The discussion about weak or strong sustainability appears in some contributions, but it remains unclear where sustainability economics should be situated. van den Bergh (2010) criticizes the fact that the sustainability economics proposal does not make reference to strong or weak sustainability. Sustainability economics should, in his opinion, address these contrasting views. By arguing for the adoption of resilience and panarchy theory, he indirectly argues for
strong sustainability in sustainability economics. For Bartelmus (2010) weak sustainability refers to environmental economics, while strong sustainability refers to ecological economics. Where to situate sustainability economics is unclear here. To Baumgärtner and Quaas (2010b), sustainability economics includes both weak and strong sustainability. This is coherent to their argumentation of including both neoclassical and ecological economics. However, sustainability
economics based on weak sustainability (Lerch and Nutzinger, 2002) bears the risk that outcomes and policy recommendations lead to unsustainable lifestyle, production and consumption patterns.