ABSTRACT
Sustainable development has social, environmental and economic dimensions to it, and it demands positive change in all three of these at the same time without trade-offs between them. In other words, economic growth that trashes the planet is not sustainable; nor is environmental protection that makes people destitute/social change that wrecks an economy. Fundamentally, supporting absolutely everything are what Herman Daly called the ultimate means on which all life and economic and social transactions are based: natural capital. The intermediate means are what we use to process and convert natural capital to useful things. These means include tools, machines and devices of all kinds, the factories, offices and systems in which they are used, and the skilled labour that people provide that is needed for all these. Intermediate ends are different. These are what governments promise us, and what economies are expected to deliver, if we work hard enough: health, wealth, knowledge, leisure, transportation, and consumer goods and material things.
