Where are the ecological economics programmes in the Netherlands?
How is it possible that there are no Bachelor’s, Master’s, minor or even elective courses in Ecological Economics in the Netherlands? In a country that likes to present itself as a leader in sustainability, innovation and knowledge, the absence of this discipline is more than remarkable, argues PhD candidate Felix van Hoften.
While the polycrisis consisting of climate change, loss of biodiversity, and increasing social inequality and injustice is growing daily, our economic education continues to focus on stubborn growth-oriented neoclassical paradigms: humans are rational, only the market provides value, and nature is not important.
Planetary boundaries
In higher education, ecological programmes logically devote sufficient attention to sustainability, biodiversity and, for example, planetary boundaries. But ecologists often have an insufficient understanding of economics. Not because economics is so complicated, on the contrary. Economic principles are often nothing more than difficult-to-express forms of common sense with accompanying jargon. The problem is that ecological programmes offer little opportunity to learn or question these economic principles.
Conversely, the situation in (macro)economic programmes is more problematic. There is little consideration of ecological boundaries, material flows or energy consumption. The economy is presented as an autonomous system, separate from physical reality. This is a major fallacy: our economy is our ecology. Everything begins and ends in our natural world. Everything.
The forgotten ideas
The ideas that bridge the gap between economics and ecology are not new. As early as the 1960s and 1970s, thinkers such as Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Kenneth Boulding and Herman Daly pointed to the fundamental dependence of the economy on natural resources and energy. They developed the basis of what we now call ecological economics, a research discipline that considers the economy as a subsystem of the ecosystem, not the other way around. Ironically, Dutch educational programmes of various kinds make extensive use of ecological-economic concepts such as Doughnut Economics, the aforementioned Planetary Boundaries Framework, or broad prosperity, which have their origins in the work of the above-mentioned thinkers. We use the isolated fruits of the discipline, but forget the trunk and roots.
Hopelessly behind
Anyone who thinks this is a marginal field of research is mistaken. At the annual conference of Ecological Economics, held this year in Oslo, more than 1,400 economists, ecologists, philosophers, artists and activists came together. The next edition will take place in the Belgian city of Ghent, but again without strong Dutch representation, while France, the United Kingdom, Austria and Spain now offer full Bachelor’s and Master’s programmes in Ecological Economics. The Netherlands, once a pioneer in sustainable design, is hopelessly behind. Fortunately, there are small exceptions in perhaps unexpected places.
At Nyenrode Business School, the Impact MBA started this year with a course in ecological economics as a fixed component. And the minor Degrowth at the UvA also touches on core principles of ecological economics. However, this is very small in terms of the total numer of students: dozens of students out of a total of a quarter of a million economics and business administration students (on all levels) in the Netherlands. A brief explanation: environmental economics is not the same as ecological economics, which is a common mistake. Environmental economics is often still based on a growth system and neoclassical assumptions and sees great benefit in pricing the harmful consequences of the economic process, for example a CO2 tax.
This is something that ecological economists view with suspicion. After all, how do you price something that is difficult to price? You may wonder whether clean air, for example, can be priced. “Try going without it for an hour,” wrote social value marketer Louis Huyskes in the Dutch daily NRC two years ago, “then you will understand its immeasurable value.”
Blind spot
The absence of ecological economics in our education system is not just a missed academic opportunity, but a societal blind spot. As long as future economists do not learn that our planet has physical limits and ecologists do not learn how economic structures work, we will continue to make policies that treat the symptoms rather than changing the system.
That is why it is time for innovation. At the very least, a minor, but preferably a bachelor's or master's programme that teaches students to think in terms of balance, justice and planetary resilience. A programme that views economics not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end, and that rejects reductionist thinking by using physical, ecological and welfare principles as building blocks. Ecological economics offers precisely that perspective, an integrated way of looking at ecological boundaries for a planet in crisis. The question is no longer why there is no ecological economics programme yet. The question is: how long can we afford not to have one?
Felix van Hoften is a PhD candidate in ecological economics at the University of Amsterdam and author of the Dutch book De golven en de Kaap (The Waves and the Cape). He also works at Nyenrode Business University and Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences.
