The economic perspectives on the scarcity of nature often become an entrepreneurial perspective: How can entrepreneurs profit from ecological services? How
can business models be designed accordingly? How can payments be initiated and
managed? Once you have made the scarcity of nature visible, it is difficult to avoid
such selfish business prospects for natural values. The large-scale acquisition of land
(“land grabbing”) is a paradigm case, but one can also think of the acquisition of
concessions for timber and fishing, the acquisition of CO 2 credits, the acquisition of
beautiful places as travel destinations and the like. Such acquisition strategies can
affect local livelihoods, as a broad NGO discourse shows. They can distribute the
benefits of ESS according to the given unequal patterns of purchasing power. Not
surprisingly, egalitarian concepts of distributive environmental justice often reject
TEV or ESS because of associated business models. Many people dislike the ideas
that one may make a profit out of the conservation of nature or that nature’s values
are traded on markets. Market-based solutions and business-models count as corruption of the “spirit” of nature conservation. Market-based acquisition of ESS is
either unfair or corrupt (or both).
However, not all businesses are morally wrong. Why should we completely deny
that there could be morally decent ways to make some money with TEV or ESS?
Beautiful campsites on Swedish lakes can mobilise the willingness of stressed-out
Germans to pay to relax in such an open-air hut. Farmers might specialize in
producing agroecological services beyond yields. The same holds for forestry.
Why not pay some entrance fee for a land art park presenting sculptures in landscapes (as close to Vilnius)? In many cases the fundamental criticism against the
monetarisation of nature can be misplaced. If so, we need a refined view of the
business models and rights to open access. Free access to forests, beaches and lakes
should counteract the commercialisation of nature. Perhaps different political cultures can solve this problem of the commercialisation of TEV or ESS in different
ways. In the USA there is a fee to get permission to enter national parks, in Germany
and Scandinavia there is Open Access.
In view of its internal dialectic of monetarisation of TEV or ESS, the economy
can and should take the plunge into critical political environmental economy. To do
this, economists would have to think about the scarcity of nature in close connection
with environmental ethics, distributive justice and sustainability science. The economic visibility of the scarcity of nature requires economic-ethical disputes over
property rights, access and business models, since distributive justice can demand
free and equal access to beaches, forests, public parks and the like. However, the
TEV or ESS approach as such is not necessarily a neoliberal, slippery slope towards
the complete commodification of nature. A deep anthropocentrism can, with some
limitations, adopt TEV and ESS as tools and measures that make the values of nature
visible to economic and political actors and institutions. It is inevitable that they will
do so for business models, but environmental ethics should not be afraid of new
forms of bio-economy and entrepreneurship. The left-wing jargon against “neoliberal commodification” can also hide the potential for transitions within environmental entrepreneurship, “green” investments and corporate restructuring. If production
of ESS would be profitable, ESS might be less scarce in the future. If so, there might
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can business models be designed accordingly? How can payments be initiated and
managed? Once you have made the scarcity of nature visible, it is difficult to avoid
such selfish business prospects for natural values. The large-scale acquisition of land
(“land grabbing”) is a paradigm case, but one can also think of the acquisition of
concessions for timber and fishing, the acquisition of CO 2 credits, the acquisition of
beautiful places as travel destinations and the like. Such acquisition strategies can
affect local livelihoods, as a broad NGO discourse shows. They can distribute the
benefits of ESS according to the given unequal patterns of purchasing power. Not
surprisingly, egalitarian concepts of distributive environmental justice often reject
TEV or ESS because of associated business models. Many people dislike the ideas
that one may make a profit out of the conservation of nature or that nature’s values
are traded on markets. Market-based solutions and business-models count as corruption of the “spirit” of nature conservation. Market-based acquisition of ESS is
either unfair or corrupt (or both).
However, not all businesses are morally wrong. Why should we completely deny
that there could be morally decent ways to make some money with TEV or ESS?
Beautiful campsites on Swedish lakes can mobilise the willingness of stressed-out
Germans to pay to relax in such an open-air hut. Farmers might specialize in
producing agroecological services beyond yields. The same holds for forestry.
Why not pay some entrance fee for a land art park presenting sculptures in landscapes (as close to Vilnius)? In many cases the fundamental criticism against the
monetarisation of nature can be misplaced. If so, we need a refined view of the
business models and rights to open access. Free access to forests, beaches and lakes
should counteract the commercialisation of nature. Perhaps different political cultures can solve this problem of the commercialisation of TEV or ESS in different
ways. In the USA there is a fee to get permission to enter national parks, in Germany
and Scandinavia there is Open Access.
In view of its internal dialectic of monetarisation of TEV or ESS, the economy
can and should take the plunge into critical political environmental economy. To do
this, economists would have to think about the scarcity of nature in close connection
with environmental ethics, distributive justice and sustainability science. The economic visibility of the scarcity of nature requires economic-ethical disputes over
property rights, access and business models, since distributive justice can demand
free and equal access to beaches, forests, public parks and the like. However, the
TEV or ESS approach as such is not necessarily a neoliberal, slippery slope towards
the complete commodification of nature. A deep anthropocentrism can, with some
limitations, adopt TEV and ESS as tools and measures that make the values of nature
visible to economic and political actors and institutions. It is inevitable that they will
do so for business models, but environmental ethics should not be afraid of new
forms of bio-economy and entrepreneurship. The left-wing jargon against “neoliberal commodification” can also hide the potential for transitions within environmental entrepreneurship, “green” investments and corporate restructuring. If production
of ESS would be profitable, ESS might be less scarce in the future. If so, there might
Environmental Evaluation between Economics and Ethics: An Argument for. . .
153