ABSTRACT

The content of this text has emphasised the following basic principle:

The sustainability of environmental capital (KN) is an essential prerequisite for the sustainability of an economy.

Recall the explanation of economic sustainability as explained by Hicks in Chapter 1 (Box 1.1), namely the ability to maintain the same level of spending in real terms over time. As illustrated in the chapters that followed, the maintenance of real spending depends on the maintenance of a steady stock of KN. To properly understand and model changes in KN, we invoked the entropy law in Chapter 2, revised production functions in Chapter 8, modified the theory of perfect competition in Chapter 9, and elaborated on the role of KN depreciation (DKN) in Chapters 11 to 14. The concept of global ecosystems considered in Chapter 15 suggests that the responsibility for maintaining ‘above-threshold’ levels of KN stocks extends beyond national geographic boundaries. It is therefore pertinent to the discussion of environmental policies in this chapter to centre on the requirement of maintaining KN not only in the national economy but also the global economy. This is indeed a challenge, because the same way as the principles of conventional economics are premised on the axioms of self-interest and present gains, policy formulation in general also follows the lines of promoting national interest and the welfare of current generations.