Weak and strong sustainability indicators, and regional environmental resources

Weak and Strong Sustainability Indicators, and Regional Environmental Resources

above the regenerating capacity as well as above the yearly precipitation. This leads finally to
an additional problem of weak sustainability indicators: While strong indicators can easily be
adjusted for regional environmental resources (e. g. by setting immission or extraction stan-
dards), the weak indicators cannot be differentiated according to the regional situations.

6 Summary and Conclusions

The discussion of weak and strong sustainability is sometimes seen as a discussion between
(neo-classical) environmental economics and ecological economics. While the former branch of
economics assumes substitutability between natural and man-made capital, and optimism to-
wards future technologies developing out of increased prices for environmental inputs, eco-
logical economics usually prefers physical („strong“) sustainability indicators, given that sub-
stitutability and individual (market) valuations of natural goods face serious problems because
of the „nature of the good“ (e. g. informational constraints).

Interestingly, the Austrian Water Act especially distrusts a pure (environmental) economics
approach towards protection of water resources which can clearly be seen as regional re-
sources. Especially when it comes to regional resources, a weak sustainability indicator cannot
be applied.

References

Bundesministerium für Land- und Forstwirtschaft (1996): Gewasserschutzbericht 1996.
BMLF: Vienna.

Daly, H. (1992): Towards Operational Principles for a Sustainable Development. In: Ecologi-
cal Economics 3 (1), p. 1-15.

Endres, A., Radke, V. (1998): Indikatoren einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung. Elemente ihrer wirt-
schaftstheoretischen Fundierung. Duncker & Humblot: Berlin.

Gowdy J. M., Olsen P. R. (1994). Further Problems with Neoclassical Environmental Eco-
nomics. Environmental Ethics 16 (2), p. 161-171.

Gowdy, J., O'Hara, S. (1997): Weak Sustainability and Viable Technologies. In: Ecological
Economics 22 (3), p. 239-247.

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