Transcript Slide 1

Ecological Economics
What is the Economy?
What is Economics?
What is Ecological?
What is Sustainability?
What is Wealth?
Context
• Current & future
impacts and crises.
• Emerging solutions:
many already exist.
• Current crises: raise
fundamental
questions.
Important Issues
• What do we want or
need to do?
• How do we design
ways to achieve it?
• What is Value?
• Drivers
• Scale
• Invisibility
• Social Power / class
What is Sustainability?
Bruntland: "…development that meets the needs of
the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs."
Durability Definition
"…refers to the ability of a
society, ecosystem, or any
such on-going system to
continue functioning into
the indefinite future
without being forced into
decline through the
exhaustion or overloading
of key resources on which
that system depends."
Robert Gilman, Context
Institute
Wish List definition:
"Our vision for the future is of a region characterized by
sustainable development, including economic vitality, justice,
social cohesion, environmental protection and the sustainable
management of natural resources, so as to meet the needs of
the present generation without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their needs.“
-- Committee On Environmental Policy for the Economic
Commission For Europe
More Qualitative
“Sustainable development is a dynamic process which
enables all people to realise their potential and
improve their quality of life in ways which
simultaneously protect and enhance the Earth’s life
support systems.”
--Forum for the Future (used by Interface)
Postindustrial
Most Qualitative:
“…development focused
directly on human and
environmental
regeneration through
both the unleashing of
human creative potential,
and the benign integration
within of economic activities
natural systems.”
Ecological Economics Concepts
Empty / Full world
Scale to stay within ecosystems
Cost-benefit threshold for growth
Different view of allocating scarce
resources
Intergenerational Equity
Growth vs. Development
Visibility & Value of ecosystem
services
Internalizing full costs
Substitutability & complementarity
Public goods & Commons
Principles of a Green Economy
1.
The Primacy of Human Need, Service, Usevalue, Intrinsic Value & Quality
2. Following Natural Flows
3. Waste Equals Food
4. Elegance and Multifunctionality
5. Appropriate Scale / Linked Scale
6. Diversity
7. Self-Reliance, Self-Organization, Self-Design
8. Participation & Direct Democracy
9. Human Creativity and Development
10. The Strategic role of the Built-environment,
the Landscape & Spatial Design
3-D’s of Green Development
• Dematerialization
• Detoxification
• Decentralization
The Green Economy
• A Historical Transition:
…from Quantity to Quality
• A Question of Potentials
…not simply limits
• Key to Sustainability:
Redefining Wealth
Industrialism: The Divided Economy
Invisible
Use-value
“Consumption”
People
Unpaid
Women
Informal
Private
Visible
Exchange-value
“Production”
Things
Paid
Men
Formal
Public
Invisible Economy (1)
Total Productive System of an Industrial Society
(layer cake with icing)
GNP-Monetized
½ of Cake
Top two layers
GNP “Private” Sector
“Private” Sector
“Public”Sector
“underground economy
Non-Monetized
Productive ½ of
Cake
Lower two layers
All rights reserved.
2
“Love Economy”
Mother Nature
Rests on
GNP “Public” Sector
Rests on
Social Cooperative
Love Economy
Rests on
Nature’s Layer
Copyright© 1982 Hazel Henderson
Invisible Economy (2)
Basics of a Green Economy
1. The Service Economy
“Hot Showers and Cold Beer”
Nutrition, Illumination, Entertainment, Access,
Shelter, Community, etc.
2. The “Lake Economy”
Flowing with nature, Every output an input,
Closed-loop organization, Let nature do the
work
The Economy in Loops
Industrialism: Accumulation
• Production-for-production’s-sake
• Invisibility of key factors
• Centralization of production, massive
upfront investment
• Focus on labour productivity : resources
substitute for human energy
• Cog-labour: humans as component parts
• Regulation: controls as limits
• Scarcity-based: role of waste since WWII
• Globalization: free trade & intellectual
property
Postindustrialism: Regeneration
• New relationship of culture to economics: centrality of
human development
• Substitution of human creativity for resources
• Direct targeting of human need: conscious consumption
• Human-scale technologies: production ‘distributed’ over
the landscape ; Integration: ALL places are places of
production
• Qualitative Wealth is PLACE-BASED
• Distributed regulation: incentives for positive action
throughout economy.
• Self-reliance / interdependence:
Daly: “Trade recipes, not cookies”
Market Transformation
• Building full costs into
market prices
• Making social &
environmental values
into market drivers:
“Mindful Markets”
The New Regulation
• Expanding importance of
Commons:
social, environmental, electronic
• Importance of Design & Planning
• Rules & Regeneration
• Distributed Production & Distributed
Regulation
• Embedded in Civil Society
Non-Market Non-State Production
• Spatial Commons /
Public Space
• Environmental
Commons
• Infosphere
Remuneration & Qualitative Wealth
• Sever work and income?
• Wages: tied to certain kinds of
production & markets. Public
goods not so well served by
markets.
• Economic insecurity: closely
related to environmental
destruction.
Community as Central
Human creativity as key to
development.
Expanding role of the
Commons
Resource efficiencies of
localization.
The place-based character
of qualitative wealth
Value Revolution, Knowledge &
Market Transformation
• Values-driven business
BALLE, GET
• Green/social Evaluation
LCA, Eco-footprints,
Community Indicators
• Green/social Certification
LEED bldg., FSC wood, LFP
food
• Transformative /collective
consumerism
Corporate Strategies
• Corporations as financial, not
production, entities
• Structural problems: the ‘bottom
line’
• documentary: The Corporation
• Need to change corporate DNA
• Need for outside help: regulation
(EPR), new enterprises networks,
certification
• The Stakeholder Corporation &
democracy
Community / Small Business
• The realm of cutting-edge alternatives in almost
every sector
• Need for new & stronger networks
• Local market power based on solid knowledge
• Import substitution
• Regenerative finance
• Necessity of empowering all sections of the
community
• Community development Plans & Indicators
Social Change Today
• Strategic priority of ALTERNATIVES over
opposition.
• Community as the key locus for change,
but every level requires action
• Need for long-term VISION
• Need for incremental change and
PIONEER ENTERPRISES in ecological
economic succession.
• Need for incentives/disincentives
thoughout the entire economy.