206
C. V. B. Prates et al.
2 Understanding the Economic Scenario Through
the Impacts Generated by Individual and Collective
Behavioral Changes
Nowadays, we live in a society that began to seek better trading practices and a
better relationship with nature, because during the several years after the industrial
revolution and domination of the market culture, it was understood that the bust
ungoverned by accumulation of wealth was ending with the resources that fed him.
According to Misoczky and Bohm (2012) in their brilliant essay, this awareness was
developed during the 1970s, “a decade in which spread the concern about the limits
of the instrumentalist approach, which treated nature as a source of resources and
the deposit of remains” (Misoczky and Bohm 2012).
On the one hand, the world economy began to worry about the revitalization of
degraded areas and scientific clarification of the damages caused by the activities. On
the other hand, a business opportunity was seen, according to Bakker (2010) there
was a redirection “of the accumulation strategies for the commodification of new
types of nature and for the conversion of environmental externalities into sources
of profit, in articulation with well established strategies of ecological arrangements”
(Bakker 2010).
With the growing awareness of environmental issues, the capital market, the main
predator of natural resources, noted the need to ally somehow to this movement, with
which the term “sustainable development” was established. From several events and
studies this term was consolidated in society. One example is the Brundtland Report
(Wced 1987), which laid the groundwork for the debates and negotiations that took
place at the International Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development
(Eco-92). In this Report the central argument say that the best way to respond to
environmental destruction and poverty was development (Bruntland 1987).
However, several criticisms were woven about the idea of unlimited growth on a
limited planet, for Lander (2011) it was an act of “extraordinary conceptual juggling”
in the concept of “sustainable development” (Lander 2011). The concept mixes the
technical characteristics of a particular path of development with a moral injunction
that defines it as the optimal choice for any society. For Misoczky and Bohm (2012),
real environmental ideas should be associated with a reduction in high consumption
patterns, especially in the Northern countries. Fading to this logic environmental
protection, and the values of different cultures with respect to their environments,
have become formally expressed in terms of market and prices, in which capital is
taken as a measure of the environmental degradation that it produces (Misoczky and
Bohm 2012).
The fact is that, despite all contradictions and criticisms, instead of a reduction
of human activities on nature, a new market was created, with several opportunities,
high profitability and, most importantly, with the support and admiration of society.
Costanza et al. (1997) estimated that the annual global value of ecosystem services
would be 16–54 trillion dollars, evidencing the possible profits to be obtained in this
new market (Costanza et al. 1997).
C. V. B. Prates et al.
2 Understanding the Economic Scenario Through
the Impacts Generated by Individual and Collective
Behavioral Changes
Nowadays, we live in a society that began to seek better trading practices and a
better relationship with nature, because during the several years after the industrial
revolution and domination of the market culture, it was understood that the bust
ungoverned by accumulation of wealth was ending with the resources that fed him.
According to Misoczky and Bohm (2012) in their brilliant essay, this awareness was
developed during the 1970s, “a decade in which spread the concern about the limits
of the instrumentalist approach, which treated nature as a source of resources and
the deposit of remains” (Misoczky and Bohm 2012).
On the one hand, the world economy began to worry about the revitalization of
degraded areas and scientific clarification of the damages caused by the activities. On
the other hand, a business opportunity was seen, according to Bakker (2010) there
was a redirection “of the accumulation strategies for the commodification of new
types of nature and for the conversion of environmental externalities into sources
of profit, in articulation with well established strategies of ecological arrangements”
(Bakker 2010).
With the growing awareness of environmental issues, the capital market, the main
predator of natural resources, noted the need to ally somehow to this movement, with
which the term “sustainable development” was established. From several events and
studies this term was consolidated in society. One example is the Brundtland Report
(Wced 1987), which laid the groundwork for the debates and negotiations that took
place at the International Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development
(Eco-92). In this Report the central argument say that the best way to respond to
environmental destruction and poverty was development (Bruntland 1987).
However, several criticisms were woven about the idea of unlimited growth on a
limited planet, for Lander (2011) it was an act of “extraordinary conceptual juggling”
in the concept of “sustainable development” (Lander 2011). The concept mixes the
technical characteristics of a particular path of development with a moral injunction
that defines it as the optimal choice for any society. For Misoczky and Bohm (2012),
real environmental ideas should be associated with a reduction in high consumption
patterns, especially in the Northern countries. Fading to this logic environmental
protection, and the values of different cultures with respect to their environments,
have become formally expressed in terms of market and prices, in which capital is
taken as a measure of the environmental degradation that it produces (Misoczky and
Bohm 2012).
The fact is that, despite all contradictions and criticisms, instead of a reduction
of human activities on nature, a new market was created, with several opportunities,
high profitability and, most importantly, with the support and admiration of society.
Costanza et al. (1997) estimated that the annual global value of ecosystem services
would be 16–54 trillion dollars, evidencing the possible profits to be obtained in this
new market (Costanza et al. 1997).