Download (PDF, 6.71MB) - TEEB
Download (PDF, 6.71MB) - TEEB
Download (PDF, 6.71MB) - TEEB
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
3.3<br />
STRENGTHENING INDICATORS AND ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS FOR NATURAL CAPITAL<br />
‘GREENING’ OUR MACRO-ECONOMIC<br />
AND SOCIETAL INDICATORS<br />
“Choices between promoting GDP<br />
and protecting the environment may<br />
be false choices, once environmental<br />
degradation is appropriately included<br />
in our measurement of economic<br />
performance.”<br />
Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Report on the Measurement<br />
of Economic Performance and Social Progress, 2009.<br />
3.3.1 TRADITIONAL APPROACHES<br />
TO MEASURING WEALTH AND<br />
WELL-BEING<br />
A range of ‘traditional’ indicators are used to measure<br />
countries’ economic performance and in policy making,<br />
These include: GDP and GDP growth, national income,<br />
final consumption, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF),<br />
net savings, international trade balance, international<br />
balance of payments, inflation, national debt, savings<br />
rates and so on. On the social side, some of the indicators<br />
most commonly used relate to unemployment,<br />
literacy, life expectancy and income inequality. A useful<br />
combined indicator that straddles more than one<br />
domain is the human development index (HDI).<br />
These conventional aggregates feed into and are an<br />
integral part of national accounting systems (see 3.4<br />
below). However, they only tell part of the story as they<br />
do not systematically cover the loss of biodiversity.<br />
Indicators for biodiversity and ecosystem services are already<br />
a step in the right direction towards complementing<br />
them. As section 3.2 showed, we now have a swathe of<br />
environmental indicators, from water quality to more<br />
recent measurements of CO 2 emissions. Many argue that<br />
there are in fact too many separate tools to have<br />
anywhere near as much public, press and political attention<br />
as the consolidated traditional economic indicators.<br />
CO 2 is starting to be an exception, but while helpful,<br />
does not address ecosystems and biodiversity directly.<br />
We can illustrate the slow process of change<br />
through the example of trade deficits e.g. where<br />
imports exceed exports. These feature every week in<br />
many newspapers or magazines yet there is little<br />
mention of green trade deficits i.e. the impacts on biodiversity<br />
related to imports and exports of goods and<br />
services. The tool of ecological footprint analysis (see<br />
Box 3.4 above) can help to fill this gap by helping to<br />
identify creditor and debtor nations from a biodiversity<br />
perspective. ‘Water footprints’ can also offer<br />
useful information to consumers – to put it simply,<br />
when bananas are imported, so are the water and<br />
the nutrients from the soil.<br />
Certain countries – notably the most developed countries<br />
– are significant environmental debtor nations.<br />
Most developing countries are creditor countries.<br />
However, there is little reflection of this debt or credit<br />
in traditional measurement and decision making or in<br />
market signals. Some countries have responded to<br />
the understanding that a continued growth in their footprints<br />
cannot go on for ever and are using the footprint<br />
as a policy target to reduce their environmental<br />
impacts or increase resource efficiency (see Box 3.4).<br />
The next section shows how traditional approaches<br />
can be gradually adapted to support more sustainable<br />
measurement.<br />
3.3.2 TOOLS FOR MORE<br />
SUSTAINABLE MEASUREMENT<br />
Part of the solution is understanding that for many of the<br />
economic terms used in everyday policy making, there<br />
are already parallels that take nature into account.<br />
Economic assets – natural assets. The concept of<br />
capital derives from economics: capital stocks (assets)<br />
provide a flow of goods and services which contributes<br />
<strong>TEEB</strong> FOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL POLICY MAKERS - CHAPTER 3: PAGE 23