ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates the breadth of ecological economics, which spans such a wide variety of subfields and perspectives that it is a very demanding challenge to synthesize all the interconnecting characteristics of its many divergent positions. It discusses bio-economics, evolutionary economics, collaborative economics and Buddhist economics. Ecological economics assumes that economic activities are in constructive interplay with the cultural and natural effects that originate from them. At the business level, ecological economics indicates the introduction of production systems designed to lead to decreased extraction of raw material and reduced amounts of waste. Mainstream economics is anchored more in mathematical theorems than in characteristics of reality. Leif Holbaek-Hanssen argued that economic theory and practice have to change from a competitive to a collaborative understanding of reality. Large-scale organizations based on hierarchical power structures focus exclusively on economic returns and ignore human values and economic environmental responsibility.
