Sustainability Economics

The imperative of sustainability requires sustaining nature, and its functioning and services for humans, over a long time into the future. This has implications for how human societies should organize their economic relationships and how they should act towards nature. Examples include the use or conservation of natural resources and ecosystems, the production of goods and services through various technologies, as well as the patterns of consumption and economic exchange.

Sustainability economics addresses the questions of how human economic action depends upon and affects nature, and how sustainability in the relationship between humans and nature can be achieved in an equitable and economically efficient manner. This includes the analysis of unsustainable structures and processes in currently existing economies, and the design of
policies, institutions and governance for long-term sustainability.

Building upon the methodologically sound inter- and transdisciplinary integration of concepts and methods from economics, the natural sciences, and philosophy, members of the Sustainability Economics Group at Leuphana University of Lüneburg carry out conceptual, theoretical and empirical research, provide method- and problem-oriented higher education and foster knowledge transfer in the area of sustainability economics.