The Nexus of Natural and Human-Made Capital in Environmental Crisis Management

Dear Colleagues,

The Special Issue (SI) “The Nexus of Natural and Human-Made Capital in Environmental Crisis Management” will reveal complementarities between “natural capital" and “human capital”, and thus to disclose particular features of “strong sustainability”. There are certain functions that the environment performs and they cannot be duplicated by human-made capital. Those who advocate for “strong sustainability” (see, for example, Brand, 2009, Ekins et al. 2003, Neumayer, 2003, Pelenc et al. 2015, Shi et al. 2019) try to demonstrate that natural capital is a complex system based on evolving biotic and abiotic elements that interact in ways that determine the ecosystem capacity to provide humans with a wide array of services and functions. Moving away from the discourse on the substitutability between “natural capital” and “human-made capital”, the investigation of this interplay between natural and manufactured capital is central to this SI. Thus, “The Nexus of Natural and Human-Made Capital in Environmental Crisis Management” invites contributors, through their analytical approaches, to find answers to a wide variety of concerns such as “Is reconciliation between weak and strong sustainability possible?”, “How can we maintain or restore the natural capital to close the sustainability gap and what are the costs of so doing?” (as per Ekins et al. 2003), “What are the leverage points to align the circular economy to the strong sustainability philosophy?”, “What is the place of green consumption within strong sustainability?”, “What is the role of ethics of strong sustainability and stakeholders in sustainability science” (as per Dedeurwaerdere, 2014), among other questions. Central science questions and challenges of the social-ecological system in front of the multitude of environmental crisis facets demand science-based actions. Consequently, the Guest Editors aim to create a forum for discussion on sustainability science where an interdisciplinary reflection is needed and we hope to bring together social scientists, philosophers, engineers, agronomists, biologists, and other scientists to advance this debate.

References

• Brand, F. (2009). Critical natural capital revisited: Ecological resilience and sustainable development. Ecological economics, 68(3), 605–612.
• Dedeurwaerdere, T. (2014). Sustainability science for strong sustainability. Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Ekins, P., Simon, S., Deutsch, L., Folke, C., & De Groot, R. (2003). A framework for the practical application of the concepts of critical natural capital and strong sustainability. Ecological economics, 44(2–3), 165–185.
• Neumayer, E. (2003). Weak versus strong sustainability: exploring the limits of two opposing paradigms. Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Pelenc, J., Ballet, J., & Dedeurwaerdere, T. (2015). Weak sustainability versus strong sustainability. Brief for GSDR United Nations.
• Shi, L., Han, L., Yang, F., & Gao, L. (2019). The Evolution of Sustainable Development Theory: Types, Goals, and Research Prospects. Sustainability, 11(24), 7158.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ruxandra Malina Petrescu-Mag
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Dacinia Crina Petrescu
Prof. Dr. Teodor Rusu
Guest Editors

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• Environmental pollution prevention, control, and research
• Climate change adaptation
• Climate-smart agriculture
• Biodiversity conservation
• Smart cities
• Environmental economics
• Negotiation tactics and conflict resolution
• Regulations and governance