Our Environment Contents

4. Resources

There are two economic definitions of sustainability: weak and strong.

Weak sustainability

The weak sustainability viewpoint is that all natural resources can be replaced by man-made capital, i.e. that all natural resources can be replaced by substitutes

Strong sustainability

Strong sustainability argues that natural resources are irreplaceable, and have value in and of themselves (intrinsic value).

Natural resources

What distinguishes the two versions of the economic theory of sustainability?