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What would a sustainable economy look like? What would it take to live within our environmental means? Legacy answers these and other questions, setting out the key features of the sustainable economy. It explains what it would take to properly maintain different types of capital, why polluters would have to pay, why the current generation would have to fund the necessary maintenance of our natural assets, and why we would have to save to invest. The message is a tough one: we are way off course in terms of meeting these conditions and we cannot escape the consequences. This book explains what we would have to do to mend our ways. In doing so, it highlights the feebleness of current approaches to net zero and biodiversity loss as well as our great neglect of the core infrastructures, and why we are not meeting our duties to the next generation. This title is Open Access.
List of contents
1. Introduction; 2. The next generation; 3. Taking precautions, building resilience; 4. The capitals; 5. Sustainable accounting and the balance sheet; 6. Polluter pays; 7. Public goods and zero marginal costs; 8. Sustainable consumption, deficits and debt; 9. Social justice; 10. Delivering the system plans; 11. A new constitution; 12. Conclusions: it could go either way.
About the author
Sir Dieter Helm is Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford and Fellow in Economics at New College, Oxford. From 2012 to 2020, he was Independent Chair of the UK Natural Capital Committee, providing advice to the government on the sustainable use of natural capital. He provides extensive expert advice to governments, regulators and companies across three key areas: Energy & Climate; Regulation, Utilities & Infrastructure; and Natural Capital & the Environment. Dieter is a Vice President of the Exmoor Society, a Vice President of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust, and Honorary Fellow, Brasenose College, Oxford.
