Monday, August 19, 2013

Natural Capitalism Puts A Price Tag On The Planet

Who says you can't put a price tag on Mother Nature?  Not me, folks.  Everything has a price, except my own personal integrity.

The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) put out its Vision 2050 report on how to make the world sustainable by, you guessed it, 2050.  I find their draft architecture for integrated reporting in the financial sector to be fascinating.  The WBCSD's work matches up with similar work the World Resources Institute is doing on markets.  Businesses that adhere to these frameworks and the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board protocols will have a leg up in attracting capital.

These initiatives aren't some pipe dream from radical agitators.  They are the product of capitalists who believe in true prosperity.  Read Nature's Fortune by the former investment banker who now heads the Nature Conservancy.  These folks don't walk around chewing granola while they sabotage bulldozers in some rain forest.  They make investments in nature that pay off.  I want to make a buck too so I'm jumping on this bandwagon.  Stanford University's Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere has a consensus statement from super-smart pointy-hat scientific types who've studied the heck out of the biosphere's living systems.

This is the kind of stuff I read late at night when I'm not thinking about attractive women.  Mother Earth is certainly attractive and she's worth every penny we can spend on her, just like a real woman.