Natural Capital
Natural Capital

Author: Dieter Helm

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2015-05-12

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 0300213948

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Natural capital is what nature provides to us for free. Renewables—like species—keep on coming, provided we do not drive them towards extinction. Non-renewables—like oil and gas—can only be used once. Together, they are the foundation that ensures our survival and well-being, and the basis of all economic activity. In the face of the global, local, and national destruction of biodiversity and ecosystems, economist Dieter Helm here offers a crucial set of strategies for establishing natural capital policy that is balanced, economically sustainable, and politically viable. Helm shows why the commonly held view that environmental protection poses obstacles to economic progress is false, and he explains why the environment must be at the very core of economic planning. He presents the first real attempt to calibrate, measure, and value natural capital from an economic perspective and goes on to outline a stable new framework for sustainable growth. Bristling with ideas of immediate global relevance, Helm’s book shifts the parameters of current environmental debate. As inspiring as his trailblazing The Carbon Crunch, this volume will be essential reading for anyone concerned with reversing the headlong destruction of our environment.

Valuing Nature
Valuing Nature

Author: William Ginn

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2020-05-21

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 1642830917

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As the world faces unprecedented challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss, the resources needed far outstrip the capabilities of nonprofits and even governments. Yet there are seeds of hope—and much of that hope comes from the efforts of the private sector. Impact investing is rapidly becoming an essential tool, alongside philanthropy and government funding, in tackling these major problems. Valuing Nature presents a new set of nature-based investment areas to help conservationists and investors work together. NatureVest founder William Ginn outlines the emerging private sector investing opportunities in natural assets such as green infrastructure, forests, soils, and fisheries. The first part of Valuing Nature examines the scope of nature-based impact investing while also presenting a practical overview of its limitations and the challenges facing the private sector. The second part of the book offers tools for investors and organizations to consider as they develop their own projects and tips on how nonprofits can successfully navigate this new space. Case studies from around the world demonstrate how we can use private capital to achieve more sustainable uses of our natural resources without the unintended consequences plaguing so many of our current efforts. Valuing Nature provides a roadmap for conservation professionals, nonprofit managers, and impact investors seeking to use market-based strategies to improve the management of natural systems.

Valuing Natural Capital
Valuing Natural Capital

Author: Dr Dorothy Maxwell

Publisher: Do Sustainability

Published: 2015-04-02

Total Pages: 97

ISBN-13: 1910174459

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Companies that will succeed in the long-term are integrating natural and social capital into their business model now. Natural capital, the resources and critical support services nature provides, underpins our entire global economy. Yet despite its vast social and economic value, the many benefits of natural capital are often assumed to be 'free'. The future shock for business is the potential for profit to be wiped out as natural capital is internalized through regulation and markets. Freshwater, forests and biodiversity are being consumed at an alarming rate, and critical support systems such as the ability to regulate climate are failing. As these and other sustainability challenges develop, businesses and their investors need to understand their role in maintaining natural capital and their natural capital risks and opportunities. The language of finance provides a useful approach for communicating trade-offs and prioritizing sustainability at CFO, CEO and board level: companies who 'future-proof' now will position themselves to thrive in a resource-constrained world. They will mitigate risk, secure their resource supplies, create long-term value and enhance their resilience, reputation and competitive advantage. This book provides a succinct introduction to natural capital: what natural capital is and how it links to other capitals; the business case for using it in decision-making; where natural capital accounting and valuation fit in the sustainability and financial toolbox; and what real life early adopters of natural capital in business are doing. Views from natural capital leaders across business, finance, accounting, government, research and NGO communities illustrate the theory with practice. Included: Quotes and case examples from CFOs, CEOs and Heads of Sustainability in early adopter businesses (Kingfisher Group, Dow Chemical Company, The Crown Estate, Patagonia®, United Utilities and Marks & Spencer) and financial institutions (Inter-American Development Bank, Citi Group and Credit Suisse).

Natural Capital
Natural Capital

Author: Peter Kareiva

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-04-07

Total Pages: 395

ISBN-13: 0199588996

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In 2005, The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) provided the first global assessment of the world's ecosystems and ecosystem services. It concluded that recent trends in ecosystem change threatened human wellbeing due to declining ecosystem services. This bleak prophecy has galvanized conservation organizations, ecologists, and economists to work toward rigorous valuations of ecosystem services at a spatial scale and with a resolution that can inform public policy. The editors have assembled the world's leading scientists in the fields of conservation, policy analysis, and resource economics to provide the most intensive and best technical analyses of ecosystem services to date. A key idea that guides the science is that the modelling and valuation approaches being developed should use data that are readily available around the world. In addition, the book documents a toolbox of ecosystem service mapping, modeling, and valuation models that both The Nature Conservancy and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) are beginning to apply around the world as they transform conservation from a biodiversity only to a people and ecosystem services agenda. The book addresses land, freshwater, and marine systems at a variety of spatial scales and includes discussion of how to treat both climate change and cultural values when examining tradeoffs among ecosystem services.

Valuing Nature
Valuing Nature

Author: Rob Fish

Publisher:

Published: 2021-11-16

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781000428612

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When a group of liberal arts students embark on a university assignment about the natural environment, no one could have quite prepared them for the bewildering array of questions and provocations to confront them in their task. What starts out as an earnest attempt to understand nature in the modern world, turns into a philosophical and practical tangle that only a good transdisciplinary education can provide. Can anyone save the day and actually start to value 'nature'? And if they can't, then what's stopping them? The idea of 'valuing nature' harmonises diverse areas of natural resource management and is an important dimension of scientific and practical work concerned with managing ecosystems and habitats for sustainability. This graphic book takes the reader on an exploration of the issues that arise from this growing interest and concern in the valuation of nature. Set around the premise of a 'motley' group of undergraduates endeavouring to complete a university assignment on 'nature in the modern world', the book explores: the many and diverse meanings people assign to nature the different ways the relationship between people and nature might be characterised the many values systems people hold for the natural world the options and approaches society can deploy to manage it the extent to which we need entirely new economic systems to protect and sustain nature. This highly interdisciplinary book invites consideration of a range of philosophical and applied debates and questions. Written in an accessible style, it is an ideal undergraduate text in the fields of ecology, human and physical geography, conservation science, environment, social science and spatial planning, as well as a general primer for graduate natural and social scientists embarking on interdisciplinary research in the natural resource management arena.

Valuing Natural Capital
Valuing Natural Capital

Author: Dorothy Maxwell

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-09-08

Total Pages: 119

ISBN-13: 1351274228

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Companies that will succeed in the long-term are integrating natural and social capital into their business model now. Natural capital, the resources and critical support services nature provides, underpins our entire global economy. Yet despite its vast social and economic value, the many benefits of natural capital are often assumed to be "free". The future shock for business is the potential for profit to be wiped out as natural capital is internalized through regulation and markets. Freshwater, forests and biodiversity are being consumed at an alarming rate, and critical support systems such as the ability to regulate climate are failing. As these and other sustainability challenges develop, businesses and their investors need to understand their role in maintaining natural capital and their natural capital risks and opportunities. The language of finance provides a useful approach for communicating trade-offs and prioritizing sustainability at CFO, CEO and board level: companies who "future-proof" now will position themselves to thrive in a resource-constrained world. They will mitigate risk, secure their resource supplies, create long-term value and enhance their resilience, reputation and competitive advantage. This book provides a succinct introduction to natural capital: what natural capital is and how it links to other capitals; the business case for using it in decision-making; where natural capital accounting and valuation fit in the sustainability and financial toolbox; and what real life early adopters of natural capital in business are doing. Views from natural capital leaders across business, finance, accounting, government, research and NGO communities illustrate the theory with practice. Included: Quotes and case examples from CFOs, CEOs and Heads of Sustainability in early adopter businesses (Kingfisher Group, Dow Chemical Company, The Crown Estate, Patagonia®, United Utilities and Marks & Spencer) and financial institutions (Inter-American Development Bank, Citi Group and Credit Suisse).

Debating Nature's Value
Debating Nature's Value

Author: Victor Anderson

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2019-01-21

Total Pages: 132

ISBN-13: 3319992449

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The concept of 'Natural Capital' has come to play a central role in current debates about biodiversity and nature conservation. It implies an approach to the natural world based on the valuation of places and species in terms of money. This is, in a variety of ways, both attractive and problematic. This edited collection comprehensively discusses the issues raised by the concept of 'Natural Capital', with contributors presenting not only arguments for and against the widespread adoption of the idea, but also viewpoints arguing for nuanced, pragmatic and middle-ground positions.

Restoring Natural Capital
Restoring Natural Capital

Author: James Aronson

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2012-09-26

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 1597267791

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How can environmental degradation be stopped? How can it be reversed? And how can the damage already done be repaired? The authors of this volume argue that a two-pronged approach is needed: reducing demand for ecosystem goods and services and better management of them, coupled with an increase in supply through environmental restoration. Restoring Natural Capital brings together economists and ecologists, theoreticians, practitioners, policy makers, and scientists from the developed and developing worlds to consider the costs and benefits of repairing ecosystem goods and services in natural and socioecological systems. It examines the business and practice of restoring natural capital, and seeks to establish common ground between economists and ecologists with respect to the restoration of degraded ecosystems and landscapes and the still broader task of restoring natural capital. The book focuses on developing strategies that can achieve the best outcomes in the shortest amount of time as it: • considers conceptual and theoretical issues from both an economic and ecological perspective • examines specific strategies to foster the restoration of natural capital and offers a synthesis and a vision of the way forward Nineteen case studies from around the world illustrate challenges and achievements in setting targets, refining approaches to finding and implementing restoration projects, and using restoration of natural capital as an economic opportunity. Throughout, contributors make the case that the restoration of natural capital requires close collaboration among scientists from across disciplines as well as local people, and when successfully executed represents a practical, realistic, and essential tool for achieving lasting sustainable development.

Handbook of Environmental Economics
Handbook of Environmental Economics

Author:

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2018-10-17

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 0444537732

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Handbook in Environmental Economics, Volume 4, the latest in this ongoing series, highlights new advances in the field, with this new volume presenting timely chapters on Modeling Ecosystems and Economic Systems, Framing Sustainability Policy Questions: Who Leads – Ecology or Economics?, Valuing Natural Capital Within an Integrated Economic Ecological, Developing Economies, Urbanization, Climate Change and Health, Viewing Environmental Policy Instruments for Domestic and International Perspective, Quasi experimental Estimation of Environmental Policies, Environment Macro, The Rules for Formal and Informal Institutions in Managing Environmental Resources, and How Should Uncertainty Be Integrated into the Methods for Policy Evaluation? - Answers key policy questions facing environmental agencies in developed and developing economies - Integrates insights from economics and ecology as part of several key chapters - Presents the latest on efforts to review and evaluate the new literatures on field and quasi experiments in environmental economics - Provides the first substantive review of environmental macro economics

Green Growth That Works
Green Growth That Works

Author: Lisa Ann Mandle

Publisher: Island Press

Published: 2019-09-12

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 1642830038

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Rapid economic development has been a boon to human well-being. It has lifted millions out of poverty, raised standards of living, and increased life expectancies. But economic development comes at a significant cost to natural capital—the fertile soils, forests, coastal marshes, farmland—that support all life on earth, including our own. The dilemma of our times is to figure out how to improve the human condition without destroying nature’s. If ecosystems collapse, so eventually will human civilization. One answer is inclusive green growth—the efficient use of natural resources. Inclusive green growth minimizes pollution and strengthens communities against natural disasters while reducing poverty through improved access to health, education, and services. Its genius lies in working with nature rather than against it. Green Growth That Works is the first practical guide to bring together pragmatic finance and policy tools that can make investment in natural capital both attractive and commonplace. The authors present six mechanisms that demonstrate a range of approaches used around the globe to conserve and restore earth’s myriad ecosystems, including: Government subsidies Regulatory-driven mitigation Voluntary conservation Water funds Market-based transactions Bilateral and multilateral payments Through a series of real-world case studies, the book addresses questions such as: How can we channel economic incentives to make conservation and restoration desirable? What approaches have worked best? How can governments, businesses, NGOs, and individuals work together successfully? Pioneered by leading scholars from the Natural Capital Project, this valuable compendium of proven techniques can guide agencies and organizations eager to make green growth work anywhere in the world.