ABSTRACT
The foundation of the conceptual analysis which underpins this research agenda was laid in Chapters 2 and 3: identifying the fault lines at the interface between globalization and sustainability, and reframing economic policy towards sustainability. In this chapter, the theoretical analysis is resumed to take forward these concepts into a vision of resilient sustainability for people and the planet. In the future portrayed here, sustainability has become engrained in policy and the economy operates in support of people and the planet. The purpose of the chapter is to lay down an outline of a desirable end point to aim for when developing policy that might be adopted to shift society from where it is now to where we would want it to be. The detail can be disputed; it is the overall picture of a world operating successfully within planetary limits which this chapter attempts to convey. Within the confines of a single chapter, the resolution of the picture is necessarily limited. The chapter is not comprehensive in the issues discussed and the discussion of each issue is not complete. However, this vision is based on substance, including previous in-depth analysis of how the Sustainable Revolution will play out (McManners 2008) and the implications this has for policy in the real world (McManners 2010). Reality may, in the end, not live up to this vision but it is attractive, and a worthy pedestal on which to place the policy framework proposed in the next chapter (Chapter 8). It should be reasonable to assume a degree of success and allow optimism to encourage policy makers to deliver the better future outlined in this chapter rather than accept that the flaws in the current political reality are fixed constraints.
