Noting some effects of fabricating ‘nature’ as ‘natural capital’ (original) (raw)
Related papers
2018
In response to perceived valuation problems giving rise to global environmental crisis, ‘nature’ is being qualified, quantified and materialised as the new external(ised) ‘Nature-whole’ of ‘natural capital’. This paper problematises the increasing legibility, through numbering and (ac)counting practices, of natural capital as an apparently exterior ‘matter of fact’ that can be leveraged financially. Interconnected policy and technical texts, combined with observation as an academic participant in recent international environmental policy meetings, form the basis for a delineation of four connected and intensifying dimensions of articulation in fabricating ‘nature’ as ‘natural capital’: discursive, numerical-economic, material and institutional. Performative economic sociology approaches are drawn on to clarify the numbering and calculative practices making and performing indicators of nature health and harm as formally economic. These institutionalised fabrications are interpreted as attempts to enrol previously uncosted ‘standing natures’ in the forward-driving movement of capital.
LCSV Working Paper, 2014
The contemporary moment of global crisis in both ecological and economic spheres is also the moment wherein ‘nature’ is being consolidated as ‘natural capital’. Through this, key interlocking elements are systematically joining the previously rather distinct domains of economics, business and finance with ecology, environmentalism and conservation. The emerging ‘green economy’ assemblage of discourses, actors, institutions and calculative technologies underpins the creation of markets for ecosystem services, including carbon, and is critical in constituting the logic of REDD+ and associated financing. Following approaches in economic sociology that emphasise performative elements in creating what becomes treated as economic, and with particular reference to some proposed financing mechanisms for REDD+ and to strategies for materialising environmental risk, this paper delineates four key shifts enabling external nonhuman natures to become legible and leverage-able as ‘natural capital’. These are: 1. a discursive shift, through which both conservation practice and understandings of nonhuman natures are reframed in economic and financial terms (amongst which ‘natural capital’ and ‘ecosystem services’ are paramount); 2. an institutional shift, in which networks and alliances are becoming constituted as an interlinked assemblage organised around making the core metaphor of nature as natural capital into the materialised reality of accounted for natural capital; 3. a calculative and accounting shift, through which relatively untransformed and restored natures are becoming technically inscribed through numerical signifiers of capital, such that these can be added to and offset against other forms of (ac)counted capital; and 4. a material shift, through which businesses and financiers are turning to accounted for conserved nonhuman nature as ‘natural capital’ assets that can be leveraged as the underlying asset on which financial investment is secured. In the concluding section I draw on selected works by theorists Bruno Latour, Mary Midgley, Michel Foucault and Paul Feyerabend to aid interpretation of these shifts and their world-making characteristics. In doing so, my aim is to enhance understanding regarding the structuring effects of these interventions and the occlusions they may necessitate.
Natural capital – a narrow view of the values of nature and environmental policies
L. Monnoyer-Smith (dir.). Nature et richesse et des nations, 2015
The notion of natural capital is a metaphor derived from works carried out at the interface between economics and ecology, and has quickly spread to the political sphere. However, this metaphor fails to account for the complexity of the values of nature and the political challenges arising from their valuation. On the one hand, it only encapsulates a small proportion of the values of biodiversity and ecosystems and neglects to take account of essential values such as cultural values and non-anthropocentric values. On the other hand, it potentially gives a very poor view of public decision-making in which the specifically political issues relating to debate and power struggles give way to management based on expertise. Far from definitively discrediting the relevance of this metaphor, highlighting its limitations and the simplifications that it makes should allow it to be usefully employed when restricted to its field of legitimacy, but also and above all, it should encourage the adoption of other messages and other rationalities than an approach that is strictly inspired by standard economics in response to the major environmental challenges of our time.
Science & Technology Studies, 2018
In response to perceived valuation problems giving rise to global environmental crisis, ‘nature’ is being qualified, quantified and materialised as the new external(ised) ‘Nature-whole’ of ‘natural capital’. This paper problematises the increasing legibility, through numbering and (ac)counting practices, of natural capital as an apparently exterior ‘matter of fact’ that can be leveraged financially. Interconnected policy and technical texts, combined with observation as an academic participant in recent international environmental policy meetings, form the basis for a delineation of four connected and intensifying dimensions of articulation in fabricating ‘nature’ as ‘natural capital’: discursive, numerical-economic, material and institutional. Performative economic sociology approaches are drawn on to clarify the numbering and calculative practices making and performing indicators of nature health and harm as formally economic. These institutionalised fabrications are interpreted a...
The Green Economy: Reconceptualizing the Natural Commons as Natural Capital
2015
The green economy is an emergent approach to sustainable development launched at Rio+20. Herein environmental decision-making is increasingly achieved through economistic processes and logic. The natural commons are quantified and managed as natural capital. This paper summarizes the trajectory of the project and its ideological framework. It examines various conceptualizations of economic approaches to the environment and considers philosophical, methodological, and political problems associated with the green economy project. In the face of very different definitions of what constitutes a green economy, environmental communicators face a situation characterized by discursive confusion as the complexity of natural capital accounting processes conceal new political configurations. Counter movements argue that the green economy program is performing ideological work that uses language of environmentalism to obscure an intensified agenda of neoliberal governance and capital accumulation. The concept now has contradictory meanings. Environmental communicators have an important role to play in exposing the contested nature of the project and in helping to define the emerging green economy. This paper can also be downloaded from my personal website. https://ecolabsblog.wordpress.com/2015/03/18/the-green-economy-reconceptualizing-the-natural-commons-as-natural-capital/
Is there a Natural Capital? A Critique of the Ecological Economics Approach
International Journal of Earth & Environmental Sciences, 2016
The aim of the paper is to discuss the theoretical foundations of the natural capital concept within the ecological economics framework. The paper does not contest the need to recognize the contribution of ecosystems services to human well-being and social output, nor the issue of the economic evaluation of this contribution. What it intends to question is the reason why nature and natural resources are subsumed into the category of capital; in other words the suitability of the analogy proposed and developed mainly by Costanza and Daly. The paper argues that in this way a monistic distortion (by which everything is considered capital) is introduced and the reciprocal independence among factors of production as sources of value is eliminated. The paper also demonstrates that this view can be traced back to the economics of Irving Fisher, one of the most representative thinkers of the "marginalist revolution" in America.
Nature, Natural Resources and Valuation in the Anthropocene
Visions for Sustainabillity, 2014
Biodiversity, including entire habitats and ecosystems, is recognized to be of great social and economic value. Conserving biodiversity has therefore become a task of international NGO’s as well as grass-roots organisations. The ‘classical’ model of conservation has been characterised by creation of designated nature areas to allow biodiversity to recover from the effects of human activities. Typically, such areas prohibit entry other than through commercial ecotourism or necessary monitoring activities, but also often involve commodification nature. This classical conservation model has been criticized for limiting valuation of nature to its commercial worth and for being insensitive to local communities. Simultaneously, ‘new conservation’ approaches have emerged. Propagating openness of conservation approaches, ‘new conservation’ has counteracted the calls for strict measures of biodiversity protection as the only means of protecting biodiversity. In turn, the ’new conservation’ was criticised for being inadequate in protecting those species that are not instrumental for human welfare. The aim of this article is to inquire whether sustainable future for non-humans can be achieved based on commodification of nature and/or upon open approaches to conservation. It is argued that while economic development does not necessarily lead to greater environmental protection, strict regulation combined with economic interests can be effective. Thus, economic approaches by mainstream conservation institutions cannot be easily dismissed. However, ‘new conservation’ can also be useful in opening up alternatives, such as care-based and spiritual approaches to valuation of nature. Complementary to market-based approaches to conservation, alternative ontologies of the human development as empathic beings embedded in intimate ethical relations with non-humans are proposed.
Valuing nature within and beyond capitalism: A response
2017
This paper is a response to commentaries on our article entitled 'Value in capitalist natures: an emerging framework' (Kay and Kenney-Lazar, 2017). We argue that the responses to our initial paper served to broaden our proposed framework and to underscore the need for a unified, but diverse, approach to nature–society studies with value at its center. Extending the argument from the initial article, we continue to see potential for value to act as a bridge that can bring together diverse scholarship in nature–society geography and political ecology. After briefly addressing both the tensions and possibilities for value as a bridging concept, we focus our response primarily around three major threads that emerged across the commentaries. First, we address points raised by the respondents concerning the bounding of capitalism and its permeation into socionatures. Second, we engage with value's inverse and its absence, captured through the concepts of 'devaluation' (Collard and Dempsey) and 'disvalues' (Sullivan). Finally, we close by engaging the possibility of a 'liberatory valuing of nature'—one which recognizes a multiplicity of social and ecological values as a means of working toward more just and emancipatory nature–society relations beyond capitalism. We are grateful to the respondents for their thoughtful and engaging commentaries on our paper. While we initially aimed to simply explore lingering questions concerning how economic value is produced in relation to nature, the debates and discussions that we ventured into showed us how generative the intersections of value and nature could be. Thus, we began advocating a research agenda focused on value in capitalist natures that could place dis-parate forms of nature–society research into conversation. While this has proved to be a challenging task, our interlocutors have immeasurably helped us to move in the right direction. In our view, the capacity for a group of scholars with such diverse research interests, topical foci, and theoretical perspectives to debate the relations between value, nature, and capitalism in quite collaborative ways
Valuing Nature - for what its worth
Both before, and particularly since, the completion of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) in 2005, there has been a large international effort to seek out ways to make nature visible within the economy, as a means to slow or halt the degradation of the environment and loss of biodiversity. In this paper I examine the origins of the economic evaluation of nature, and the role neoliberal economics and a concern with gross domestic product (GDP) contribute to this movement. I also outline some international examples of these evaluations with reference to New Zealand developments, and broadly analyse pros and cons to the approach. I then ask whether quantifying the value of nature will address environmental degradation and biodiversity loss. I draw on research from various central government agencies, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and the World Bank, and examine critiques of the work amongst academic and journalistic writings. By referring to the economic evaluation tools currently being developed, while looking back to the original vision and objectives of the movement, I aim to shed light on the possible consequences of putting a price on nature.