Humans are only a small part of the Earth community. However, we have brought such vast and unprecedented impacts on the planet that it will suffer the consequences for millions of years.

Pollution, urbanisation, destruction of biodiversity, water and land exploitation, mining and use of fossil fuels have altered the natural world. Any damage inflicted to the ecosystem is considered a simple externality in economic terms, and – we believe - can be fixed by "technological advances”.

We don’t know yet how to make sustainable institutions and enterprises address human needs without compromising the health of the ecosystem.

Our economic systems are embedded in nature, and should recognise their ecological constraints on top of the traditional cost-benefits constraints.

Therefore we have to work out how ecological sustainability can be achieved and how it can be maintained in the very long term, for the benefit of humans and the whole planet Earth.