The concept of "sustainability" has been increasingly invoked in scholarly and public policy debates. Discussion has been hampered, however, by uncertainty and lack of uniformity in the meaning of sustainability. This paper seeks to identify some common ground among economists, ecologists, and...

Admonitions to decision makers to "act sustainably" founder on conceptual ambiguities that transcend disciplinary boundaries and affect the definition and assessment of sustainability. In this article we address these underlying theoretical difficulties, paying special attention to two clusters...