Sustainable economic structures

The paper introduces four scenarios for sustainable economic structures in the Netherlands for 2030. The aim of this paper is to provide possible answ ers to what a sustainable future might look like in terms of alternative ec onomic structures. To this end, an empirical economy-ecology model is devel oped and calibrated to four different scenarios indicating different develo pment paths and different perspectives on sustainability. In the first scen ario, called Strong Together, environmental goals are very ambitions world- wide. In the second scenario, Strong Alone, environmental policy abroad is less ambitious. The third scenario, Negotiated Sustainability, broadly refl ects a balancing of different goals. In the fourth and last scenario, Weak Sustainability, only low cost environmental measures are taken and environm ental objectives are relatively loose. The applied economic model with envi ronmental modules optimises economic growth subject to different environmen tal objectives that are in line with the different scenarios and perspectiv es on sustainability. It appears that both strong (environmental) technolog ical progress and substantial structural changes are necessary for economic growth and environmental quality to be compatible. However, some trade-off between them remains. Some sectors lose market share in all scenarios, inc luding most energy-intensive and agricultural sectors. On the other hand, ' winners' are dependent on the level of the critical environmental objective (s) and hence differ between the scenarios. Explicit attention is paid to t he so-called 'ecological trade balance', which measures the (environmental) balance between the domestic production structure and the domestic consump tion structure. Embarking on sustainable economic structures implies that t he Netherlands 'shifts' environmental pressure abroad. (C) 1999 Elsevier Sc ience B.V. All rights reserved.