ABSTRACT
The vision of sustainability can be compared with the problem of crossing a shallow river in which stepping stones are hidden. The service economy is the junction where sustainable production and sustainable consumption meet, for sufficiency solutions are of interest only to economic actors in a service economy, where they enable an income without resource consumption. The key differences between the commercial strategies of selling performance and selling products, which are the differences between the industrial economy and a service economy, are summarized. A new industrial policy can best promote sustainability by removing obstacles that hinder sustainability and by creating incentives that foster innovation towards more sustainable solutions. Sufficiency and prevention solutions are the most efficient strategies to achieve a higher sustainability and ‘wealth without resource consumption’. Systems and systemic solutions are the most effective among the efficiency strategies, as they enable a reduction of volume and speed of the resource flows.
