From cut flowers to felled timber, and from caught fish to butchered meat, we value nature most when it’s dead. But if we can change economic systems and mindsets in support of nature, our planet may start to recover – this is the message from a global team of experts.
The authors warn that a lack of an economic and market value for the living natural world has given free rein for the exploitation and destruction of the environment, at a huge cost for animals, plants, Indigenous Peoples, and ultimately, all life on Earth.
A forthcoming book, called Becoming Nature Positive, is co-authored by a group of nature advocates representing a wide range of sectors and geographies, who have examined these global ‘market failures’ and their impacts on the natural world. The lead author is Marco Lambertini, convener of the Nature Positive Initiative, a coalition of 27 of the world’s largest conservation organisations, institutes, standard-setters, and business and finance groups.
‘Nature Positive’ is defined as a world in which there is more nature in 2030 than there was in 2020 – and then ensuring that nature continues to recover after that – as agreed by all countries in the landmark Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework in 2022.
The book sets out nature’s ‘great decline’ and charts the start of a ‘great awakening’ – where people are timidly waking up to fact that exceeding planetary limits will impact the systems that support life, and that the entire planet may irreversibly shift to an unstable and unpredictable state. The authors say that this is a huge cultural shift and is perhaps what’s most needed to embrace the deep systemic change we need to see in our societies and economies.
Lambertini explains how nature only really attains economic value once it has been destroyed: “Trees gain a market value when they are cut for lumber, and not for the oxygen they produce, the soil erosion they prevent, the water regulation and purification function they provide while alive.
“Fish, meanwhile, are valued when caught and sold to feed humans – or our farmed animals – not for contributing to the health of rivers and seas which in turn generate immensely positive services to our economy, society and individual wellbeing.
“And water gains some value after it has been extracted and used for agriculture, industries and households, most likely being polluted as a result – not for sustaining all life on Earth.
“Even flowers gain value when they are cut and sold for our anniversaries and other special occasions, or are grown for our gardens and flats, not for their beauty and ecological function when living wild in meadows or forests.
“We have failed to account for the value of living nature in economic decision-making. This blindness to the values of nature has led to overexploitation, degradation and destruction of the natural world which, in turn, is beginning to affect our economy and society.”
The authors call for a ‘great transition’ to a ‘nature positive’ world, before setting out a series of ways in which this can be achieved. These include coordinated messaging that saving nature is also about saving people; learning from Indigenous groups; igniting self-interest as a motivator for pro-environmental behaviour; radically rethinking food systems; and spurring leadership in the business, investment and political realms.
They suggest the answer must include shifting from a system based on Gross Domestic Product to one which considered the Gross Ecosystem Product, accounting for the economic costs of nature loss, but also for nature’s contributions to the economy.
Businesses wanting to contribute to a nature-positive economy should not delay, they urge, as if they wait until the path to nature positivity is clearly marked, it will be too late. It’s ‘now for nature’, says Eva Zabey of Business for Nature. And writing in the chapter about finance, Dorothy Maseke of the African Natural Capital Alliance suggests that creating the right environment through regulation and market mechanisms is essential, and that establishing a taxonomy and transparency is critical.
Lambertini warns: “We have all it takes to avert the worst consequences: the intellectual, financial, technological ability. It is simply about choices and resolve. And in this lies, absurdly and tragically, the greatest threat: to think that someone or something else will save us from the destabilisation of the Earth systems.”
The book, prefaced by global sustainability leader and Roche board vice-chair André Hoffmann, contains a broad range of contributions and views from the global Nature Positive Initiative and beyond. Fellow leading co-authors are Dr Joseph W. Bull for the science perspective; Leroy Little Bear and Harvey Locke with Éliane Ubalijoro, Brigitte Baptiste and Fuwen Wei for the society perspective; Eva Zabey on business; Dorothy Maseke on finance; and Carlos Manuel Rodríguez and Sonja Sabita Teelucksingh with the governance perspective.
These chapters are complemented by a suite of reflections from a wide range of sustainability thought leaders across different sectors and geographies – ranging from Yana Gevorgyan of the Group on Earth Observations and Akanksha Khatri of the World Economic Forum’s Nature Action Agenda, to leading sustainability scientist Johan Rockström of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Tony Goldner of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures, and David Atkin of the UN’s Principles for Responsible Investment. Together they sketch out a landscape scan of the role that science, society, business, finance, government, multilateral organizations, NGOs and citizens can play in making the nature-positive transition happen.