Will a price tag on nature help business to value the planet? - The Mail & Guardian

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During most of industrialisation, the intrinsic value of nature’s bounty — air, freshwater and oceans, for example — was not recognised because it cost nothing to consume or pollute.

From agriculture to housing to transportation, economic growth has historically depended on burning through finite natural resources and rearranging natural landscapes.

For business, putting a monetary value on nature means that damaging resources such as breathable air and drinkable water becomes not just a survival risk, but a financial one. Mary Ruckelshaus, head of the Natural Capital Project at Stanford University, acknowledges that it is a complex task. “They help protect coastlines, communities from sea-level rise and hurricanes,” Ruckelshaus says, adding that such a “service” is worth millions, in some cases billions, of dollars. But she says such numbers cannot always cover the true cost of harming a resource.

“If you articulate and quantify where the most value is for each stakeholder, often you don’t have as many trade-offs as you think,” she says.Some $44-trillion of annual economic value generation — half of the world’s GDP — is moderately or highly dependent on nature, according to the World Economic Forum.

French author, environmentalist and member of the European Parliament Aurore Lalucq agrees. “We don’t need to give a price to bees — we need to outlaw the pesticides that kill them,” she tells AFP.

 

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For as long as corporate,capitalist monetised economy is propagated as a symbol of prosperity with the corporate 'infested' regulatory boards across all economic deciding bodies,worldwide, nature's cycles and bounty will continue to dwindle and eventually collapse

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