The degradation of the natural environment, highlighted through the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity decline and pollution of seas and oceans, continues to deepen. Contributing to the academic debates around the optimal environmental policy solutions to deal with the crisis, this book critically compares the approaches of environmental and ecological economics.

The contributors to the book present a comparison of the theoretical foundations and practical solutions presented by both ecological and environmental economics. The main goal of the book is to identify the essential features that distinguish the two approaches, including their central concepts of the economic figure – homo oeconomicus and homo sustinens. The book explores how each approach equips researchers to tackle questions around reconciling the pursuit of economic growth with planetary physical limits, ecosystem valuation, renewable resources and the identification of optimal policy solutions for the European Union (EU). Ultimately, the book delineates between mainstream environmental economics as a descriptive science and ecological economics as a normative science.

The book will be an invaluable resource for readers interested in ecological economics, environmental economics and their impact on environmental protection practice.

Małgorzata Burchard-Dziubińska is Associate Professor at the University of Lodz. She deals with ecological economics, the economics of natural resources, sustainable development, eco-management for a low-carbon economy.