Ecosystem Services: Perils of Pricing the Priceless

Nature, our landlord, does not send us a monthly utilities bill. The oxygen we breathe gets replenished for free.  So too our water gets filtered and stored, our wastes decayed and soil fertilized, cancer causing ultraviolet radiation blocked, and crops pollinated. Because these services are free of charge, we waste and neglect them; and we do so at our peril.

Economists, ecologists and accountants are working diligently to price ecosystems services so that they can be allocated more efficiently using the power of the market—they are giving Adam Smith’s invisible hand a green thumb. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), for example, released the Guide to Corporate Ecosystem Valuation in April of this year.  It makes a strong case for incorporating ecosystem service into business decisions and provides a method for doing so:

“Ecosystem degradation presents a real, and increasingly pressing, risk to business operations. A number of global initiatives have highlighted these issues over recent years, and are beginning to shed light on the value of ecosystem services and the cost of their degradation and loss … This affects businesses and impacts on corporate profits, production and market opportunities. The clear message to business is that the status and functioning of ecosystems is not just a biological or ecological concern. It has major implications for economic growth, human wellbeing and business performance….”

The aggregate value of ecosystem services is estimated to exceed the value of the total world economy and current accounting practices are said to ignore (economists say “externalize”) many trillions of dollars of costs.  Alarming trends such as aquifer depletion, climate change, and fisheries collapse suggest the age of ignorance must pass, so I certainly want to encourage efforts promoting full cost accounting that internalize ecosystem services into our capitalist economy.

However, I do want to caution us in thinking we can price everything and just leave decision making to market forces. We still need to deliberate which future we want to create.  The free market, even one informed by priced ecosystem services, will ignore qualities that make life worth living.  We must intentionally and explicitly celebrate values of nature that can’t be priced.  If we reduce all decisions to the lowest common denominator, we will reduce the value of our lives.

Nature provides profoundly meaningful, and for some, spiritual experiences. Standing at a dramatic vista or beside a babbling brook makes us feel small in comparison to the cosmological whole, a pebble on the beach of time.  These moments of connection inspire humility and awe that change lives and cultures in ways that cannot be priced.  It gets harder still to assign dollar values to identity, character, and moral fiber.  Loggers, farmers, and fishers fight hard to maintain their natural resource dependent communities and the identity and integrity their lifestyles promote.  Mountain bikers and hikers define themselves through the experiences, equipment, reading, and social life that revolve around their nature-based pursuits.  Communities commemorate their histories by establishing parks and families commemorate births and deaths by planting trees.  America has long recognized the connection between its culture and environment. Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, John Muir, Teddy Roosevelt, Rachael Carson, and Michael Pollan are just a few of our moral guides that used nature as reference.

Even if we could write the total value of nature on a price tag, we might not want to, if doing so leads to sin.  The Pope has warned against “a lack of due respect for nature [and] … the plundering of natural resources.” Muslims, Protestants, Jews, evangelicals, and pantheists have similar programs that preach tending and keeping God’s Creation. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, God created plants, animals, heaven and earth and, in Genesis, declared them “good,” possessing value independently of human needs, wants, or economy.  Pricing ecological services so they can be bought and traded tempts sin if such trades lead to degradation of God’s creation. It might make economic sense to pave over paradise, consume species out of existence, or emit health-degrading mercury from coal-powered electricity, but does it also violate a moral obligation?

The big decisions that define us, as individuals and as a culture, must be based on more than the cold economic rationality of price and efficiency.  These choices describe who we are and shape who we want to become. Putting all social ideals, not just environmental, on the same scale as the price of gasoline suggests we can trade our principles for profit.

We insist on freedom of speech, private property rights, democracy, and related ideals codified in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These ideas define us; they have been negotiated over centuries and defended by wars. We violate our ideals only after serious political debate, no matter how efficient or profitable the violations might be.  Previous generations of Americans deliberately bequeathed us not just economic wealth, but also ideals and principles.  Thanks to them we live in communities defined by free speech, representative democracy, museums, libraries, street trees, wilderness, and universities.  If they focused only on maximizing wealth and minimizing cost, we would be living in a different society, one that many of us would value less.

Recent acts of terrorism threatened the American way of life and questioned our core values.  Our response was resolute: we defend our values.  We continue to debate how to best mount this defense and the cost of doing so, but price is not the deciding factor.  Abortion, family values, and separation of church and state are similar socially defining topics for which information about price is largely irrelevant. We must make these decisions deliberately, using dialog, negotiation, education, and politics.  Our understandings of these issues mature through engaged deliberation, better decisions and a cultural identity result. Some environmental values are similarly priceless.  John Opie’s claim that America is nature’s nation is well founded. Environmental qualities not only sustain us, they define us. They are our future and our legacy.  We need courage and deliberation to create a future we will value, an environment where we will want to live, and an identity of which we will be proud.

About admin

R. Bruce Hull writes and teaches about building capacity in sustainability professionals who collaborate at the intersection of business, government, and civil society. The views are his and are not endorsed by any organization with which he is affiliated.
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