A synopsis of political welfare concepts, which are currently discussed under labels such as "green growth", "zero growth" and "degrowth", has identified fundamental shortcomings concerning the informational bases of the complex links between ecological, social and economic systems, which were taken into account in the creation of the concept. In the development of a concept for political action, a rationally acting environmental policy cannot neglect reflecting on which economic, ecological and social contexts have to be taken into account and on which normative statements its decisions should be grounded. The proposed sustainable welfare model consists of a positive impact and a normative decision model. The positive model provides a description of the "world" with which the effects of the various options for action on the environmental, social and the economic systems can be assessed. The normative model is a tool for selecting and assessing the options for action in pursuing the desired goal of sustainable welfare development. Principally the key environmental goals are prearranged to socio-economic goals. The model at hand provides the reference points for the development of a sustainable welfare concept, which can be used as a political action plan in the context of environmental policy.