Blog Archives

June - 'Environmental economic' accounting, Megatrends, Land use planning and the protection of good quality agricultural land

29/6/2022

The Sustainability Group met on the 4th and 18th of June. At our first session we looked at various attempts to value biodiversity. In Australia we generally measure our 'wealth' in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is a purely a measure of economic performance of various industry and service sectors within our economy. Many people are concerned that this measure takes little or no account of environmental or social aspects of our society. Some countries have begun moving away from GDP to a more comprehensive and inclusive measure of social wellbeing. In our session we looked at some attempts at establishing systems for valuing environmental attributes. Two we considered were the Wentworth Group system of environmental accounting and the United Nations 'system of environmental-economic accounting', the latter being worked on by the governments of Australia.

In our second session we had two topics to discuss. The first dealt with the megatrends that the world is facing. Megatrends are macroeconomic and geostrategic forces that are shaping the world. Presently most pundits see the key issues we face in the long term as being clearly in the sustainability basket; climate change, natural resource scarcity, population growth, pollution, waste and a circular economy amongst others. Our second topic concerned the land use planning and development system, in particular how, and whether, it can protect good quality agricultural land from being converted to non-agricultural forms of land use.

John Lane

Session 8 - Theme: Valuing nature and biodiversity

3/6/2022

Theme: Valuing nature and biodiversity - Session Outline and Links

The concept of ecologically sustainable development (ESD) is a cornerstone concept in ensuing development decisions don’t just favour economic or financial outcomes.
We have well accepted means of valuing the ‘economic’ component of ESD, both at the big picture scale, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and at the small or project scale, such as financial viability.
The fact that we don’t have an agreed ‘formula’ for valuing biodiversity, as we do for economic and financial accounting, most likely results in decisions that favour the measurable value (economic) over the unmeasurable value (biodiversity).
But how do can we value biodiversity (a concept that includes nature, ecology, habitat and species)?
There have been many by attempts research ecologists, natural resource economists and others to do this, either to integrate biodiversity into the GDP equation or at the development assessment level; but the fact is there is no one approach that has been taken up.
This is strange given consideration of environmental impacts has been included in most development legislation for almost 50 years in some jurisdictions.
Complications arise because of the ‘nature’ of nature itself.
There is no real agreement on which component or combination of components of nature should be used in the value equation.
Valuing nature can be considered at a species level (such as relative rarity), ecosystem level (such as intactness, or by type of ecological community), via the ecological services an area provides and other components.
In the concept of valuing nature for ‘nature’s sake’ how can a value ‘index’ be crafted that can be reasonably compared the monetary index used in economic or financial valuations.
Alternatively, is it OK to just value nature or its components in relation its usefulness or financial value to people?
The following links provide a brief look into the work being done in the field of biodiversity valuation.
Some of these try to measure the financial value of one or more environmental services (e.g. recreational fishing), others try to establish biodiversity valuation index not related to money or people (e.g. the ‘econd’), while others attempt to value a natural area in terms of its non-financial benefits to people.

Incidentally, the ABC published today (1 June 22) an article about the limitations of only relying on GDP to our wellbeing:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-01/gdp-figures-measure-growth-but-are-we-counting-the-wrong-thing/101111454

Primary links

United Nations – System of environmental – economic accounting: https://seea.un.org/

DAWE (Aust) – Environment – Economic Accounts: https://eea.environment.gov.au/

Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists – the ‘Econd’: https://wentworthgroup.org/programs/environmental-accounts/

https://wentworthgroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Quick-Guide-for-Constructing-Regional-Scale-Environmental-Asset-Condition-Accounts.pdf
Secondary links

Wikipedia - Ecological economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics

European Forests Institute - Valuing Biological Diversity of Forests: https://efi.int/sites/default/files/files/publication-bank/2018/ir_04.pdf

OECD – Choice Modelling: https://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?doclanguage=en&cote=env/epoc/geei/bio(2001)3/final

Ecosystem Valuation Group – contingent valuation: https://www.ecosystemvaluation.org/contingent_valuation.htm#over

Oregon State University – Intrinsic value of biodiversity: https://today.oregonstate.edu/archives/2015/feb/conservation-needs-recognize-nature%E2%80%99s-intrinsic-value-researchers-say

Healthy Parks Healthy People (Victoria):
https://finalreport.rcvmhs.vic.gov.au/personal-stories-and-case-studies/healthy-parks-healthy-people/#:~:text=Healthy%20Parks%20Healthy%20People%20was,strong%20focus%20on%20mental%20health.

https://www.parks.vic.gov.au/-/media/project/pv/main/parks/documents/get-into-nature/healthy-parks-healthy-people/200507_hphp-framework_revised-final_compressed.pdf?la=en&rev=345c7e8418e04e58a135d2ae660cd281&hash=A05116EFF35BEE2AD9D21804CC0E06C48FB6C07C

Ecology Centre (USA) – Measuring the value of biodiversity: https://www.ecologycenter.us/natural-history-2/measuring-the-value-of-biodiversity.html

BSFG on:

'Sustainability'

Full sustainability is only achieved when our society achieves this in three spheres of our activity: Social, Economic and Environmental. Sustainability in each of these three spheres is far from being achieved. This has become the concern of governments and ordinary people world-wide and has resulted in many questions about the sustainability of our present lifestyle.

This course aims to explore topics such as global warming and climate change, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, clean energy options, the challenge associated with population change, sustainable agricultural practices, water use, natural resource use, energy efficient building design, improving the social condition of people, wealth distribution and various economic issues. No prior knowledge of these topics is required, just a general interest in the issues around sustainability.

Note: In 2025 the Sustainability Group will be combined with the Stock and Land Group. Some sessions will be devoted to Stock and Land issues.

Meeting Times

1st and 3rd Friday
10 am to 12 midday
U3A Meeting Room 1

Convenors and contact details

John Lane
0474 936 460

Convenor 2008-2021

John Lloyd

Local Links

Benalla Sustainable Future Group:

Renewable Energy Benalla - website