Sustainability: Concepts, Innovation, and Economics

The challenge of the present age is how to sustain the growing human population in a reasonably prosperous and civilized manner within the limits of the one planet, Earth, that we inhabit. For reference, the current human population stands at 7,782,939,000 where I have left the last three digits as zeros because they are changing fast as I write. This is a solvable problem but solving it will require all the human understanding and ingenuity that we possess, and not only technical but also business and innovation. To frame the issue, we will discuss sustainability in a historical context, the measurement of sustainability, and the extended Sustainable Regimes Hypothesis which outlines the conditions necessary for sustainability. We will the discuss the role of innovation and economic policy in finding pathways or solutions out of our dilemma.