ABSTRACT
By following the course of the history of economics we show how, since the 18th century, we have witnessed the emergence of various attempts by economists to remedy increasingly important ecological problems resulting from the management of capitalist enterprises. After recalling the historical context, we successively study the “sustainability” of the “forest economists” of the 18th century, then, at the beginning of the 20th century, the theory of the internalization of externalities of the first neoclassical “environmental” economists like Pigou, followed, towards the end of the 20th century, by an attempt by this same current to integrate natural capital into neoclassical economic functions. We then move on to the 21st century with two notable new proposals: those of the World Bank for measuring the wealth of nations and that of the current of economists in favor of "green capital" as a factor of production and growth.
