Technology and the notion of sustainability

Some of the difficulties connected with the concept of sustainable development can be resolved if we distinguish between sustainability of different types of assets, in particular between those that pertain to technological uses and those that do not. A weak concept of sustainability is appropriate for the former and a strong concept for the latter. Furthermore, time discounting is appropriate (in the relatively short run) for the former but not for the latter. It is concluded that instead of choosing between weak and strong sustainability, the two notions should be included in the same analysis, since they are needed to account for different kinds of assets. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.