Sustainable development: Old conundrums, new discords

This paper represents the text of the obligatory talk given by the author on receipt of the 1995 Jay Wright Forrester Award for his book titled ‘Towards Sustainable Development, Essays on System Analysis of National Policy’. The paper documents methodological and problem-related insights created over the course of an extended research effort that yielded the essays of the book. The methodological principles elaborated include the use of a diverse data base for model development, the partitioning of a complex problem into tractable parts and the process of building confidence in a model. The problem-related insights cover the concept of economic value, its diverse manifestations and their implications for sustainable development. An attempt is made to extend the concepts learnt to the global economic system and research agendas are outlined for addressing the problems of global sustenance.