Sustainable Economics: Context, Challenges and Opportunities for the 21st-Century Practitioner

ISBN-13: 9781783531516 / Angielski / Miękka / 2015 / 480 str.

Alan Murray

Opis

This book marks a milestone in Economics publishing. It is the first comprehensive text on sustainable economics, a must-read for anyone studying postgraduate or senior undergraduate economics, human geography, environmental sustainability and sustainable development or working in today's business environment. It is an essential text for Master of Business Administration (MBA) students. The book is not just designed to support current teaching, but comes with a package that delivers a complete module, with Powerpoint lecture slides, handouts, electronic links to 1000 of the leading books and papers written on the subject and a huge array of class-based projects and discussion topics, essay titles and aims, objectives, outcomes and experiences.

Sustainable economics is the subject of the moment, as business across the globe face up to significant issues such as peak oil, climate instability, increasingly complex environmental legislation and the challenge of adapting to a new business landscape. Yet for the average practitioner, sustainability is a difficult subject, demanding knowledge of biology, geography, social studies, history and economics. Additionally, there are over twenty different major schools of sustainable economics out there. Which, if any, offers the best way forward? Fundamental questions relating to economic growth and its relationship to environmental damage, skepticism related to climate change, obsession with reducing carbon emissions, the Hubbert curve, the environmental Kuznets curve, whether transition is possible and how it should be managed and measured, design, manufacturing, use and end-of-life aspects of products, all vie for attention.

What is needed is a clearly written book by experts in both economics and the environment, setting out the historical context of the subject, its development and its current status, using the literature of the leading minds in the field. A book that debugs the language of sustainable development, unravels the tangled threads of the subject, critiques the many schools of thought and sets out clear directions for the future. This book is Sustainable Economics.

An extensive pack of electronic supporting material is available online for free download. This includes a series of lectures totaling 500 slides with outlines and templates for use by lecturers, all figures and tables and a web linked reference system allowing you to instantly search and access the cited references in the book. Website details are inside the book.

Recenzje

I would highly recommend this book for anyone wanting a clear and expansive view of this complex but vital field. - Ian Roderick, Director, The Schumacher Institute || Prudence dictates that every business person— not only the students among us— read and heed what Skene and Murray have to say. - Crosslands Bulletin

Spis treści

Preface1. Human economic activity: an environmental impact assessment2. The three horsemen of the modern apocalypse: climate, pollution and habitat3. Water, energy and the green paradox4. Business and biology: can we learn from nature?5. Current schools of sustainable thinking: origins, strengths and weaknesses6. The circular economy7. Design to redesign8. Generic barriers to change9. Transition to a sustainable economy10. Appropriate indicators of a sustainable transitionAppendix: a brief guide to thermodynamicsGlossaryAbout the authorsIndex

O autorze

Keith Skene, Alan Murray