ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS

FRAMEWORK FOR SUSTAINABILITY IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Ecological Economics: Economic drivers impact our day-to-day lives and the health of our planet. Traditional economics focuses on the growth of goods and services, but does not factor in the limited resources, space and capacity of the natural world, nor the value of human interactions and societal infrastructures. Ecological economics is a growing transdisciplinary field that aims to improve and expand economic theory to integrate the earth’s natural systems, human values and human health and well-being. The ecological economics framework is a multi-faceted approach to economics, defining a goal focused on complex interrelationship between ecological sustainability, social sustainability and economic sustainability. It weighs equally the four types of capital (built capital, social capital, human capital and natural capital) in order to make decisions and recognize the true costs of daily activities.

In 2008 we embarked on a collaborative project with Earth Economics to develop and disseminate materials related to the concepts of ecological economics. These concepts are also being used to create policy matrices that can be used to solve problems on a global scale or for our own ecosystem, the Puget Sound basin. We believe in building a coalition of organizations and individuals that recognizes the importance of upgrading our current economic theories and principles to deal with the problems of the 21st century. Through our partnership with Earth Economics, volunteers from our Board have produced informative white papers. In addition, the Foundation dedicated our 2008 lecture series to introducing the theory of ecological economics to the Puget Sound community, and convened numerous small group meetings with local foundations, nonprofits and ecological economics experts. 

WHITE PAPERS

What is Ecological Economics? [1 page PDF] Sustainability through a new economic paradigm for the 21st century (Batker & Cosman 1/08) [3 page PDF]

WEB RESOURCES

Gund Institute for Ecological Economics Introduction to Ecological Economics (Encyclopedia of Earth) Earth, Inc.: Redefining Profit Earth Policy Institute Redefining Progress: The Nature of Economics Economics for Equity and the Environment: E3 Network