Measuring the value of nature and incorporating nature’s values into financial incentives | In Conversation with Professor Stephen Polasky
Join us for a conversation with Professor Stephen Polasky on measuring the value of nature and incorporating nature’s values into financial incentives.
This event will explore the data and methods which already exist to value ecosystem services and natural capital already exist, and will review both microeconomic and macroeconomic approaches — including Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) and inclusive wealth — before exploring how these values can be brought into economic and financial decision-making through a combination of public policy and business action, drawing on recommendations from the recently released IPBES Business and Biodiversity Assessment, successful policy examples from China and other countries, and modelling of interventions using the GTAP-INVEST model, concluding with reflections on the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss and on where we need to go to mainstream the value of nature in economics and finance.
Meet our speaker & chair
Speaker
Professor Polasky is a Regents Professor and Fesler-Lampert Professor of Ecological/Environmental Economics at the University of Minnesota, and a Principal Investigator at NatCap TEEMs, of which he is also a Co-Founder. His research focuses on the intersection of ecology and economics, addressing the impacts of land use and management on the provision and value of ecosystem services and natural capital. Professor Polasky is a co-founder of the Natural Capital Alliance, a partnership between the University of Minnesota, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, The Nature Conservancy, Stanford University, the Stockholm Resilience Center, and the World Wildlife Fund, whose aim is to incorporate the value of natural capital and ecosystem services into public and private sector decision-making. He is co-chair of the Biodiversity and Business Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and previously served as a coordinating lead author on nature’s contributions to people for the IPBES Global Assessment.
Chair
The conversation will be hosted by Professor Nicola Ranger, Executive Director of Earth Capital Nexus and Professor in Practice of Natural Capital, Risk and Finance in the Grantham Research Institute. She leads interdisciplinary research and policy engagement at the nexus of finance, investment, natural capital, resilience and sustainable development with a global focus.
How to attend
To attend this in-person event, please register in advance here.
The event takes place just after the IPBES-12 Business and Biodiversity Plenary in Manchester and is part of a series co-convened between Earth Capital Nexus at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment (GRI) at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford, as part of the nature theme of Global School of Sustainability at LSE.