Prof. Bob Costanza on Science and Sustainability

This consilient transdisciplinary science will emerge from a rebalancing of analysis and synthesis, a recognition of the central role of envisioning in science, a pragmatic philosophy built on complex systems theory and modeling, a multiscale approach, and a consistent theory of cultural and biological co-evolution. It will allow us to build a world that is both sustainable and desirable and that recognizes our fundamental partnership with the rest of nature.

It is a world that we must first imagine in order to achieve.

About Professor Bob Costanza
Prof. Bob Costanza is Professor and director at Maryland Institute for Ecological Economics, University of Maryland, Solomons, USA.

Dr. Costanza´s research has been focused on the interface between ecological and economic systems, particularly at larger temporal and spatial scales. This includes landscape level spatial simulation modeling, analysis of energy flows through economic and ecological systems, valuation of ecosystem services and natural capital, and analysis of dysfunctional incentive systems and ways to correct them.

He is co-founder and chief editor of the journal Ecological Economics, and past president and co-founder of the International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE).