met by current or ‘business-as-usual’ patterns of growth. This gives the concept
both its political traction and its discursive power to justify transformations.
Proponents of a marketized green economy perspective argue that this could be a
driver of higher output and rising living standards, and in the relatively short term.
This positive framing has united diverse public and private organizations, whether
in energy, transport or natural resources. It has also co-developed with the
number and power of environmentally oriented businesses for whom ‘green’ and
‘commercial success’ are deeply intertwined.
These perspectives emphasize the need to recognize and value economically
the natural capital on which growth depends. ‘Putting a price on nature’ as a way
to overcome so-called market failures has a long history in green economic
thought and policy, with environmental economists during the 1980s and 1990s
putting much effort into the development of methods, measures and metrics (Pearce
and Warford, 1993). Today, discourses centring on valuing natural capital are
extending ever more widely into previously unpriced and non-marketized dimen -
sions of nature and ecosystems. This is associated with new forms of financialization
and commoditization, deeply embedded in and thus furthering capitalist networks
of control and appropriation (McAfee, 2012; Sullivan, 2013).
A number of governments have embraced these concepts and are translating
them into policy. For instance, the UK has established a Natural Capital Committee
(DEFRA, 2014), has positioned itself at the centre of the ‘new carbon economy’
(Newell et al., 2012) and embraced controversial practices of biodiversity off-setting.
Internationally, UNEP (2011) has been among the key proponents of this
marketized version of green economy discourse and its application to developing
country contexts. The UNEP-hosted Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity
(TEEB) initiative advocates strongly for the concept of natural capital in ‘making
nature’s values visible’ (TEEB, 2014). An array of schemes is now unfolding to
value and trade aspects of ecosystems now (re)defined as financialized commodities.
They include schemes for trading carbon credits and offsetting emissions, such as
those associated with clean energy, forests and agriculture under the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM), the United Nations collaborative initiative on
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (UN-REDD), and
a host of voluntary schemes. They include emerging markets for ‘offsetting’ species
and biodiversity loss. They also include an array of ‘payments for ecosystem
services’ (PES) schemes. They are in turn linked to new forms of venture capital
and speculation, as derivatives circulate as fictitious and liquid capital (Büscher
et al., 2012). Yet whether the claimed benefits are realized in practice, amid
imperatives for project developers to realize profits in often uncertain markets, and
in the context histories of weak local resource tenure and control, is highly
variable (Newell and Bumpus, 2012; Leach and Scoones, forthcoming, 2015).
Interventions promoted in the name of green marketized approaches can easily
become forms of ‘green grabbing’ that dispossess local resource users of rights and
livelihoods (Fairhead et al., 2012). Meanwhile, narrow forms of financial valuation
of ecosystems and landscapes overlook alternative social and cultural values,
The politics of green transformations 13
both its political traction and its discursive power to justify transformations.
Proponents of a marketized green economy perspective argue that this could be a
driver of higher output and rising living standards, and in the relatively short term.
This positive framing has united diverse public and private organizations, whether
in energy, transport or natural resources. It has also co-developed with the
number and power of environmentally oriented businesses for whom ‘green’ and
‘commercial success’ are deeply intertwined.
These perspectives emphasize the need to recognize and value economically
the natural capital on which growth depends. ‘Putting a price on nature’ as a way
to overcome so-called market failures has a long history in green economic
thought and policy, with environmental economists during the 1980s and 1990s
putting much effort into the development of methods, measures and metrics (Pearce
and Warford, 1993). Today, discourses centring on valuing natural capital are
extending ever more widely into previously unpriced and non-marketized dimen -
sions of nature and ecosystems. This is associated with new forms of financialization
and commoditization, deeply embedded in and thus furthering capitalist networks
of control and appropriation (McAfee, 2012; Sullivan, 2013).
A number of governments have embraced these concepts and are translating
them into policy. For instance, the UK has established a Natural Capital Committee
(DEFRA, 2014), has positioned itself at the centre of the ‘new carbon economy’
(Newell et al., 2012) and embraced controversial practices of biodiversity off-setting.
Internationally, UNEP (2011) has been among the key proponents of this
marketized version of green economy discourse and its application to developing
country contexts. The UNEP-hosted Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity
(TEEB) initiative advocates strongly for the concept of natural capital in ‘making
nature’s values visible’ (TEEB, 2014). An array of schemes is now unfolding to
value and trade aspects of ecosystems now (re)defined as financialized commodities.
They include schemes for trading carbon credits and offsetting emissions, such as
those associated with clean energy, forests and agriculture under the Clean
Development Mechanism (CDM), the United Nations collaborative initiative on
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (UN-REDD), and
a host of voluntary schemes. They include emerging markets for ‘offsetting’ species
and biodiversity loss. They also include an array of ‘payments for ecosystem
services’ (PES) schemes. They are in turn linked to new forms of venture capital
and speculation, as derivatives circulate as fictitious and liquid capital (Büscher
et al., 2012). Yet whether the claimed benefits are realized in practice, amid
imperatives for project developers to realize profits in often uncertain markets, and
in the context histories of weak local resource tenure and control, is highly
variable (Newell and Bumpus, 2012; Leach and Scoones, forthcoming, 2015).
Interventions promoted in the name of green marketized approaches can easily
become forms of ‘green grabbing’ that dispossess local resource users of rights and
livelihoods (Fairhead et al., 2012). Meanwhile, narrow forms of financial valuation
of ecosystems and landscapes overlook alternative social and cultural values,
The politics of green transformations 13