Supply-side sustainability

Historically, societies have been abandoned when management invoked complic ated infrastructure that diminished returns on effort. Some societies survi ved by redefining their relationship to the resource base through emergence of a new, more elaborate level of organization. Organization may elaborate when resources are expanded or used more efficiently. The new situation fa vorably resets the cost/benefit ratio of problem solving. With six billion people, our critical problem is the capture of natural resources while main taining ecosystem function to keep them renewable. Presently resource manag ement is too complicated at too low a level, and suffers diminishing return s. Supply-side sustainability recommends management from the context for th e function of the whole ecosystem, not the resource. Then ecosystems integr ate materials and energy sustainability, while generating resources that hu mans can take. To achieve a global level of organization of resource manage ment we see a new relationship between the feedback of commerce, greened by the social and environmental resource sciences in the academy, with govern mental catalysis. Published in 1999 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.