Wrapping up

Reflection

Please take a few minutes to write and answer the provided reflection questions. A good response is usually a minimum of five sentences.

We strongly recommend that you:

• Keep a reflection notebook, log, or journal and save a copy of your reflection in it.
• Share and discuss your response with others.
• If you are completing this module as part of a class or workshop, you will likely be discussing your reflection as part of a group activity.

If you are completing this module alone, try finding a group of interested friends or colleagues to discuss your reflections with.

1. One of the central ideas in economics is the principle of scarcity - more is wanted than is available. This principle suggests that all resources are limited, and an important part of economics is making decisions about how to divide, use, and assign value or prices to those resources. What impact do you see this mindset having on society? What are at least two ways that you have seen this impact your own life or the choices you or your family have had to make?
   
   
2. Many of the UN SDGs look either directly or indirectly at the problem of inequality. Thinking about the alternative economies presented in this module (circular, steady-state, sharing and gift economies), what opportunities exist for increasing equality between different groups? Try to give at least three specific examples and relate them back to one or more of the SDGs.
   
   
3. In traditional economics, monetary value is only assigned to resources once they become usable. For example, a tree is only given a value once it has been cut down and becomes usable for timber or pulp and paper. Ecological economics argues that values should be assigned to natural resources in their basic state. For example, assigning a monetary value to the tree while it is living for the ecological services it provides it terms of producing oxygen, storing carbon, providing habitat for other animals, holding rain water in the ground rather than allowing it wo wash away the riverbanks into the river, etc. What reasons can you think of for why this approach has not been widely adopted?

Conclusion

In this module, you learned about economic sustainability: development that makes secure sources of livelihood available to everyone and ensures that global communities remain intact.

You considered some of the ways economies are measured, such as GDP, HDI, BLI and GNH. You considered how economic sustainability relates to all 17 UNB SGDs and learned about circular economies, along with other types of alternative economies such as steady-state, sharing, and gift economies.

You had the opportunity to learn more about gift economies in the context of Canadian indigenous peoples, particularly the potlatches of the Kwakwaka’wakw people. Finally, you took some time to reflect on economic sustainability and make connections to your existing knowledge and experiences.

Resources

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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