Int. J. Pluralism and Economics Education, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2012 189 Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. Introductory economics textbooks: what do they teach about sustainability? Tom L. Green Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, Aquatic Ecosystems Research Laboratory, 2202 Main Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z4, Canada E-mail: tgreen@ires.ubc.ca Abstract: In response to accelerating ecological deterioration, many universities have made commitments to integrate sustainability across the curriculum and to ensure they graduate ecologically responsible citizens. This study involves a content analysis of the coverage of environment-economy linkages in introductory economics textbooks. In North America, introductory economics courses tend to cover similar content and to rely heavily on textbooks. A small number of standard textbooks dominate this market. Standard introductory economics textbooks in current use in British Columbia, Canada were included in the study as well as three leading US textbooks. These were contrasted against a pair of micro/macro introductory texts explicitly written to address sustainability. The standard textbooks are found to largely ignore or mischaracterise environment-economy linkages and to include little content that would help further student understanding of sustainability. Universities that have made a commitment to integrate sustainability across the curriculum should examine carefully the textbooks used in their introductory economic courses and give preference to textbooks that have integrated sustainability-relevant content throughout the text and have addressed both environment-economy linkages and the challenge of sustainability with sophistication. Keywords: Talloires Declaration; sustainability; textbooks; environment; curriculum; ecological economics; principles; economics. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Green, T.L. (2012) ‘Introductory economics textbooks: what do they teach about sustainability?’, Int. J. Pluralism and Economics Education, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp.189–223. Biographical notes: Tom L. Green recently obtained his PhD degree through the Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Programme at the University of British Columbia. His ongoing research project focuses on how student attitudes towards the environment are affected by studying mainstream economics. He earned his MA in Ecological Economics from the University of Victoria in 1998. From 2003–2007, he worked as the Director of Socio-economics for a coalition of environmental groups that secured a precedent-setting conservation-oriented land use plan to support both human wellbeing and ecosystem integrity in British Columbia’s Great Bear Rainforest. From 1996–2003, he worked as an Ecological Economist analysing forestry and mining projects.