The overexploitation of natural capital will lead to profound and unanticipated social and environmental changes, if we do not learn to “value nature”. But is the equivalence of natural and financial capital adequate? How can we identify the threshold between what can and cannot be  subjected to market rules?

A culture of deficit, a cryptically subsidized economy, and a highly problematic territorial management of resources highlight some of the major contradictions of our present time. The overexploitation of natural capital will of necessity lead to profound and unanticipated social and environmental changes, if we do not learn to “value nature” via resource-management practices and the forging of accounting tools in conjunction with normative legal instruments. But is the equivalence of natural and financial capital adequate?

The economy is not yet accountable for nature’s degradation, meaning that by the overexploitation of “natural capital” (i.e. a mesh of resources) “the ecological services are subsidized. […] Social norms and legal rules are at the root of the system” (Rana Dasgupta). National, regional, or local governments and companies do not keep ecological balance sheets. Consuming ecosystem capital (i.e. loss of ecosystem capability) without accounting for this use is equivalent to creating ecological debts that are transmitted to present and future generations and to countries from which unsustainably produced goods are imported. This seminar, intended to deal with the understanding of natural systems and with resource-management practices, focused on accounting tools in conjunction with normative legal instruments and the question of commensurabilities and compatibilities across different forms of capital and exchange “values.”