Meet the economist who wants the field to account for nature

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Meet the economist who wants the field to account for nature

By Kathryn Miles | MIT Technology Review | December 26, 2023

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What is the true value of a honeybee? A mountain stream? A mangrove tree?  Gretchen Daily, co-founder and faculty director of the Stanford Natural Capital Project, has dedicated her career to answering such complex questions. Using emerging scientific data and the project’s innovative open-source software, Daily and her team help governments, international banks, and NGOs to not only quantify the value of nature but also determine the benefits of conservation and ecosystem restoration.  This marriage of ecological and economic concerns may seem an unusual one to some. But to Daily, it’s a union as natural as the planet’s ecosystems themselves.

“For so much of our history, humanity had operated under the assumption that nature was infinite,” says Daily. “We knew that collapses of civilization were at least in part because of the destruction of the local environment, but nobody thought that could happen at a planetary scale.”  Global climate change and its myriad impacts changed all that. “That crisis forced us all to rethink the assumptions on which economic systems operate,” she says. “It also revealed the frailties in different lines of inquiry that have built up for decades and even centuries.”

“I think many of us finally began to see that, fundamentally, environmental problems are economic and social problems,” she says. “We cannot maintain the vitality and security of the biosphere without valuing nature.”  That recognition, Daily says, inspired her to create the Natural Capital Project in 2005. More than anything, she adds, the initiative was born out of the idea that mapping and modeling the value of nature would compel global leaders to see the inherent benefits of conservation as well.

The organization’s open-source software model, called InVEST, combines data gleaned from thousands of researchers working with techniques such as satellite imaging, soil surveys, climate modeling, and human development mapping to quantify and place a value on natural resources. A similar approach, also crafted by the Natural Capital Project, helps countries determine their gross ecosystem product or GEP.  Daily and her team piloted this index in 2014 on both municipal and national scales in China, and it was adopted by the United Nations Statistical Commission in 2021.  InVEST model and GEP concept are transforming the way governments, corporations, and civil society look at nature. We now have a tangible economic basis to invest in protecting and growing nature.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. What is the true value of a honeybee? A mountain stream? A mangrove tree?  Gretchen Daily, co-founder and faculty director of the Stanford Natural Capital Project, has dedicated her career to answering such complex questions. Using emerging scientific data and the project’s innovative open-source software, Daily and her team help governments, international banks, and NGOs to not only quantify the value of nature but also determine the benefits of conservation and ecosystem restoration.
2. The organization’s open-source software model, called InVEST, combines data gleaned from thousands of researchers working with techniques such as satellite imaging, soil surveys, climate modeling, and human development mapping to quantify and place a value on natural resources.  A similar approach, also crafted by the Natural Capital Project, helps countries determine their gross ecosystem product or GEP.
3. InVEST model and GEP concept are transforming the way governments, corporations, and civil society look at nature. We now have a tangible economic basis to invest in protecting and growing nature.

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Topics:  Environment, Natural Resources, Research, Economic Development