ABSTRACT
Organizational ecology has enhanced sustainability by linking environmental resources management to quality, production, service and managerial systems. Sustainable development and sound environmental management constitute the primary components for establishing organizational and anthropological ecological relationships. This chapter presents two contrasting industrial ecology and ecological anthropology approaches to sustainable development that have impacted upon the development programs and initiatives of international donor organizations in developing economies, as well as in the industrialized economies of the United States and European countries. Ecological studies consider internal and external environmental conditions related to social, economic, cultural and political systems as factors determining organizational forms and structures; growth, maturity and mortality rates; and adaptation and selection strategies. Ecological anthropology has laid the foundation for the most widely used social soundness approach to sustainable development programs that link economic growth with sustained improvement of the community development needs of the people.
