Robert Ayres (scientist)

Robert Underwood Ayres
Born	(1932-06-29)June 29, 1932 Plainfield, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	October 23, 2023(2023-10-23) (aged 91) France
Alma mater	University of Chicago University of Maryland King's College London
Scientific career
Fields	Industrial ecology Environmental economics
Institutions	Hudson Institute Carnegie-Mellon University International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis INSEAD Chalmers Institute of Technology

Part of a series on
Ecological economics
Humanity's economic system viewed as a subsystem of the global environment
Concepts Carbon fee and dividend Carrying capacity Ecological market failure Ecological model of competition Ecosystem services Embodied energy Energy accounting Entropy pessimism Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare Natural capital Spaceship Earth Steady-state economy Sustainability, 'weak' vs 'strong' Uneconomic growth
People Serhiy Podolynsky Frederick Soddy Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen Kenneth E. Boulding E. F. Schumacher Robert Ayres Herman Daly Joan Martinez Alier Richard B. Norgaard Robert Costanza Tim Jackson Clive Spash Organizations: International Society for Ecological Economics
Works Wealth, Virtual Wealth and Debt The Entropy Law and the Economic Process The Limits to Growth Small Is Beautiful Prosperity Without Growth Ecological Economics (journal)
Related topics Degrowth Eco-investing Eco-socialism Environmental economics Externality Green politics Planetary boundaries Post-growth Sustainable finance Thermodynamics Thermoeconomics
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Robert Underwood Ayres (June 29, 1932 – October 23, 2023) was an American-born physicist and economist. His career focused on the application of physical ideas, especially the laws of thermodynamics, to economics; a long-standing pioneering interest in material flows and transformations (industrial ecology or industrial metabolism)—a concept which he originated.^[1] His most recent work challenged the widely held economic theory of growth.