This four volume set reprints vital scholarship on sustainability as concept, contested idea, and political goal. It brings together a range of articles and published papers which have influenced the course of social science thinking, and examines the links between the natural and social sciences, as well as public policies, which thinking about sustainability has helped to develop.
The Editor's introduction to the volumes spells out the innovativeness and utility of the concept of sustainability as well as the difficulties in applying it in the real world.
Coverage includes:
* The intellectual origins of sustainability, and includes material from both classic writers and social scientists who have taken the concept into policy analysis and the social and economic theory.
* Consideration of sustainable development from a number of vantage points, both in the international environment forum and in its applications to planning and policy.
* Application of sustainability indicators and the development of indicators from their simple conceptual beginnings to quite refined policy instruments today, which meet different demands.
* The ideas and policy discourses which have developed from sustainability, including ecological modernization, a concern with human security, deliberative democracy and environmental justice.

The notion of a sustainabilitya (TM) has been growing in importance over the last twenty years, and is now considered a significant area of study.

This four-volume set introduces the reader to a sustainabilitya (TM) as a concept, a contested idea, and a political goal. Bringing together a range of articles and published papers that have influenced the course of thinking in social science, the collection examines the links between the natural and social sciences, as well as the public policies that thought surrounding sustainability has helped to develop.