Economics is incomplete without nature, climate, people & health

The study of economics started as a way of describing the activities and exchange of valued goods and services that make a society function. The implicit goal of the new area of inquiry was to show that some behaviors have more value than others, and to show that the entire landscape of interactions was part of the whole. While Adam Smith wrote of The Wealth of Nations, it was also true that early economists were interested in understanding, and improving, the health of societies facing increasing levels of scientific discovery, innovation, and everyday change.

The philosopher might look at the etymology and say that economics aims to describe where and how we live, by naming and counting what happens there and how. In the 18th and 19th centuries, it could be said economists sought to capture transcendent laws that govern human interactions, and interactions between sectors and between whole societies. In the 20th century, it became clear that economics provides a way of measuring and valuing change over time—whether that is progress, improvements to the human condition, or the trends that point to what kind of innovations carry with them the next paradigm shift, or systemic change in our collective worldview.

As the Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP) gathers in Cali, Colombia, nearly 200 nations must come to grips with new scientific findings that we have lost 73% of wildlife, by population, in just 50 years. This is a major change to the bio-chemistry of nature on Earth, which could also leave a significant physical imprint in the geological record. In other words, we are losing biological diversity on our planet at horrific and unsustainable levels, and we have not yet established, even with the new Global Biodiversity Framework, a clear and actionable strategy to prevent further collapse.

Without active, everyday value consideration linked to nature, climate, people, and health, economics and mainstream financial decision-making will remain underinformed and suboptimal. We need to understand the overall health and resilience of all of the overlapping systems we depend on. That means it is past time to move on from the idea that simply measuring the financial wellbeing of industrial supply chains will be enough. We need far better and more detailed insights, and we need financial metrics to carry within them the underlying value considerations linked to nature, climate, people, and health.

The coming months will see progress in this direction through the Climate Value Exchange, the Good Food Finance Network, and their partners. We will also share opportunities for engaging to input ideas and local insights, and to make breakthrough ideas more actionable. It is not a matter of whether we should start making this kind of information more available; it is a matter of urgency, for people around the world, and for the health and resilience of the living world we all depend on.