Samhällsekonomiska aspekter och mått på hållbar utveckling

Summary
Sustainable development is the overall goal of Swedish government policy as it is for
development within the EU. This means that economic growth should be sustainable in
the long-term.
In practice, economic policy has always been about how we can best husband our resources,
of which nature has traditionally been one of the most important, and generate
welfare for ourselves, our fellow humans and generations to come. However in their
pursuit of welfare, humans have been so “successful” that we have caused such interference
with nature that this now threatens to have negative effects on growth and the
welfare of coming generations. So far, growth has been partly based on the fact that we
have been living on our capital, not just on the interest on this capital.
This report aims to provide an introduction to how the concept of sustainable development
is defined and applied within economic research. Another aim is to set out a schematic
summary of research literature within this research field over the past three years.
The report has been produced on behalf of the Swedish government that commissioned
ITPS to put together a synthesis of the research literature on growth. ITPS has elected
to subdivide this assignment into sub projects. This report presents the findings of the
sub study into sustainable development.
Summary of chapter 2 – Socio-economic aspects and measures
of sustainable development
Ever since the concept of sustainable development was introduced at the end of the
1980s, economists have sought to define, operationalise and find ways to measure
whether or not development is sustainable, and if so, to what degree.
In this process, environmental economics, a branch of economics, has been inspired by
ecological perspectives and led to the discipline of ecological economics, which has
roots in both economics and ecology.
From an economics perspective, this has resulted in more in-depth knowledge of the
function of ecological systems, systems that are an important production factor in the
form of natural capital through so-called ecosystem services, functions and processes
that, from a human exploitation perspective, comprise goods and services from nature,
forest products, watering (the hydrological cycle) etc. This has in its turn led to the
broadening of the concept of capital to include various kinds of natural capital. Widening
the concept of capital and focusing on long-term sustainable growth also entails
refining our view of productivity and robust growth.
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