14 2 Theoretical Foundations
satisfied with a growing population in the future. However, numerous scientists
have since criticized the report. One of the first critics was H. S. D. Cole in 1973.
He re-used Meadow’s model with different assumptions and arrived at different
results. Other scientists criticizing Meadow’s results and defending economic growth
include W. Beckerman and more recently B. Lomborg (Lomborg 2012; Beckerman
1974). The Danish scientist B. Lomborg pointed to one major subsystem Meadows
et al. missed in their observations. They did not take into consideration the factor
of human ingenuity and the strength innovations can have. Through innovation,
human society can not only increase the use of depleted resources, but can also
increase the ways in which to access untouched resources (Lomborg 2012). This is
not beneficial for the environment in every case which will be explained in more
detail later in this chapter.
Another point of criticism is that Meadows et al. did not come up with a real-istic solution to stop resource depletion. Current economic systems are based on
growth. It is highly unrealistic to change this growth-based economy concerning
the predicted loss of welfare for the society. Moreover, the suggestion to introduce
restrictive policies regarding birth rates and consumption is unlikely to be followed
in democratic governments but rather in authoritarian systems.
While acknowledging all the criticism mentioned above, Meadows report raiseda lot of awareness in the public realm which engendered further thoughts. As men-
tioned above, decreasing resource reserves lead to an increase in prices. While this
might lead to environmental damaging procedures of resource extraction, there is
also positive side to increased prices. Corporations either start looking for substi-
tutes for these resources or try to increase their resource productivity to achieve
more independence from the respective resource.
Therefore, the question should not be if economic growth can be combined withenvironmental concerns but how growth can be combined with preservation of the
environment. To answer the second question resource productivity and eco-effi-
ciency play an important role in the context of environmental concerns and lead
to the concept of decoupling. This concept has the objective of reducing resource
depletion and environmental impact while ensuring economic growth (United
Nations Environment Program 2011). Therefore, decoupling can be understood
as an important factor to ensure long-term economic growth under the condition
of sustainable development.
Resource decoupling describes the process of producing the same amount ofoutput with a reduced amount of primary resources. This can be achieved by using
less material, energy, water as well as land resource and reusing material. Resource
decoupling can be applied for a production chain, an economic process, a whole