The Network Strategy Center in Ecological Economics is headquartered at UVM. Our Ecozoic Lab focuses on the role of economics in a socially just Ecozoic transition, where economics is defined in the Polanyian sense of the interchange of humans with their natural and social environments to supply the means of material want satisfaction. We are particularly engaged in:

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1) Economic analyses of essential resources on a finite planet, including food, energy, water, ecosystem services[1], knowledge, and monetary and financial systems;

2)  The innovation, resurrection and promotion of political-economic institutions, legal and governance structures, and cultural norms and ethical values that facilitate the cooperation and collective action required to address complex, multi-scale ecological and social problems;

3) The development, communication and implementation of policies that promote a socially just sustainability transition through our Ecozoic Policy Project.

 

[1] In the context of the Ecozoic, ecosystem services are not defined as nature’s benefits to people, but rather as nature’s benefits to the community of life and people’s benefits to nature. They are services in the Georgescu-Roegen sense: ecosystems provide a flux of benefits at a rate over time and are not physically transformed into the benefits they provide. Like public services, they are largely incompatible with market provision.