Back in November 2015 the Scottish Wildlife Trust hosted
probably the most important event you’ve never heard of - The World Forum on Natural Capital. Around 600 people from
45 countries attended, and they were there to discuss the benefits that nature
provides to people.
Our economy is fundamentally flawed. We know the price of everything but the value
of nothing. We attribute value to
useless things (like diamonds and plastic robots) and attribute no value at all
to things on which we totally depend (like oxygen, wildlife and an equitable
climate). The idea of natural capital is
to recognize that nature – natural capital – does have value even if this value
cannot be quantified or expressed in monetary terms.
If we do not value nature then it has a very low priority in
any economic decision making. Listen to
the language that is normally used: putting money into anything to do with the
economy is called “investment”; putting money into anything to do with the
environment is call “grants” or “subsidies”.
Normal measures add up everything
to do with the economy (whether positive or negative, it’s all counted positive)
and call it GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
Activity to look after the environment is called “a burden”. The implication is clear – the economy makes
money but the environment costs money.
A few simple examples expose the nonsense of this
situation. If you over-fish the sea for
economic gain in one year then you’ll have no fish, so no money, long
term. If you neglect soil conservation
in order to gain maximum crop productivity on a farm in one year then soil will
be degraded and you won’t farm, or make money, long term. Fossil fuels short term – climate change long
term. Degrade wetlands short term –
flooding long term. Throughout many of
these examples wildlife gives you a pretty good clue as to whether you are
getting it right or not. Landscapes rich
in wildlife are probably the ones that are going to provide the most public
benefit in the long term (perhaps indefinitely).
So – natural capital is our stock of nature. Like any capital, if you erode the stock then
you reduce your revenue. As Dieter Helm
(Chair of the Natural Capital Committee) put it “successive natural capital
deficits have built up a large natural capital debt and this is proving costly
to our well-being and economy”.
Reduce the stock of nature and you reduce the benefits we
get. If this is not reflected in
decision making then either you need to recognize the economic value of nature
or recognize that nature lies outside quantification and correct the market
failure – probably both. At present we
do neither, so nature has no value and it is consistently degraded in the name
of economic growth.
Some have reasonable concerns that a natural capital approach
might result in the “monetisation” of nature, where we try to put a £ sign
against every aspect of nature. But what
price an orchid, a molecule of oxygen or a sunset? However, by ignoring nature as an “externality”,
our economy can all too easily be used to undermine the very natural systems on
which everything else depends. We therefore
need to question whether our current economy is fit for purpose. Is our current obsession with economic growth
really delivering human prosperity, now and in the future? If not then why are we driven by it?
Instead of “monetising nature” what we need should be viewed
more as the “naturalization of the economy.”