Achieving sustainable development that simultaneously meets ecological and economic objectives requires integrating the value of natural capital and ecosystem services into economic and financial decisions. At the landscape scale, integrated methods can show how to achieve maximum feasible combinations of various ecological and economic objectives, such as biodiversity conservation, carbon sequestration, and economic returns to agricultural crops, grazing, and timber production. At the macro-economic scale, there is widespread recognition of the need to move beyond GDP as a measure of progress, in part because GDP fails to measure many contributions of nature to economic activity and human well-being. Gross ecosystem product (GEP) is a measure of the aggregate value of ecosystem services that can complement measures of GDP. We use extensive biophysical and economic data to calculate the quantity and price of more than 35 ecosystem services in 250 countries and territories using globally available data and standardized methods. We discuss data and methodological challenges in calculating GEP and opportunities to improve such calculations. We also discuss possible paths forward on integrating the value of nature into important economic and financial decisions.
Biosketch: Dr. Stephen Polasky is a Regents Professor and the Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics at the University of Minnesota where he has a joint appointment in the Departments of Applied Economics and Ecology, Evolution & Behavior. He is co-founder of NatCap TEEMs (The Earth-Economy Modelers) at the University of Minnesota, which is part of the Natural Capital Alliance. He served as co-chair of the Business and Biodiversity Assessment for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). He is currently a coordinating lead author for Nature’s Contribution to People for the 2nd IPBES Global Assessment and was a coordinating lead author for the 1st IPBES Global Assessment. He served as a Senior Staff Economist for the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and on the Board of Directors for The Nature Conservancy. He was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2010.
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The David Bradford Energy and Environmental Policy Seminar Series is coordinated by the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment (C-PREE), and co-sponsored by the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI). This seminar is also co-sponsored by the Julis-Rabinowitz Center for Public Policy and Finance and the Kahneman-Treisman Center for Behavioral Science and Public Policy.
This in-person event is open to the public. Princeton University community members do not need to RSVP. Members of the general public should RSVP to ccrosby@princeton.edu and will be accommodated as space allows.
This seminar will be livestreamed at http://mediacentrallive.princeton.edu/ and videos of the recordings are posted on C-PREE's YouTube channel within a week or two after the event.
Sponsorship of an event does not constitute institutional endorsement of external speakers or views presented.