In such an economy, “throughput” of materials and energy is held constant within the capacity of the biosphere to regenerate resources and assimilate waste. He recognised that it would require policies to limit the physical scale of economies – their use of energy and materials – to within planetary boundaries to ensure a just distribution of incomes and wealth and for making economies more efficient in how resources are allocated to the production of different goods and services. Herman was not the first economist to argue for a steady-state economy, but he was the first to define it. He called this flow of materials and energy through an economy “throughput”. Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications 2nd Edn (Island Press, 2011).In his first book, Toward a Steady-State Economy (1973), Herman envisaged an economy based on an understanding that it was embedded in the biosphere and totally dependent on it for all materials and energy and for depositing its wastes. For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future 2nd Edn (Beacon Press, 1994). Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development (Beacon Press, 1996). Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist (Random House, 2017).ĭaly, H. Steady-State Economics: The Economics of Biophysical Equilibrium and Moral Growth (W. The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (Harvard University Press, 1971).ĭaly, H.

Haberl, H., Fischer-Kowalski, M., Krausmann, F., Weisz, H. Herman Daly’s Economics for a Full World: His Life and Ideas (Routledge, 2022).ĭaly, H. In a highly cited article, he proposed three (now famous) rules for sustainable development: (1) exploit renewable resources no faster than they can be regenerated (2) emit wastes no faster than they can be assimilated and (3) deplete non-renewable resources no faster than renewable substitutes can be developed to replace them 11. Herman argued in favour of strong sustainability, contending that the different forms of capital are complementary. Advocates of strong sustainability claim that substitution possibilities are limited and that sustainability can only be achieved if critical stocks of each form of capital are maintained.

Advocates of weak sustainability claim that different forms of capital (in particular natural capital and built capital) are substitutable for each other and that sustainability can be achieved if the value of the total stock of capital does not decrease over time. Herman’s work was also foundational to one of the greatest debates in sustainability: weak sustainability versus strong sustainability.

For the Common Good by Herman E. Daly