Based on contributions from Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, the paper evaluates the debate in economics regarding the concept of sustainable development. This author is renowned for having introduced in economic analysis the concept of entropy, today an important building block of ecological economics. However, this is not the aspect focused here. We emphasize, instead, the contribution to the discussion that can be derived from his analysis of the production process. We point out, especially, that if the analysis of the interaction between the economic system and the environment incorporates the distinction suggested by the author, between the category of stocks of inputs of natural capital and that of its funds of basic environmental services, the sustainability debate would be forced to confront central aspects that tend to remain hidden by the simplifying assumptions of the conventional analyses of sustainability.
economic system and the environment; sustainability; categories of capital; natural capital; stability and resilience; Georgescu-Roegen