This research investigates the formation of the debate on natural resources and the environment
in the history of economic thought from a historiographical and conceptual perspective. In this
sense, it analyzes the complex interaction between the economic system and nature, in its
broadest sense, seeking to guide the emergence of the concept of bioeconomy for the
contemporary debate aimed at tackling the issue of the climate emergency. In order to do so, it
emphasizes the historiographical turning point, and the role played by the seminal contribution
of Romanian economist Georgescu-Roegen in shaping the concept of the bioeconomy in the
1970s. It also explores how, from that point on, two distinct theoretical approaches emerged to
deal with the challenges posed by the environmental issue and which analyzed the economic
process in different ways: one which, adhering to the principles proposed by Georgescu-Roegen,
promoted the search for a closer integration between the spheres of the economic theory of
production and the emerging science of ecology; and another which, maintaining the
epistemological inspiration anchored in the physics of the first half of the 19th century, sought
to reincorporate the role of natural resources and “forgotten” environmental variables into
contemporary economic analysis. Finally, the text highlights the theoretical and practical
differences between these approaches, and how they shape the various contemporary
conceptions of the bioeconomy, which today influence the formulation of public policies aimed
at reconciling economic development with environmental sustainability, in a scenario of global
climate change.
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