Comptes rendus de lecture

The recent book by Vincent Martinet is a very welcome addition to the literature on sustainability. As the book title clearly indicates, the author’s objective is to analyze how methods in economic theory (and in particular growth theory) approach sustainable development and to explore alternative methods, mainly through the use of two mathematical methods: invariance and viability theory. The author wishes to rephrase the theoretical debate to focus on operational criteria for sustainable development paths. The incorporation of sustainable development in environmental policy has to some extent been bogged down in the debate between proponents of strong sustainability versus proponents of weak sustainability, and the conditions on substitutability implied under each approach. It is very encouraging to see someone trained in the economic approach of weak sustainability theory go to such efforts to understand and reconcile the different criteria proposed in the sustainability literature with the concerns of proponents of the strong sustainability criterion.