The value of nature & the nature of value | Pavan Sukhdev |

Pavan Sukhdev, an economist and head of the UN Green Economy Initiative, was in Australia as a guest of the Centre for Policy Development in August 2010 to give three public lectures in Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.

Pavan is an expert on the natural capital that gets left off government and corporate balance sheets. The cost of the global financial crisis stunned the world – how does this compare to the cost of bailing out bankrupt ecosystems?

After years of running down our natural capital, are we getting close to an environmental version of the credit crunch?

Climate change has been grabbing most of our headlines in recent years, but we’re now coming up against multiple environmental limits at once. We’re running out of fresh fish and water and we’re living through the greatest mass extinction event in sixty five millions years.

In his lecture What is the World Worth? Putting nature on the balance sheet, Pavan looks at what this tells us about our economic system and how it needs to change. Pavan’s pioneering work considers what it would take to put nature on the balance sheet – so that we do not continue borrowing from the future to pay for the present.

WHAT IS AUSTRALIA'S GREEN ECONOMIC POTENTIAL? Look at this image  to see some of this - if we have to put $$$$$$$$ value. In 2008 two-thirds of 3.36 million international visitors took part in nature activities - spending $20.2 million. 

HOW MUCH IS A KOALA WORTH? Value will decrease if they are only in zoos - including overseas zoos.   http://cpd.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/CPD-Australias-green-economic-potential.pdf

The value of nature & the nature of value by Pavan Sukhdev - a German banker.
http://cpd.org.au/2010/08/value-of-nature-pavan-sukhdev/

Watch a video of the Sydney lecture filmed for ABC's Big Ideas program at this link.

Centre for Policy Development is a The Centre for Policy Development (CPD) is a public interest think tank dedicated to promoting alternative voices in Australia's public debate about the policies that shape our lives.