ABOUT THIS BOOK

Our planet is threatened by a mistaken confidence in erroneously calculated growth. The term “economic growth” can only mean an increase in human welfare, but it is often wrongly identified with production growth that may in fact be destructive to the environment. Thus, while the measures of standard National Income (NI) or Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are useful for many purposes, they are inadequate in guiding environmental policy making. This book develops the corrective concept of an environmentally Sustainable National Income (eSNI). eSNI is defined as the maximally attainable level of production, using the technology of the year under review, whereby the vital environmental functions (possible uses) of the not-human-made physical surroundings remain available for future generations. In order to accurately judge environmental sustainability, the authors show, NI and eSNI must be addressed jointly. Drawing on data from the Netherlands from 1990 to 2015, the authors demonstrate the effectiveness of eSNI and argue that national statistical bureaus around the world should provide this measure to their own policymakers, so that policymaking across the globe might be informed by sound information about both national economies and the global environment.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Roefie Hueting is an economist and was head of the Department of Environmental Statistics at CBS Statistics Netherlands. Bart de Boer is an electrotechnical engineer who applies systems analysis to environmental issues and sustainability.

REVIEWS

Nobel laureate Jan Tinbergen (1980): “Hueting has in my opinion quite rightly regarded environmental scarcity as something inside, not outside, economics.”

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part 1. Introduction 1. Summary overview 2. Introduction to the book 3. Principles and consequences Part 2. Foundation in economic theory 4. The subject matter of economics 5. Environmental changes as economic phenomena 6. Environmental functions 7. Asymmetric bookkeeping Part 3. The concept of eSNI 8. Environmentally Sustainable National Income 9. Valuation of environmental functions: A practical approach for an unsolvable problem 10. Calculation of eSNI Part 4. Misunderstandings and comparisons 11. Objections based upon misunderstandings 12. Comparisons with other environmental indicators Part 5. Epilogue 13. Work not printed here 14. Work to be done Appendices 15. GNP and market prices: Wrong signals for sustainable economic success that mask environmental destruction 16. Roefie Hueting: Defining a statistical figure with a model 17. Report on the World Bank seminar on economic growth and valuation of the environment. A debate on Sustainable National Income. Held at the embassy of the Netherlands, 1 October 2001, Washington DC 18. For the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (Stiglitz, Sen, Fitoussi) 19. Environmentally sustainable national income: Work in progress 20. Frequently Asked Questions on Hueting’s eSNI concept 21. Deriving sustainability standards References 22. Literature: Hueting as first author 23. Literature: other authors 24. Index