with a discussion of the concept of the steady-state economy, which emphasizes qualitative improvement over quantitative growth.