Shaping an Economy to Sustain Our Future

Enlarge Image Image Gallery As damage to the ecosystem compounds across the planet, creating a sustainable economy takes on a new urgency. Creating such an economy in the time available requires rapid systemic change throughout the world.

Eco-Economy

Opportunity abounds in the new way of doing business

By Lester R. Brown

An economy is sustainable only if it respects the principles of ecology. These principles are as real as those of aerodynamics. If an aircraft is to fly, it has to satisfy certain principles of thrust and lift. So, too, if an economy is to sustain progress, it must satisfy the basic principles of ecology. If it does not, it will decline and eventually collapse. There is no middle ground. An economy is either sustainable or it is not.

Today's global economy has been shaped by market forces, not by the principles of ecology. By failing to reflect the full costs of goods and services, the market provides misleading information to economic decision makers at all levels. This has created a distorted economy out of sync with the Earth's ecosystem—an economy that is destroying its natural support systems. (See "The Economy & the Earth," February/March 2002.)

An eco-economy is one that satisfies our present needs without jeopardizing the prospects of future generations; one that sees the economy as a subset of the environment, not the other way around.

Building a sustainable economy in the time available requires rapid systemic change throughout the world. The good news is the eco-economy offers a future full of promise, one that will boost some existing industries, will call entire new career fields into existence and will offer enormous investment opportunity.

NEW INDUSTRIES, NEW JOBS

Describing the eco-economy is a somewhat speculative undertaking. In the end, however, it is not as open-ended as it might seem because the eco-economy's broad outlines are defined by the principles of ecology.

Building a new economy involves phasing out old industries, restructuring existing ones and creating new ones. World coal use is already being phased out, dropping 7 percent since peaking in 1996. It is being replaced by efficiency gains in some countries; by natural gas in others, such as the United Kingdom and China; and by wind power in others, such as Denmark.

The automobile industry faces a major restructuring as it changes power sources, shifting from the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine to the hydrogen-powered fuel cell engine. This shift will require both a retooling of engine plants and the retraining of automotive engineers and automobile mechanics.