A natural capital approach to decision making: An application to land use policies for net zero plus forests.

Where: Zoom Platform
Time: 2 p.m.

Please contact school.socialsciences [at] unitn.it

for the link to the Zoom event.

Speaker

• Ian Bateman, Land, Environment, Economics and Policy (LEEP) Institute, University of Exeter Business School, UK

Abstract

The concept of ‘natural capital’ is gaining traction internationally as recognition grows of the central role of the natural environment in sustaining economic and social well-being. It is therefore encouraging to see the first signs of a ‘natural capital approach’ to decision making being accepted within government policy processes and the private sector. However, there are multiple different understandings of this ‘approach’, many of which misuse or omit key features of its foundations in natural science and economics. To address this, we present a framework for natural capital analysis and decision making that links ecological and economic perspectives. This is then applied to the challenge of designing land use policies for attaining net zero emissions through afforestation while at the same time considering the feedback effects of land use change on multiple other environmental and economic systems.

The paper is co-authored with Brett H. Day and Georgina M. Mace.