Road to Sustainability: GDP and Future Generations

Is the concept of sustainability founded on strong, solid scientific bases? And can this elusive concept be introduced in an economic framework and embodied in people’s behavior as well as public and private institutions’ decision making?

This book presents a view of sustainability that starts from the acknowledgment of physical conditions and limits that humans can no longer neglect. It also includes some epistemological foundations of the concept of sustainability and an historical background. The view is optimistic to the extent that economics, the compass of our industrial society, is open to inputs and suggestions coming from outside orthodox schemes. Transdisciplinary science is one key element of such a change, and this book is a transdisciplinary project.