SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT - OLD CONUNDRUMS, NEW DISCORDS

This paper represents the text of the obligatory talk given by the aut hor on receipt of the 1995 Jay Wright Forrester Award for his book tit led ''Towards Sustainable Development, Essays on System Analysis of Na tional Policy.'' The paper documents methodological and problem-relate d insights created over the course of an extended research effort that yielded the essays of the book. The methodological principles elabora ted include the use of a diverse data base for model development, the partitioning of a complex problem into tractable parts and the process of building confidence in a model. The problem-related insights cover the concept of economic value, its diverse manifestations and their i mplications for sustainable development. An attempt is made to extend the concepts learnt to the global economic system and research agendas are outlined for addressing the problems of global sustenance.