A Critical Introduction to the Economics of Sustainability

List of figures

Chapter 1. Promises, Promises: An Introduction to Sustainability

Chapter 2. From Richness to Riches: Early Valuations of Nature

Chapter 3. Benevolent Butchers: Classical Economics and Nature

Chapter 4. In tall Cotton: Neoclassical Economics and the Environment

Chapter 5. Everyone Is a Winner: Environmental Economics and the Human-Centered World

Chapter 6. Irreconcilable Differences: Ecological Marxist Critiques

Chapter 7. Available for Work: Ecological Economics and the Steady State Economy

Chapter 8. Step Right Up: Energy Transitions and the Fossil Economy

Chapter 9. All That Glitters: Critical Minerals and the Extractive Sector

Chapter 10. Smoke and Mirrors: Sustainability and Artificial intelligence

Chapter 11. Bottomless Pits: E-waste Flows in the Green Economy

Index

Biography

Brett Caraway is an associate professor at the University of Toronto, Canada, where he serves as the Director of the Master of Science in Sustainability Management program in the Institute for Management & Innovation and teaches media economics in the Institute of Communication, Culture, Information and Technology.

"This book provides an invaluable introduction to the economics of sustainability. Caraway carefully explains many facets of economic thinking and methods that inform his study, mixing intellectual history with critical analyses of contemporary issues in environmental studies, from energy to information technologies. With instructive definitions and well-placed analogies, Caraway manages to make economics accessible while demonstrating the efficacy of his holistic approach to sustainability."

-Richard Maxwell, Co-author of Greening the Media, and Professor at Queens College, City University of New York

"Brett Caraway’s book is an excellent combination of accessibility and smartness. What I enjoy in particular is the historical path to understand many of the economic debates underpinning current technological culture from AI to e-waste. Issues of materiality concern issues of value, and accounting of and for value. A much-needed resource for students and scholars beyond the discipline of economics."

 -Jussi Parikka, Author of A Geology of Media and Professor at Aarhus University

"Brett’s engaging and multi-faceted insights on the evolution of the concept of sustainability will be of interest to business school students and sustainability leaders who want to get outside the narrow confines of the current sustainability conversation and challenge their thinking. Spanning many centuries, continents, and philosophical schools of thought, this robust exploration of the nature of sustainability will open your mind and sharpen your thinking as you seek to make an impact in your organization today."

-Kenneth S. Corts, Professor of Economic Analysis and Policy at Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto 

"Sustaining is a modest goal: sustenance, not obesity. But you can’t make a profit without maximising it. Brett Caraway talks us through the contradictions of green capital in a lucid, entertaining and ultimately scary book. Read it. Quote it. Live it."

-Seán Cubitt, Author of Finite Media: Environmental Implications of Digital Technologies, and Professor and Honorary Professorial Fellow at School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne

"Contrary to common assumptions, theorising the relationship between economics and environmental sustainability has a long and deep history. How societies balance the cultivation and extraction of resources, and the provisioning of goods, while ostensibly maintaining a viable means of life for all, has been of primary - and always contested - concern since the earliest human societies.  In this brilliant account of both the history and present of such thinking, Caraway offers a comprehensive critical evaluation of the economics of sustainability both then and now.  In doing so he brings to the fore the most urgent questions of today - how to divert the economics of 'clean energy' away from the ecological degradation on which it suspends,  how to check the unfolding environmental disasters occasioned by unbridled expansions of AI, and how to address the toxic legacies of manufacturing and e-waste occasioned by ICTs in the seemingly never-ending - but potentially world-ending - technological revolution. A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the history of the difficult relationship between the extracting and expanding, and the sustaining and maintaining, of all of the things that humans might value."

 -Mark Banks, Author of Creative Justice: Cultural Industries, Work and Inequality, and Professor of Cultural Economy, University of Glasgow

 "As environmental crises multiply, the term sustainability become looser and more vague - often just an empty buzzword. This excellent and necessary book returns us to its historical and intellectual underpinnings, providing much-need rigour, and reminding us exactly what is at stake."

-Kate Oakley, Co-author of Cultural Policy: Key Ideas in Media & Cultural Studies, and Professor of Cultural Policy, University of Glasgow