Researchers and public bodies increasingly agree that economics must change to serve the long-term well-being of both people and the planet. This will include breaking disciplinary silos within, and democratising access to, the subject. In this way, economics can address real-world concerns with real-world consequences, improving equity, justice and participatory governance.

Ecological economics seeks to play its part here by integrating economics, ecology, psychology and Earth-systems science to understand the planet from a holistic systems perspective. With this kind of radical approach, ecological economics has the potential to create a better future for humanity.

At its core, ecological economics pursues three fundamental goals: achieving an ecologically sustainable scale for the human economy within planetary boundaries; ensuring fair distribution of resources across generations, communities and species; and enabling efficient, equitable and well-being-oriented resource allocation. Its central idea is that humans are not separate from nature but embedded within it, with nature, societies, knowledge and built infrastructure all contributing to well-being. The interactions among these and the limits to substituting one for another are central to creating regenerative and equitable economic systems.⁸

It is also important to raise the profile of knowledge from lower- and middle-income countries, especially given the continued domination of institutions and scholarly work from the Global North in “recognised” academic work, with associated biases and blind spots. The underrepresentation of Southern scholarship, especially in African contexts, is a systemic challenge linked to power asymmetries in global research.