{"id":126,"date":"2015-06-10T13:00:52","date_gmt":"2015-06-10T13:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.etworks.org\/?page_id=126"},"modified":"2021-03-31T21:12:37","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T21:12:37","slug":"sustainable-development","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.etworks.org\/home\/sustainable-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustainable development"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under construction<\/span><\/p>\n

Green economics is all about finding objective ways to value, in some kind of unified fashion, the earth\u2019s physical environment, its ecosystems, human-produced tangible capital (such as buildings, roads and trains), human skills and knowledge (called human capital), and social capital (such as political institutions and even social media).\u00a0 Since almost all business and political decisions carry tradeoffs across different kinds of capital (e.g., one decision may be better for human capital but worse for the environment and vice versa), unified valuation methods are critical to support business and political decision making.\u00a0 Currently, the only established game in town is the classical economics definition of gross domestic product GDP and its derivatives.\u00a0 Media outlets clap when it goes up and boo when it goes down. Yet, most of us know that as a compass for human progress, GDP is brain dead – stranding humanity on a ship without a rudder.\u00a0 What GDP really measures is how much monetized activity took place; not what kind. But that monetized activity is 100% embedded in earth\u2019s ecosystem which is itself embedded in earth\u2019s physical environment of earth, fire water and sky.\u00a0 \u00a0Get rid of people, and the earth and all nonhuman ecosystems will get along just fine.\u00a0 Get rid of earth\u2019s ecosystems or the physical environment and Poof, humanity disappears.\u00a0\u00a0 We need ecosystems; they do not need us.\u00a0 The relationship is fundamentally asymmetric. \u00a0 \u00a0 I am currently a consulting CTO<\/a><\/span> to a start-up dedicated to bringing these inclusive wealth metrics to the valuation of state, national and global level economics.<\/p>\n

Following in the tradition of Wealth Accounting as devised by John O’Connor at the World Bank which takes a systematic approach to sustainability by recognizing all forms of capital(objects) specifically natural capital, produced capital, human capital and social capital and the actions\/transactions that use capital to produce outputs. \u00a0methods of wealth accounting have recently become a part of the System of National Accounts SNA a rule book for how countries are supposed to perform macro economic accounting.<\/p>\n

Here’s an interesting discussion I had with other members of the expert group on sustainable development indicators<\/a> <\/span>hosted by the Library of Alexandria<\/p>\n

\"bib<\/a>on the limits of monetary valuations and the relative roles of physical quantities vs. monetary values for decision making\u00a0On the role of monetary valuations vs. physical quantities<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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At the World Bank<\/p>\n