Program ID: Innovation Anthology #50
Program Date: 07/19/2007
Program Category: Environment, Forests, Social Sciences
Economic Indicators of Sustainability
Implementing environmental sustainability involves more than planting trees or conserving water.
Dr. Peter Boxall from the Sustainable Forest Management Network is investigating new economic models that will measure and support environmental integrity.
And according to Dr. Boxall, an important factor is determining the level of happiness within human society. Unhappy people demand change.
DR. PETER BOXALL: One of the things that we try to do when we measure this happiness is we also try to include something from the economic system in there. And usually this is something like increases in taxes or increased payments for food. And for example, what we might do is ask if a society is interested in preserving woodland caribou, what are you willing to give up to actually do that”? And of course, nobody asks this question of most citizens of our society . So , for example, when you talk about things like genuine progress indicators or green national product, all these types of things are efforts to take things that are not traded in markets like household work, or forest-based recreation, and to put them into economic terms that we can actually start to measure them .
Thanks today to The Sustainable Forest Management Network.
FOR INNOVATION ANTHOLOGY, I’M CHERYL CROUCHER
Images
Dr. Peter Boxall
