The asset we simply can’t do without
One sign of the dysfunctional nature of our economy is that economists don't look on the natural environment as an asset. Resources that we extract from the environment, perhaps, but earth, water and vegetation? Leave that to the tree-huggers.
The absurdity of that approach is obvious if you turn the equation on its head. What kind of economy would we have without water? How many people would be out of work if we stopped looking after the Lake District? What would happen to the value of all those swish waterside apartments built in the last decade if we started letting sewage flow into our rivers?
The economists' response tends to be that value doesn't exist unless it can be seen on the bottom line (see my previous post for more on this). Most people would consider that absurd, but we're talking about the Treasury here, so perhaps we should expect some absurdity.
For the last three years a project in Northwest England has been gathering the evidence to show that even under this narrow bean-counting worldview, the natural environment is an economic asset - a 'critical infrastructure' as important as transport links or sewers.
Natural Economy Northwest has painstakingly set out the functions and economic benefits of green infrastructure - that's the web of green and blue spaces across the region that sustain its biodiversity, provide landscapes people want to visit, and allow people to produce magical products like Garstang Blue cheese.
The economists might recognise Garstang Blue as a product that generates what they call gross added value - creating income and employment, giving people something to spend their money on. But they don't generally recognise the value of the vegetation and water that enable the cheesemakers to weave their magic.
Natural Economy Northwest has detailed 11 economic benefits of green infrastructure that show how much poorer we'd be without it. It's generated a wealth of knowledge and expertise and rightly won applause at an event yesterday to mark the end of its work.
Significantly, six board members of the Northwest Development Agency were there to lend their weight to its arguments, and the agency's chair, Robert Hough, revealed that all three northern regions - plus the west midlands - are now working together on a concerted approach to green infrastructure, along with Natural England.
But as Professor John Handley, director of the Centre for Urban and Regional Ecology at Manchester University, admitted, calculations of the economic value of the environment are currently 'pushing at the boundaries of science' - it's easy for Treasury officials or town planners to argue that the case isn't proven.
More reason, then, for the officials to challenge their own thinking - to start looking outside their offices at the world as lived in by ordinary people. As Pam Warhust, board member of Natural England and a driving force behind Incredible Edible Todmorden, put it: 'The natural world not only gives us economic opportunities, but delivers public benefits you couldn't find money in the exchequer to produce.' She highlighted Natural England's 'natural health service' campaign, where the NHS has put £7.7m into encouraging people to use green spaces for exercise - because it helps counter depression, obesity and diabetes.
What's sobering, though, is how long it's taken to get this far. At yesterday's event there was criticism for environmentalists who talk impenetrable language and turn off the public with prophecies of doom, but less analysis of exactly how to resolve the tensions between sustainability and growth, and at what cost in terms of public and private investment. Perhaps that would have been a step too far; it will need to be done soon enough though.
Two comments underlined for me how near the beginning of this process we still are. One was Robert Hough's admission that three years ago you wouldn't have found the Northwest Development Agency talking about a low carbon economy. To put that in context, nine years after Kyoto, 'the words "low carbon" would not have been in our vocabulary'.
The second was his description of last week's Cockermouth floods as a 'once in a thousand years' disaster. A few minutes later one of his colleagues on the NWDA board, Peter Allen, pointed out that Cockermouth had flooded twice in the last five years and that Carlisle would have been inundated too this month if it hadn't been for the flood defences put in place since 2005.
Mr Hough at least accepts the economic importance of the environment and is prepared to make the case for it. But you have to wonder how many once in a thousand years emergencies you need to generate a sense of urgency across government.
Next year is the international year of biodiversity. Putting the natural environment at the heart of our economic thinking might just create a lasting legacy.
Posted on Tuesday, 24th November 2009 | This entry has 0 comments
