An Essay on a Sustainable Economy (An NPG Position Paper)

• Donald Mann
• March 28, 2019
• Forum Papers
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An Essay on a Sustainable Economy
An NPG Position Paper
by Donald Mann, President NPG

We originally published this NPG Position Paper in 1999. We have published it again because we believe that the problems it addresses are still very much with us, and that our recommended solutions are as pertinent now as they were then.

Executive Summary

Since NPG was founded over a quarter century ago it has argued that the most important task facing the human race is to create an economy that would be sustainable indefinitely, and afford an adequate standard of living for all the world’s people. But to create such a sustainable economy would be impossible without a smaller world population than the 3.8 billion existing in 1972 when NPG was founded.

Until now we have never attempted to define what size global economy would be sustainable, but we feel that an attempt to do so, despite the obvious difficulties of such an undertaking, is long overdue.

The central purpose of this paper is to try and address the following two questions:
1. What is the optimal size of a global economy that would be sustainable indefinitely, and afford an adequate standard of living for all?
2. What size world population would be necessary in order to create such a sustainable global economy?

A short definition of sustainability is the management of environmental and resource systems so that their ability to support future generations is not diminished. The term “sustainable development” is more difficult to define, and has given rise to widely different and at times conflicting interpretations. For environmentalists and conservationists it has come to mean the process of development toward a truly sustainable economy that respects environmental and resource limits. But too often others use the term sustainable development as a synonym for sustainable economic growth.

In contrast to that view, many scientists believe, as do we at NPG, that sustainable economic growth is an oxymoron and self-contradictory. Adherents of this view point out that, since the economy is a subset of our non-growing ecosystem, development, in order to be sustainable, can only mean qualitative change without material growth.

Given the damage to our environment and resources resulting from the present scale of human economic activity, the argument against further material economic growth appears to be unassailable. The need now is to go beyond the debate on growth vs. non-growth and address the fundamental question: what scale or size of global economic activity would be sustainable indefinitely? The preponderance of evidence clearly indicates that the global economy, to be sustainable, must be far smaller than it is today.

Population size is the crucial variable in achieving a sustainable economy. Only with a sufficient reduction in population would it be possible to envisage a decent standard of living for all, within the constraints of the world ecosystem.

What size world population would allow the creation of a sustainable economy? We at NPG believe that it is in the range of 1.5 to 2 billion, based on the assessments of the major population and resource scientists most concerned with the limits of economic growth. That was the level of world population as recently as the first decade of the 20th century, before the pressure of numbers had generated the environmental damage now visible…

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