From groundless universalism to grounded generalism: improving ecological economic indicators of human–environmental interaction

Abstract

Ecological economics occasionally makes universal claims about how to understand and measure change in systems of human–environmental interaction. In terms of environmental policy, one of the most influential universal concepts that has come out of the ecological economics literature recently is ecological efficiency (or eco-efficiency). This article uses eco-efficiency as a vehicle to illustrate that universal indicators of human–environmental interaction are theoretically unfounded and practically problematic. Population ecology and neo-classical economics are identified as two theoretical approaches that have contributed to the emergence of universal concepts such as eco-efficiency. The limited applicability of the approaches is highlighted by putting them in comparative context with approaches that make less universal claims, namely, systems ecology and institutional economics. Investigating indicators of human–environmental interaction from disciplinary perspectives that are rarely found in indicator literature offers novel insights on what indicators are for and how they should be applied. The article concludes with a call for scale sensitive generalization in the development of future indicators.