the biosphere economy

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The Biosphere EconomyNatural limits can spur creativity,innovation and growth

Forewords

Executive Summary

Introduction

Four Critical Trends

1 Business Leadership

2 Markets and Finance

3 Operations and Supply Chains

4 Nature-Inspired Innovation

Agenda for the Second Decade

The Business Agenda

The Financial Markets Agenda

The Government Agenda

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Volans is part think-tank, part consultancy,part broker and part incubator. Based inLondon and Singapore, Volans works globallywith entrepreneurs, businesses, investors andgovernments to develop and scale innovativesolutions to financial, social and environmentalchallenges. Our Pathways to Scale programaims to identify, map and remove barriers thatslow the scaling of innovative solutions togovernance, economic, social andenvironmental challenges.

www.volans.com

B4E is the Business for Environment GlobalSummit, the world’s leading internationalconference for dialogue and business-drivenaction for the environment. The summitaddresses the most urgent environmentalchallenges facing the world today. Key topicson the agenda include resource efficiency,renewable energies, new business modelsand climate policy and strategies.

www.b4esummit.com

Tellus Mater Foundation is a grant-makingtrust that supports leaders to put in placesolutions for a low carbon future. It seeksinnovative solutions to shift political, economic,and financial institutions to a low carbon path.

www.tellusmater.org.uk

Unless otherwise stated, all $ values in this document are in US dollars.

Global Initiatives Foreword

We begin to see a critical connectionbetween climate change, the functioning of the biosphere and the economy. Whetherit is about commodity markets behinddeforestation, contributing to carbonemissions, or the disruption of hydrologicalcycles limiting access to renewable energylike hydropower. As these links become ever more apparent and resource scarcityincreases, business leaders and investors will be among the first to realize the long-termbusiness risks associated with erodingnatural capital.

We are proud to partner with Volans to helpshape this new agenda, and advance theopportunity for business leaders to turnplanetary crises into opportunities. Theirleadership and innovation can help trigger the wider changes that are needed bygovernments.

This timely report shows how CEOs andsenior executives of the world’s largestcorporations can join leaders fromgovernments, international agencies and NGOs to co-create new solutions. This remains largely uncharted territory, but Volans outlines an agenda that potentiallyprovides the business community with acompelling platform for future action.

Tellus Mater Foundation Foreword

Today’s economy fails to account for thevalue of nature and the services it provides,like the provision of freshwater, clean air orthe pollination of crops. Forward-thinkingcompanies understand their dependency on natural assets to produce goods andservices. A future economy must incorporatethe means to fully value trade and managenatural capital. This will require aconsiderable re-design of basic marketbuilding blocks, from corporate valuations by investors to national accounts bygovernments. Systemic change in the waythat businesses, markets and economiesfunction is required.

In this report, Volans explores the futureprospects for a Biosphere Economy. It reminds business leaders of theunprecedented level of risk we face as we surpass the planet’s boundaries, but also of the leadership opportunities that exist for innovators, investors andgovernments to work together to catalyzechange. Tellus Mater is pleased to support Volans, a dynamic new actor in the business of social innovation, as it unveils this leadership agenda. Drawingattention to those innovation opportunitiesand providing a compelling springboard for action are essential steps towards greater sustainability.

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Tony GourlayCEO, Global Initiatives

Jessica Brown Director, Tellus Mater Foundation

Almost 200 years ago, ThomasNewcomen built the world’s firstcommercially successful steam engine—to pump water out of deep coalmines. In the process, he handed humanity thekeys to the Earth’s fossil fuel resources,an event which in turn helped fuel theIndustrial Revolution. Ever since thatmoment, the natural world has been in retreat, equally undervalued byeconomists, accountants, engineers and politicians. Now, however, a newrevolution is under way, once againignited by resource constraints—but thistime with economists and accountantsleading the charge, alongside activists,engineers, scientists, business leadersand, eventually, politicians.

Take Pavan Sukhdev, former managingdirector of the Markets Division of DeutscheBank—who later in 2010 will launch thefindings of the TEEB study,1 the acronymstanding for ‘The Economics of Ecosystemsand Biodiversity’, an initiative of the UnitedNations Environment Programme (UNEP). The focus of his work—and of a growingnumber of economists—is the creation in the coming decades of what we will call herethe ‘Biosphere Economy’. And the evidencesuggests that this will be as profound in itsimpacts as the original Industrial Revolution,with the critical difference that this time that the economy will be working with the grain ofthe biosphere, rather than against it.

The Biosphere EconomyExecutive Summary

Executive Summary

“We are building a new economic compass for policydecisions in order to change incentive structures, reduceor phase out perverse subsidies, and engage businessleaders in a vision that recognizes the value of nature’sservices and the costs of their loss.” Pavan SukhdevStudy Leader, TEEB and Special Advisor & Head, Green Economy Initiative, UNEP

The financial value at stake is mind-boggling—and the business opportunities likely to becreated by the shift in the prevailing marketparadigm are astonishing. The TEEB analysis,for example, concludes that the degradation of the Earth’s ecosystems and biodiversity due to deforestation alone costs us naturalcapital worth somewhere between $1.9 and$4.5 trillion every year.

Extraordinary new insights are flowing from the leading edge of ecosystems science.Today we understand, for example, thattropical rainforests act as freshwater pumps.The Amazon generates and pumps into the atmosphere some 8 trillion tons of water a year, feeding into an aerial belt of water vapor that connects tropical forests across the globe. Cut down the Amazon, we are told,and rainfall will decrease from South Americato Tibet, generating (to take just one example)water scarcity in Brazil, where the energysupply sector is 70% dependent onhydropower.

Conserving the Amazon is therefore not just a matter for conservationists, but a strategicissue for the companies whose operationsmake up the $1 trillion agricultural industry in southern Brazil and Argentina. Indeed, the emerging business case for investment in ecosystem services promises to besignificantly more engaging for businessleaders than earlier emotional appeals toprotect biodiversity.

Enter the Biosphere Economy, a future wherebusiness-as-usual and politics-as-usualincreasingly take account of natural capital and related forms of value, bridging the gapbetween man-made assets and nature’secological infrastructures that underpin oureconomies and societies.

Around the world, a growing array ofinnovators is experimenting with possiblesolutions. They range from earth scientists co-developing investment ratings forcompanies through to technology firmscreating open-source mechanisms to track the state of the biosphere. We plan to mapand engage a growing number of theseinnovators and entrepreneurs, helping cross-connect them with each other—and with themainstream business, financial and publicsector players they must now engage.

The four business trends spotlighted in thisshort brief—relating to leadership, finance,operations, and innovation—are shaping anagenda for those in Boards and C-Suites. As a first step in our work on the pathways to scale of the Biosphere Economy, we aredelighted to be engaging leaders from theprivate, public and citizen sectors at the 2010 Business for Environment (B4E) Summit in Korea. It is tempting to say that this is a shared challenge—and a sharedopportunity—but history suggests that someactors will recognize the market potential in all of this, way ahead of others. Who will be the Bill Gates of ecosystem services?

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John ElkingtonCo-Founder and Executive Chairman, Volans

Alejandro LitovskyDirector, Pathways to Scale, Volans

Welcome to the Biosphere Economy. What follows is a business brief on one of the great boom industries of thecoming decades: ecosystem services. The brief draws on ongoing work byVolans, funded by the Tellus MaterFoundation and is designed as a key inputto a global business agenda for action.

Our species has hit natural boundaries at different points in its history, with entirecivilisations sometimes collapsing in theprocess. But we are living through the first time in our evolutionary progression wheresome of the limits we face are planetary inscale. The solutions are also going to bedeveloped and deployed at a scale.

A new revolution is under way, once againignited by resource constraints—but this timewith economists and accountants leading the charge, alongside activists, engineers,scientists, business leaders and, eventually,politicians. We call this revolution the‘Biosphere Economy’. And the evidencesuggests that this will be as profound in itsimpacts as the original Industrial Revolution,with the critical difference that this time that the economy will be working with the grain of the biosphere, rather than against it.

The financial value at stake is mind-boggling.Already, global economic losses due to thedegradation of ecosystems and biodiversityfrom deforestation alone is estimated to berunning at somewhere between $1.9 and $4.5 trillion—every year. The resulting loss ofnatural capital hits us most directly through the loss of key services they provide, includinghumidity and temperature control, provision offreshwater, pollination of crops, and protectionagainst extreme weather events.2 On thepositive side of the coin, however, the marketopportunities likely to be created by the shift in the prevailing market paradigm are likely tobe at least as extraordinary.

The Biosphere EconomyIntroduction

Introduction

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, the naturalworld has been in retreat, equally undervaluedby economists, accountants, engineers andpoliticians. Partly because of demographicpressures, partly because the global economyis already in ecological deficit—demandingmore natural capital than the Earth is able to create in a single year, undermining theecological equilibrium that sustains all humanactivity—the emerging leadership challenge will involve aligning population, social,economic and biosphere priorities in ways that drive new forms of value and growth.

This Biosphere Economy is moving away from ‘intangible’ ecosystem services such as naturally produced water, soil and clean air,to a set of tangible issues for business—and,in the process, shifting its focus from business‘externalities’ such as pollution, deforestation,and resource degradation, to a re-consideration of market and corporatevaluation mechanisms.

As scientific understanding of the value ofecosystems and biodiversity grows—value that until very recently has been taken forgranted or simply discounted from theequation—so we see growing interest inpricing the services key ecosystems deliver,such as flood controls and rainfall regulation,creating the mechanisms whereby relatedpayments can be made, and developing the businesses that will drive new forms ofmarket value.

Estimates of the value of certified agriculturalproducts suggest that the value of this part ofthe evolving ecosystem services market alonecould grow from $42 million in 2005 to around$97 billion by 2012 (assuming a 15% annualgrowth rate) and then possibly increasing by a factor of ten to $900 billion by 2025—assuming an annual growth rate of 5%between 2020 and 2050.3

C-suite reactions 4

So what do top business decision-makersmake of all of this? One thing is clear: thebusiness case thinking on ecosystem servicespromises to be significantly more engaging for many business leaders than emotionalappeals to protect biodiversity.

As Mikkel Kallesoe of the World BusinessCouncil for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)told us: “The concept of ecosystem services is more tangible for business than biodiversity.We are talking about freshwater, crops,pollination, fiber and erosion regulation. These units fit with other inputs in a businessmodel and a production process. We are going to see a profound shift from dealing with environmental issues as risk managementchallenges to developing new businessopportunities by acknowledging a company’sdependence on ecosystems.” 5

So what do we mean when we talk about theservices provided by nature? And what doesall of this imply for business? By way of aninitial answer, let’s take two illustrations from a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) for the World Economic Forum (WEF),published early in 2010.

—Syngenta tackled the looming threat toagricultural yields posed by a decline inpollinating insect populations with its‘Operation Pollinator’, designed to support farmers in turning marginal land into habitats for natural pollinators.

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C-Suite refers to a corporation’s most seniorexecutives, who often have the term ‘Chief’ intheir title, denoting hierarchy and responsibility,as in Chief Executive Officer, Chief FinancialOfficer, and Chief Operating Officer.

But beyond this traditional trinity is a growingnumber of roles like Chief Technology Officer(CTO), Chief Innovation Officer (CIO), ChiefMarketing Officer (CMO), Chief ResponsibilityOfficer (CRO), among many others.

—Vittel (Nestlé Waters) responded to thecontamination of groundwater by agriculturalnitrates by compensating farmers for cuttingtheir nitrogen use—and, crucially, supportingthem as they converted to more sustainableagriculture practices. As PwC noted: “Vittelspent $32 million in the first seven years ofthe program, a small sum relative to the costof plant closure, relocation, or brand damagewhich befell some competing brands.” 6

But how much of this is registering in today’scorporate boardrooms? The answer seems to be very little—except in the relatively rarecases where companies are directly dependenton threatened or controversial ecosystemproducts and services for their licence tooperate, revenues and/or profitability.

Earlier in 2010, the CEOs of 29 globalcompanies involved in WBCSD—includingAlcoa, Boeing, Syngenta, Sony, E.ON, Procter& Gamble, Duke Energy, Toyota, Infosys andVolkswagen—unveiled their Vision 2050. They picture a future in which market pricingaccurately reflects the ecological costs ofdoing business. Over time, it is likely that wewill become much more acutely aware of ourdependence on, for example, the hydrologicaland carbon cycles, and, even if less obvious,the pollination services provided by bees and other insects.7

Most CEOs, CFOs and COOs have been toobusy coping with the impacts of the economicdownturn to think outside of a short termplanning horizon to consider the long-termrisks associated with rapidly eroding naturalassets. Even the growing number of ChiefSustainability Officers (CSOs) tend to focus on more politically contentious issues likeclimate change and, in some regions, water availability.

This is worrying in three respects: first, we mayovershoot natural limits with no sense of thesignificance of what is happening; second,there is a linked threat that business will beblind-sided by unforeseen risks associatedwith disrupted ecosystem services; and, thirdand more positively, businesses—indeed entireeconomies—may miss out on the opportunityto create the technologies, business modelsand markets of the future.

Rewiring the C-suite Dashboard

So what information will business leaders need to have displayed on the C-Suitedashboard in the future? Where is thenecessary innovation happening, and what can be done to accelerate the pace at whichemerging solutions achieve scale?

As far as the dashboard is concerned, starting points would include the sort of visuals produced by the Stockholm ResilienceCentre (Figure 1) and the Global FootprintNetwork (Figure 2)—though these will need to be adapted to the specific circumstances of a given company.

Figure 1 underscores the fact that while theworld has been obsessed by the climatechange challenge, for good reasons, a rangeof other challenges are emerging which are of significance for business—shown here in terms of nine planetary boundaries. If we move outside the area of planetaryresilience, as the science suggests we already have done in two of the nine areas—biodiversity loss and the nitrogen cycle—then the chances are that we will loosesignificant freedom of manoeuvre in dealingwith the other boundaries.


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Planetary Boundaries 8

The red circle represents the boundary of the proposed safe operating space for nineglobal systems. The boundaries forBiodiversity Loss, Climate Change and theNitrogen Cycle have already been exceeded.Atmospheric Aerosol Loading and ChemicalPollution are not yet quantified.

Adapted from: ‘A safe operating space for humanity’, Nature, by Johan Rockström, Will Steffen, Kevin Noone, Asa Persson, F. Stuart Chapin et al, September 23, 2009.

Figure 1

Figure 2 draws on work that tracks humandemands on the biosphere, measuring theecological footprint of people, businesses,cities and countries. In each case, theEcological Footprint measures human demand on the Earth’s resources, showingwhether countries are ecological creditors or are in ‘ecological overshoot’—consumingmore resources than are locally available.

Not surprisingly, highly industrialized countrieslike the USA and Switzerland run significantecological deficits. Less obviously, Iran’soveruse of its resources adds pressure to acomplex cocktail of social, economic, andpolitical tensions. On the other hand, Russia’svast ecological resources contrast with thelack of transparency and accountabilityreflected by the absence of historical data.

Brazil’s data, interestingly, shows a currentsurplus, but on a declining trend, spotlightingthe potential opportunity for such countries to adopt a long-term, strategic approach as ecological creditors.

Tipping Point

As a result of such intelligence and the linkedpolitics, we will see growing concern aboutenergy, water and food security—and, inparallel, a growing interest among leadingcompanies in developing and deploying newfootprinting tools and techniques that trackenergy, carbon, water and other key areas of impact and vulnerability.

In the process, a movement that started bytrying to preserve natural assets—the world’sfirst truly national park was launched atYellowstone in 1872—and then moved on to conservation, involving the activemanagement of species and habitats, isbeginning to jump to a very different level.


Figure 2

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Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity 9

Global Hectares Per Person 1961–2005

A country runs an ecologicaldeficit if its footprint exceedswhat its ecosystems can renew.The deficit is made up throughnet-imports, net-carbonemissions to the globalatmosphere, or local resourcedegradation.

Adapted from ‘The EcologicalPower of Nations: The Earth’sBiocapacity as a NewFramework for InternationalCooperation’, Global FootprintNetwork, 2009.

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Ecological Footprint

Biocapacity

Those who have been raised in the world ofconservation may find it hard to adjust to afuture where ecosystem assets and servicesare priced, invested in and traded, but this isan experiment that the world is now embarkedupon—and must energetically pursue.

In the following sections we spotlight some ofthe most interesting innovators, entrepreneursand investors now at work in this space.Throughout 2010 Volans will be working withsome of these leading individuals to identifyand seek to remove some of the key barriersthey face in creating larger-scale impacts onmarkets and the economy. A second report,towards the end of 2010, will analyse theirthinking on how to scale the BiosphereEconomy.

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Switzerland USARussia

Decision-makers will increasinglyconfront challenges that counter-pose the economy with the biosphere—partlybecause of demographic pressures, partlybecause we are already overriding naturallimits. The emerging leadership challengewill involve aligning economic andbiosphere priorities in ways that drive new forms of sustainable growth.

As ecological overshoot begins to blink at the edge of business risk detection screens,and—to a lesser extent as yet—of financialinstitutions, a growing array of innovators isexperimenting with solutions to better align the global economy with the biosphere. These innovators are not the usual suspects.They range from canopy scientists developinginvestment ratings for companies through to technology firms creating mechanisms totrack the state of the biosphere.

This emerging landscape of innovation iscreating new opportunities for business toengage. But, practically, what does this meanfor the corporate C-Suite? The four trendsspotlighted below illustrate new opportunitiesaround leadership, finance and markets,operations and supply chains, and,importantly, innovation.

1Business Leadership

2Markets and Finance

3Operations and Supply Chains

4 Nature-InspiredInnovation

The Biosphere EconomyFour Critical Trends

Four Critical Trends

1 Business Leadership

First, what makes all of this a potentialChairman or CEO issue? The leadershipagenda has evolved as a series of societalpressure waves impacted governments,business and financial markets. The agendahere is moving from previously ‘intangible’ecosystem services such as naturallyproduced water, soil and clean air to a set of tangible issues for business—and a shiftfrom a focus on business ‘externalities’ such as pollution, deforestation, and resourcedegradation, to the re-consideration of marketand corporate valuation mechanisms.

In the process, we have gone from a largelycompliance-driven agenda, with governmentsleading the charge, to an increasingly market-driven agenda. Recent years, however,have seen a distinct shift towards a new focus on entrepreneurial and—crucially—scalable solutions, with growing interest ininnovators and entrepreneurs. In the comingdecade, issues around biodiversity and thebiosphere look set to crowd onto the private,public and citizen sector agendas.

The drivers of this trend include a growingawareness of the economic dimensions of ecosystem services, as developmentpressures compromise services previouslytaken for granted. Just as the Stern Report on the economics of climate changeintroduced a new way of thinking on theclimate challenge, spotlighting, for example,the $200 billion in losses due to extremeweather conditions in 2005,10 so todayinitiatives like the TEEB study11 look set toachieve a similar effect with the natural capital agenda and the growing connectivitybetween the two agendas.

While a corporate Chairman or CEO mayregard these issues as public goods that fall in the realm of government regulation, themagnitude of business risks and associatedopportunities is also opening new spaces forleadership. Recall GSK CEO Andrew Witty’sdecision to launch a new program of pricereductions for medicines in a number of poorercountries, simultaneously addressing thetroublesome debate of access to medicineswhile wrong-footing key industry competitors.The ecosystem services agenda offers a new access agenda with similar leadershipopportunities for business.

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“It is only a question of time until a financial analyst, looking at the valuation of companies such as utilities, or food andbeverages, begins to consider (knowingly or not) ecologicalfactors which threaten their business.” Chris KnightAssistant Director, Forestry and Ecosystems, Sustainability and Climate Change, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP UK 12

Later this year, Trucost, a firm that isintroducing environmental valuations to thebusiness mainstream, will publish a reportconcluding that the 3,000 biggest publiccompanies in the world had ‘ecosystemliabilities’ of US$2.2 trillion in 2008,representing on average over 30% of theircombined profits. Trucost aims to increase the awareness of global markets to the risksassociated with the externalities of business-as-usual—and is part of a larger field of players aiming to change the way companiesare valued.13

Governments, while typically slower torespond, are also considering regulation tomanage ecological limits more effectively withknock-on effects for business, from changingland-use policies to the reform of subsidies. In 1998, for example, the severity of the floodsalong China’s Yangtze River floodplain affected250 million people, with estimated losses of$20 billion. Swiss Re, the reinsurancecompany, and the Chinese Academy ofSciences, established a clear connectionbetween the floods and deforestation in theupper river basin. As a result, the Chinesegovernment now plans to convert vast areas of cropland back into forest and grassland,banning a number of industries and planninginvestment in natural capital assets (such asforests) of $100 billion, to regulate water flowsfor hydropower, irrigation, and floodprevention.14

As Andreas Spiegel, the Vice President for Risk Management at Swiss Re, told Volans: “The degradation of mangroves anddeforestation increases the risk exposure tofloods and tropical cyclones. At a time whenclimate change is pushing risk premiums,investing in natural ecosystems and ecologicalinfrastructures is among the cheapestsolutions when it comes to adapting toextreme weather events.” 15

Among the innovators tailoring ecosystemmetrics for business is Gretchen Daily, co-founder of the Natural Capital Project, a 10-year joint venture of Stanford Universitywith the Nature Conservancy and the WorldWildlife Fund. One of their solutions is InVEST,a software tool whose name stands for theIntegrated Valuation of Ecosystem Servicesand Tradeoffs. InVEST quantifies the ecologicalassets in a region—and models how theirvalue will change under alternative scenarios.The metrics developed to assess thebiophysical and economic value of ecosystemservices are intended for integration intobusiness strategy and policy decisions.16


$1.9–4.5 trillionThe estimated range of the value lost in natural capital due to the degradation of theEarth’s ecosystems and biodiversity loss.

2 Markets and Finance

Next, what makes all of this an issue for Chief Financial Officers and Chief InvestmentOfficers? Rising insurance premiums areprobably likely to top the list of answers, as insurance (and, even more importantly,reinsurance) companies make connectionsbetween climate change and ecological limits,concluding that ecosystem-related crisescould hit some economies and industries more rapidly than climate change itself.

Changes are already underway in terms of how corporate assets and liabilities arecalculated, potentially influencing how naturalassets find their way onto balance sheets andcorporate accounts. The Biosphere Economywill likely drive a number of important changesto the way financial institutions work, withinstitutional investors—from banks to pensionfunds—having to review how they assess risk and manage long-term value.

Unusual industry alliances are seeking tochange mindsets in the insurance sector. In 2009, Swiss Re led the Economics ofClimate Adaptation Working Group withMcKinsey & Company, ClimateWorks (an international network of foundations), the European Commission, the RockefellerFoundation and Standard Chartered Bank.

Their report concluded that climate risks could cost nations up to 19% of GDP by 2030, and recommended investment in ecosystem services as a way to increaseresilience to climate change and manage the associated risks.17

Despite all of the above, the crossoverbetween climate and ecosystems is as yetpoorly understood by investors. But innovationis under way, for example with the Swiss assetmanagement firm Prix Pictet being the first to incorporate the ecological footprint in therating of long-term risk associated to countrybonds,18 and the London-based investmentfund Earth Capital Partners creating an ‘EarthDividend’ metric to analyze investments with ascreen that integrates climate, natural assetsand ecosystem considerations.

The primary innovation driver here is themanagement of long-term risk in an investmentportfolio. For example, companies in theagricultural industry operating in SouthAmerica’s grain hub—an industry estimated to be worth $1 trillion in Argentina andsouthern Brazil—will be surprised to learn that rainfall patterns in the region are regulatedby the Amazon rainforest, which pumps andmoves an estimated 8 trillion tonnes of waterinto the atmosphere annually.

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“Global players need to recognize that the world is made up of interacting systems and that a global view is increasinglyessential. A tidal wave generated in one region of the worldcan devastate the infrastructures we insure in another region. It is clear that our man-made infrastructures and Nature’secological infrastructures are becoming increasinglyinterdependent.” Julia GrayHead of Sustainable Development and EnvironmentalManagement, Allianz Group 19

This has led the Global Canopy Programme(GCP) to create the concept of tropicalrainforests as ‘Eco-Utilities’, and explore arange of innovative financing mechanisms with which to sustain the value of theseservices. Even if governments are slow torespond, the magnitude of the risk involved for companies and investors will requireinnovation, along the lines of what GCP calls ‘Proactive Investment in Natural Capital’,or PINC for short.20

As Richard Burrett (a partner at Earth CapitalPartners and Co-Chair of the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services workstream at theUNEP Finance Initiative) told us: “Investorsbelieve they are better informed because theyhave the power to model and analyze financialdata on a second-by-second basis, but inreality we’ve been building ever more risk intothe system because of an inability to see thelong-term value of natural capital assets.” 21

Innovation by the investor community is alsoseen in the investor-led initiatives, such as: the US-based Ceres’ Investor Network onClimate Risk (INCR), which brings together 80 investors with over $8 trillion in assets; and the P8 Group, a group of senior leadersfrom some of the world’s largest publicpension funds representing over $3 trillion of investment capital.22

As a result of such efforts, investor-backeddisclosure requests to companies arebecoming a growing concern for business, not least because many initiatives dealseparately with climate emissions, water,forests or biodiversity.23


Market Sizes

New markets are emerging in the ecosystemsspace, with marketplace intelligence providedby firms like the Katoomba Group andEcosystems Marketplace, both part of ForestTrends. The biggest market is for carbon, with the world market growing from $11 billionin 2005 to $32 billion in 2006, $64 billion in2007, $126 billion in 2008 and being forecastto reach $170 billion in 2010 and $3.1 trilliondollars in 2020, with $1 trillion of that valuerelating to the USA.24

Other growing ecosystem-related marketsinclude: $3.4 billion of regulated biodiversityoffset transactions per year,25 water ($500million in 2010), and ‘forest carbon’ ($149.2million in 2008). Currently, there are at least 40 local water quality market experiments in the USA.

Mainstream banks already playing into thisspace include JP Morgan, which bought boththe carbon broker Ecosecurities (for $130million) and the offset intermediary ClimateCare. Goldman Sachs is also increasinglyactive through its GS Sustain, while a steadytrickle of new investment firms, among themEKO Asset Management Partners, are beingformed to work in this space.

While most of these markets are still voluntary,and many focus on offsetting businessimpacts, other experiments are emerging that aim to direct capital flows to sustainecosystem services. One example focuses on the creation of ‘forest bonds’, driven by an agreement between UK-based CanopyCapital and the Government of Guyana. The central idea is to channel capital topreserve forest services such as rainfallgeneration, moderation of extreme weather,carbon storage and biodiversity maintenance.The shape of things to come?

3 Operations and Supply Chains

Some have already decided to do it, othersknow it is coming, while others are sublimelyunaware, but growing numbers of ChiefOperating Officers (COOs) will be confrontedwith the complex challenge of driving theenvironmental footprint of their operationstowards zero. The challenge will often be totheir underlying business model—and to therelevant design, production, supply anddistribution thinking and processes.

COOs will be in the spotlight as institutionalinvestors and shareholders back disclosurerequests. The Carbon Disclosure Project(CDP), for example, requests carbon emissionsdata from companies on behalf of 534institutional investors, holding $64 trillion inassets under management. Since their firstrequest for the disclosure of emissions in2003, the number of companies disclosing to CDP has grown 10-fold to 2,500organizations in 60 countries.26

Interestingly, too, CDP is now in paralleldeveloping the Water Disclosure Project,adding to a range of water footprint initiativesfor business, including WBCSD’s work onwater and the work of the Water FootprintNetwork.27 Other drivers may well includebiodiversity certification, with Brazil’s InstitutoLIFE (Lasting Initiative for the Earth) alreadyengaging large Brazilian companies, the UN Convention for Biological Diversity and the Brazilian government.28

In turn, the success of CDP has become amodel for others, with the Global CanopyProgramme creating the Forest FootprintDisclosure Project (FFD), which seeks toproduce publicly available information on thedirect and indirect impact of companies onforests. FFD’s disclosure request is backed by 35 financial institutions with $3.5 trillion in collective assets under management. In 2009, FFD targeted 200 companies likely to be have exposure to forest-risk commoditiessuch as beef or leather, palm, soy, timber or bio-fuel—with the disclosure requestsdirected to their CEOs, and then oftencascaded to COOs.29

A central challenge for business is that theoverall agenda has emerged on an issue-by-issue basis, with a range of alternative, yetoften complementary, initiatives per issue. “You can’t expect business and the financialindustry to run a series of different systems for water, carbon, forests, and others allseparately,” we were told by Richard Burrett of Earth Capital Partners, who previously led ABN Amro’s efforts on project finance andsustainability. “There is a resource constraint todoing this within companies, and eventually wewill need to develop a lens that addresses allthe issues holistically, progressively involvinggovernments as regulators.” 30

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$8 + $3 trillionThe assets held by investors participating inthe US-based Ceres’ Investor Network onClimate Risk (INCR) and the P8 Group whichadvances the involvement of pension funds inclimate solutions.

Among those investor-linked initiatives lookingat footprints more holistically is the NaturalValue Initiative (NVI), a partnership between theNGO Fauna & Flora International, the UnitedNations Environment Programme’s FinanceInitiative (UNEFI) and Fundaçao Getulio Vargas,a Brazilian business school. NVI works inpartnership with six institutional investors,including Aviva Investors, F&C Investments,VicSuper, Pax World, Insight Investment andGrupo Santander Brasil. In 2009, NVI tested a first round of its Ecosystem ServicesBenchmark with companies, publishing aranking of 31 companies in the extractive,food, beverage and tobacco sectors.31

Another potential reference point for COOslooking to integrate ecosystem services within their business systems is the CorporateEcosystem Services Review (ESR), apartnership between the World ResourcesInstitute (WRI), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the Meridian Institute and Pricewaterhouse-Coopers (PwC). This has made considerableprogress towards a methodology thatconnects business activity with the health of ecosystems. ESR analyzes a company’sdependence and impact on ecosystemservices, and then identifies key risks andopportunities. This has already been applied by some 300 companies worldwide.

Now WRI and the United Nations EnvironmentProgramme (UNEP) are taking this a stepfurther, exploring how to mainstreamecosystem services within corporate decision-making, and in particular looking at potentialcross-over points with ISO standards, and theGlobal Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) guidelines.The GRI team also initiated work in 2010 on what ecosystem services imply for theperformance measurement and reporting ofcompanies. WBCSD is leading the EcosystemValuation Initiative, which is testing with 16member companies a model that anchorsecosystem services valuations within corebusiness areas, with early findings to belaunched later in 2010.


$64 trillionThe assets held by the 534 institutionalinvestors that request the disclosure of carbonemissions data from companies as part of theCarbon Disclosure Project (CDP).

4 Nature-Inspired Innovation

The Biosphere Economy is clearly about risk—but it’s also about new forms ofopportunity. We see an accelerating shift fromchemistry, physics and engineering as modelsfor economic thinking and development, tobiology, ecology, and bio-, molecular- andnano-engineering. The work of people likeCraig Venter on algal biofuels (the focus of a $600 million joint venture between his firmSynthetic Genomics and ExxonMobil) is part of the story, but longer term his work onsynthetic biology—where totally neworganisms are built from scratch—will not only disturb many environmentalists but alsopotentially lay the foundations for a verydifferent global economy.33

In parallel, we expect to see growing interestfrom Chief Innovation Officers and ChiefTechnology Officers in the rapidly emergingfield of biomimicry.34 The vision of innovatorssuch as Janine Benyus of the BiomimicryInstitute 35 is of a growing symbiosis betweenbusiness and biological cycles, demonstratingpractical ways in which business can drawfrom nature’s ‘design intelligence’—andprogressively engaging others, like theDesigners Accord, to spread the new thinking and models through the business and design communities.36

Recent biomimicry-inspired designs include:commercial buildings in Africa that incorporatethe design principles of termite mounds toprovide natural ventilation; solar cells thatmimic the compound eyes of insects toincrease the efficiency of sunlight reception; or ocean power systems that are inspired bythe swaying motion of sea plants and thepropulsion mechanisms of shark, tuna, andmackerel. The Biomimicry Institute has madethese and other design ideas available throughan open-source project called ‘Ask Nature’.37

Within this opportunity space, we alsospotlight the work of people like WilliamMcDonough and Michael Braungart, who in 2002 published their ‘cradle-to-cradle’manifesto, calling for the transformation ofindustry through ecologically intelligent design.They argue that designers can build on thegrowing knowledge of living earth systems. By employing the intelligence of naturalsystems—the effectiveness of nutrient cycling,for example—business can create products,industrial systems, buildings, and regionalplans that allow nature and commerce tofruitfully co-exist.38 Others in this field includePaul Hawken, Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovinswith ‘Natural Capitalism’ as a new way ofthinking about industrial design, and GunterPauli of the Zero Emissions Research andInitiatives (ZERI), who is looking at newentrepreneurial business models based on the sort of cascading nutrient cycles found in nature.39

17

“The biggest impact for business is likely to come throughinvestor interests and corporate valuations. Ecosystemservices will certainly change the way in which reportedinformation on corporate performance is used and understoodby a company’s stakeholders and shareholders.” Sean GilbertGlobal Reporting Initiative 32

Meanwhile, a new wave of entrepreneurs andstart-up companies is building on the work ofthese early pioneers. In the UK, for example,ModCell is producing construction materialsfrom straw and hemp, materials that ultimatelyreintegrate into nutrient cycles—but in themeantime provide building blocks forcommercial buildings and houses that offer athermal performance up to three times betterthan current building regulations require.40

Businesses looking to integrate nature’sintelligence into the design of products andprocesses also need better information flowsand intelligence on the state of Earth’s livingsystems. Need is spurring a second wave of innovation, driven by large technologycompanies. These efforts include: IBM’sSmarter Planet initiative,41 which aims to create information and intelligence platforms to help tackle some of our most complexproblems, including improved energy, water and transportation infrastructures; and the newly created Planetary Skin Institute, a global partnership between Cisco and NASA, which aims to provide an onlinecollaborative platform to process data fromsatellite, airborne and sea- and land-basedsensors around the globe, translating the data into information that governments and businesses can use to mitigate and adapt to climate change.42

Google, meanwhile, is leading the way throughGoogle Earth Outreach, unveiling innovativepartnerships with the likes of the Suruiindigenous tribe in the State of Rondonia in the Amazon, who will track deforestation on the ground and feed back so called ‘ground-truth’ information into Google Earth’s imaging.43The company has now launched its EarthEngine in partnership with the CarnegieInstitution for Science, IMAZON (the Braziliansatellite imaging initiative that is tacklingdeforestation in the Amazon) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Currently at the prototype phase, Earth Enginewill make forest monitoring—traditionally acomplex and expensive endeavor—both easierand cheaper. By supplying the data, storage,and computing abilities, Google will ensure that forest changes can be spotted in fractionsof a second over the Internet and, critically, will make the technology available free totropical countries to support forest monitoringprograms.44

Trends such as those spotlighted above do notguarantee a steady transition to a sustainablebiosphere economy, not least because of theexpected systemic pressures as the worldheads towards a projected human population of some 9 billion people by mid-century. But there are clearly a growing number oftremendously interesting building blocks information—many of which can be scaled given the necessary political leadership from the public, private and citizen sectors. To that end, our final section sketches to-do lists for business, financial markets and governments.

“The economic growth of the last two centuries has relied on the mismanagement of natural assets. Governments arestarting to understand that making these assets visible innational accounts and economic strategies is the key togrowth in the 21st Century.” Achim SteinerUN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP)


What type of action agenda emerges forbusiness, investors, governments andpublic sector agencies in the century’ssecond decade? These are questions we will be addressing through 2010, butsome early pointers are offered below.

We hope that this brief paper will contribute to the buzz surrounding the UN’s InternationalYear of Biodiversity and the publication of theTEEB report, helping link these emergingagendas to top-level decision-making and policy formulation spaces. Let’s brieflyaddress the business, financial andgovernment agendas.

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Agenda for the Second Decade

1The Business Agenda

2The Financial MarketsAgenda

3The Government Agenda

“We are helping leading corporations to think about thesignificance of planetary limits for their business success. We useour metrics to ask what do planetary limits mean for the businesscase? What kind of markets will vanish and which will open up?” Mathis WackernagelPresident, Global Footprint Network

1 The Business Agenda

Business engagement and investment will be crucial in driving the Biosphere Economyforward—and it is very encouraging to seeorganizations like B4E, WBCSD and WEFgetting involved. But to move to the nextstage, the agenda has to move from theportfolios of the likes of Chief SustainabilityOfficers to the desks of the Chairman andCEOs, Chief Financial Officers, ChiefInvestment Officers and Chief BusinessDevelopment Officers.

So, first, here are some starting points for C-Suite discussion:

1 Build the business case for naturalcapitalism We have seen that a smallnumber of CEOs are beginning to take bold leadership, embracing a natural capitalagenda as a core part of future-proofing the company’s reputation and competitiveposition. Growing numbers of leadingcompanies will build biosphere, biodiversityand footprinting coverage into their annualreports, explaining the links to value creationand risk management.

2 Recognize that footprinting will be as urgent a challenge as TQMTotal Quality Management crept up on manycompanies—and the footprinting agenda willdo likewise. Yes, there’s money to be madefrom reducing your ecological footprint, butthis will be an innovation story, too. Explorethe creation of ‘zero footprint’ products,processes and supply chains. Work withyour most demanding customers on this—think of the ambition stories of Wal-Mart or Marks & Spencer.

3 Develop new partnerships Integratenature’s principles into the heart of yourdesign processes, including cradle-to-cradlemodels. Work with the likes of the GlobalFootprint Network (GFN) on the latestgeneration of tools—and with JanineBenyus’ Biomimicry Institute to advance the wider bio-innovation agenda. Help thesepioneers engage other parts of business—and the leading edge of the financial world.

4 Bring financial executives into the gameIntroduce natural assets as a key area of value across the C-Suite agenda. Map and understand your company’s critical dependencies on ecosystemservices—and the early actions that can be taken to create a better balance betweenyour business and nature. Again, pick high-powered partners, such as GFN, the Natural Capital Project, the World ResourcesInstitute, the World Business Council forSustainable Development, TEEB (theEconomics of Biodiversity and Ecosystems)project team, or WWF.

5 Build new political platformsHelp form a ‘Global Business Alliance for the Biosphere’, tackling sector- and industry-wide opportunity areas, among other thingsadvancing the convergence of footprintstandards and regulation. Develop new links with mainstream business networks,institutional investors and international publicagencies, working alongside innovators tocreate momentum for government actionand improved governance of the biosphere.

The Biosphere EconomyAgenda for the Second Decade

2 The Financial Markets Agenda

With some honorable exceptions, investorshave been slow in tackling the climate changechallenge, though experiments in areas likecarbon trading have begun to take off. And it is interesting to see key organizations like theCarbon Disclosure Project (CDP) extendingtheir remit—and, in consequence, the financialmarkets agenda—from carbon to water. The inputs of financial institutions and analystswill be critical, but the likelihood is thatprogress will continue to be patchy andinterrupted—which is why clear, effective and sustained government action will also be crucial.

Here are some recommendations fordiscussion among investors and those who advise them:

1 Explore how Biosphere Economyinitiatives create shareholder valueAs a company and as an industry, work toadvance understanding of the financialpotential of ecosystem services. Join withinitiatives like the Natural Value Initiative,already supported by the UNEP FinanceInitiative, to generate stronger links betweeneconomic shareholder value and the widerworlds of biodiversity and ecosystemservices.

2 Develop and promote ‘Natural Assets101’ courses and content Partner withbusiness schools, universities and othercenters of excellence to improve shared—and peer-reviewed—knowledge of howinvestors can best create long-term value by incorporating natural assets into theiranalyses and portfolios, both as an assetclass (e.g. sustainably managed forests) and as a valuation factor in equity and other investments.

3 Identify key road-blocks—and work to remove them Help develop and support tailored discussions with institutionalinvestors on the actions that must now be taken, the roles they can play and themodels they can adopt and adapt.Recognize that early stage experimentsshould be voluntary, which encouragescreativity and innovation, but be willing toback regulatory and other political actionwhen the time comes.

4 Engage long-term investors The work of Earth Capital Partners with their ‘EarthDividend’ metric and of the P8 Group withpension funds illustrate how leadership canhelp drive progress. Where mandatoryregulation is required, and based on a better understanding of the links betweenshareholder value and natural assets, initiatedialogues with governments, economicpolicy-makers and other key stakeholders on the types of regulatory measures that will accelerate change across the financial community.

5 Experiment with new risk—andopportunity—models Work to advancenew thinking on risk models that moreeffectively incorporate natural assets. And increase the quantity and quality ofcases that analyze how the economicvaluation of natural assets can help investors build and improve their long-terminvestment portfolios.

6 Join the debate In Dante’s Inferno, thedeepest, hottest parts of Hell were reservedfor those who did nothing. Get involved—and if you haven’t got the time, ensure that other key people in your organizationengage and report back.

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The Government Agenda

The ‘tragedy of the commons’ 45 originallyplayed out locally, with shepherds overloadinggrazing land, or foresters or slash-and-burnfarmers unwittingly destroying the forests theirlivelihoods depended on. Today, the samedynamic is playing out on a world scale, withthe decline of the biosphere. Many nationalgovernments remain ineffective, and in somecases corrupt, but their role has to beincreasingly central. Global governanceinstitutions and mechanisms remain weak, and in some cases are conspicuously failing, as illustrated by some of the COP15outcomes. But extraordinary times often callforth extraordinary leaders—and new forms of leadership that would have beenunimaginable in less troubled times.

So, third, here are some issues thatgovernments, policy-makers and regulatorsshould be considering as a matter of urgency:

1 Steward national natural capitalTake early steps towards the reshaping andeventual regulation of financial markets andbusiness, based on their role as stewards of ‘national natural capital’. Build on theexperience and indicators developed by the likes of the Natural Value Initiative, theCarbon Disclosure Project and the ForestFootprint Disclosure. Help move the agendafrom issue-based management (i.e. carbon,water, forests) to fit-for-purpose incentivesand indicator sets that drive systemic,effective, sustainable management of critical natural assets.

2 Launch local, national and regionalTEEBs Understand and project the futuretrajectories of your country’s ecologicalassets—and invest in quantifying the value of the services provided to the economy.Actively engage with and build on the workof the Global Footprint Network and theTEEB (Economics of Biodiversity andEcosystems) project team.

3 Integrate the status and health ofnatural assets into GDP Upgrade nationalaccounts and the accounting processesused, to integrate the value of natural assetsand test the true opportunity costs andbenefits of alternative national developmentpolicies.

4 Tax and subsidize Adjust taxes andsubsidies to strengthen—rather thanweaken, as is often the case with fisheriesand other open access resources —thecountry’s natural assets. Remove subsidieson biosphere-damaging activities andreallocate them to areas and sectors thathelp build tomorrow’s Biosphere Economy.

5 Ramp up investment None—or very little of this—can be done without funding.Invest in ecological infrastructures in the same way that governments invest inwater, energy or transport infrastructures.Recognize that the next decade will see growing attention paid to naturalinfrastructures, just as Hurricane Katrinafocused US attention on the stupefyingimpact of the removal or degradation ofwetlands in the Mississippi Delta.

The Biosphere EconomyAgenda for the Second Decade

Get out ahead of the game, rather than waiting for the future to come crashing in. True leadership involves creating the future,rather than having it happen to you. Timing isalso a critically important element in successfulleadership—and the evidence increasinglysuggests that the time is ripe for totally newbusiness opportunities and markets to bespawned by the race to map, value and investin tomorrow’s vital ecosystem services.

23

“I’m excited to use ecosystem markets to divert capital flowsaway from short term, unproductive and environmentallydestructive activities. Investors are switching on to this agendaas they are beginning to understand the genuine long-termenvironmental benefits and liabilities associated with theircapital allocation decisions.” Jason ScottFounding Partner, EKO Asset Management Partners

The Biosphere Economy

Notes

1 The Economics of Ecosystems andBiodiversity (TEEB), Cost of Policy InactionReport, 2008. www.teebweb.org

2 Ibid. note 1. 3 Ecosystem Marketplace, Payment for

Ecosystem Services: Market Profiles, 2008.www.ecosystemmarketplace.com

4 The C-Suite refers to a corporation’s mostsenior executives, who often have the term‘Chief’ in their title, denoting their hierarchyand responsibility, as in Chief ExecutiveOfficer, Chief Financial Officer, and ChiefOperating Officer. But beyond this traditionaltrinity there is a growing number of C-Suiteroles, like Chief Technology Officer (CTO),Chief Innovation Officer (CIO), Chief MarketingOfficer (CMO) and Chief Responsibility Officer(CRO), among many others.

5 Interview of Mikkel Kallesoe, ProgramManager, Ecosystems, WBCSD by Alejandro Litovsky, 5 March 2010.

6 ‘Biodiversity and Business Risk’, A Global Risk Network Briefing, World EconomicForum, January 2010.www.weforum.org/pdf/globalrisk/biodiversityandbusinessrisk.pdf

7 Vision 2050: The New Agenda for Business,WBCSD, Feb 2010 www.wbcsd.org

8 Adapted from: ‘A safe operating space forhumanity’, Nature, by Johan Rockström, Will Steffen, Kevin Noone, Asa Persson, F.Stuart Chapin et al, September 23, 2009’

9 Adapted from The Ecological Power ofNations: The Earth’s Biocapacity as a NewFramework for International Cooperation,Global Footprint Network, 2009. (A country runs an ecological deficit if itsFootprint exceeds what its ecosystems canrenew. The deficit is made up through net-imports, net-carbon emissions to the globalatmosphere, or local resource degradation).

10 Stern Review on the Economics of ClimateChange, Cambridge University Press, 2007

11 Ibid. note 1. 12 Interview with Chris Knight of PwC byAlejandro Litovsky, March 2010.

13 ‘Time to Clean Up: UN Study RevealsEnvironmental Costs of World Trade’, The Guardian, 19 February 2010.

14 As told by Gretchen Daily in ‘The thoughtleader interview: Gretchen Daily’,Strategy+Business, 24 November, 2009.www.strategy-business.com

15 Interview with Andreas Spiegel of Swiss Re by Alejandro Litovsky, March 2010.www.naturalcapitalproject.org

16 Shaping Climate-Resilient Development: A Framework for Decision-Making, a Report ofthe Economics of Climate Change AdaptationWorking Group by The ClimateWorksFoundation, Global Environment Facility,European Commission, McKinsey & Company,The Rockefeller Foundation, StandardChartered Bank and Swiss Re, 2009.

18 www.prixpictet.com/sustainability/pictet19 Interview with Julia Gray of Allianz Group byAlejandro Litovsky, March 2010.

20 www.globalcanopy.org21 Interview with Richard Burrett of Earth CapitalPartners by Alejandro Litovsky, March 2010http://www.earthcp.com

22 http://www.incr.comhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/p8_group

23 See the companion Pathways to Scale report for the Global Reporting Initiative, The Transparent Economy, to be launched at the GRI annual conference in May 2010.

24 Sources: Capoor & Ambrosi, 2009, PointCarbon and New Carbon Finance.

25 See Ecosystem Marketplace.www.speciesbanking.com

26 www.cdproject.net27 www.waterfootprint.org28 www.institutolife.org29 www.forestdisclosure.com30 Interview with Richard Burrett, March 2010.31 www.naturalvalueinitiative.org32 Email correspondence with Sean Gilbert ofGRI, March 2010.

33 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/synthetic_biology34 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/biomimicry35 www.biomimicryinstitute.org36 www.designersaccord.org37 www.asknature.org38 www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm39 Natural Capitalism and ZERI.www.natcap.orgwww.zeri.org

40 www.modcell.co.ukwww.cleanandcoolmission.com

41 www.ibm.com/smarterplanet42 www.planetaryskin.org43 http://earth.google.com/outreach/amazon3.html

44 http://blog.google.org/2009/12/earth-engine-powered-by-google.html

45 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/tragedy_of_the_commons

Acknowledgements

The authors, Alejandro Litovsky and JohnElkington of Volans, warmly thank the TellusMater Foundation for its core support bothfor the overall Pathways to Scale Programand for this brief.

We also thank our colleagues at Volans — Amy Birchall, Sam Lakha, Charmian Love,Geoff Lye, Allen Tan and Kevin Teo; TonyGourlay of Global Initiatives and B4E; andthose who were interviewed or otherwisecontributed, most notably: Jennifer Biringer(SustainAbility), Richard Burrett (Earth Capital Partners), Mark Campanale (HalloranPhilanthropies), Carolina Elia (Global CanopyProgramme), Julia Gray (Allianz), AnnelisaGrigg (Natural Value Initiative), Frank Hajek(Oxford Saïd Business School and ServiciosEcosistemicos Peru), Mikkel Kallesoe (World Business Council for SustainableDevelopment), Chris Knight (Pricewater-houseCoopers), Gunter Pauli (ZERI), Natasha Pauli (Zoological Society ofLondon), Professor James Salzman (Duke University), Jason Scott (EKO AssetManagement) Andreas Spiegel (Swiss Re),Pavan Sukhdev (TEEB), and MathisWackernagel (Global Footprint Network). We would also like to thank our threeextraordinary interns: Erica Barbosa andAmanda Feldman, both Master in PublicAdministration (MPA) students at the LondonSchool of Economics, and Colin Ma, MBAstudent at the London Business School.

Publication Details

TitleThe Biosphere Economy:Natural limits can spur creativity, innovation and growth

ISBN 978–0–9562166–1–8

Copyright © 2010 Volans Ventures Ltd. All RightsReserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape,photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without permission in writing from thecopyright holders.

PublisherVolans Ventures Ltd2 Bloomsbury PlaceLondon WC1A 2QAUKT +44 (0) 207 268 0390F +44 (0) 207 268 0391www.volans.com

DesignRupert Bassett

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