TEEB and the value of nature

His team are in the process of reporting on "TEEB" (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). These reports aim to show that saving the world's environment, whether its tropical forests, coral reefs or fish stocks, is not just a moral imperative, or an aesthetic one, but is also vital to the world's economy.

A hard sell from both sides - with ecologists insisting that you can't put a value on nature and free-marketeers questioning the place for nature in economics -but Pavan put forward a convincing case of the real and measurable value of protecting biodiversity across the world.

In one of many examples he explained how setting up ocean reserves where fishing was prohibited actually led to an increase in the number and size of fish caught in the area. The reserve becomes a breeding ground for fish who would normally be caught young, and their offspring are then caught elsewhere without the same loss in sustainability.

Discussing the lecture in the pub afterwards, my friends and I were thinking that similar ideas could be used to measure the contribution of civil society to the economy. We spend a lot of time measuring the finances of the sector - what does it spend? how does it make money? what are its assets? what is its contribution to GDP? - while the value it has for society is thought of as unmeasurable or in some way above monetary value.

But perhaps in the same way that the value of nature can be found - without degrading its "priceless" qualities - it is possible to measure the wider value of civil society to society and the economy. In many ways we're doing this already - whether through our QMF project, or through work to measure the success and results of charitable activities (see NCVO's work in this area, or NPC's). But as in other fields - this work will only become more important as a new economy takes shape.

[Picture credit: Natural History Museum - London by nick.garrod, on Flickr, used under a creative commons license.]