Green investment and nature markets
This article explores the global, UK, and Scottish landscape of green investment, highlighting the untapped potential of private sector funds for public good. How can we channel private capital into critical areas like nature recovery, nature-based solutions, and the circular economy?
The starting point
We face an acknowledged global climate emergency and a nature crisis. Both have ultimately been caused by the socially justifiable pursuit of human development and its historically inseparable twin of economic growth.
The free-market, and Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, may have done much to raise global living standards but also to inflict devastating damage on the global environment. The free-market concept of “enlightened self-interest” is an unrealisable phantasy when faced with a growing scarcity of resources, and our human life-support from ecosystem services being trashed. But Smith lives on! The UK Government , in 2023, still spoke of its “plans to drive a vibrant free market economy”.
What is green finance and what are nature markets? Does the precise definition really matter? So much in life is rather ill-defined and such questions are often the comfort blanket of those who are antagonistic or, at best, sceptical. However, to pander to those demands, let’s say that both are about getting capital investment directed towards protecting the planet we live on, and therefore towards protecting the life support systems we rely on. It relates to structured financial instruments including loans, debts, underwriting, and direct investment in activities that create environmentally positive outcomes. The source of funds can be public, private, or not-for-profit, or indeed a mixture.
Many environmentalists are doubtful about creating nature, green, or sustainability markets and attracting private capital. It represents a concern both about the commodification of the environment and about green capital further skewing the ownership of land. Specifically, nature markets are predicated on a monetary value being attributed to nature and nature-specific revenues being generated. Nature markets “can play a central role in reshaping our unsustainable economy if, and only if, their design and governance is rooted in a radical and robust commitment to impact and equity”. Some useful principles or safeguards for nature markets have already been suggested and the British Standards Institute is developing its own “integrity principles”. But valid concerns certainly remain about the integrity of the market.
Environmentalists are suspicious for good reason – considering how historical investments have created the current perilous state of the planetary environment. So much damage has been done, over many decades and often unwittingly, to our environment in pursuit of human progress – and of course profit. But surely, nowadays, we have the wit to impose strong regulatory control, at least to minimise the risk of negative outcomes?
We shouldn’t dwell too much on the past. Hopefully, humankind has moved, and recently quite rapidly, from understandably fearing our environment as being hostile (predators, hunger, disease), to exploiting it as a resource (agriculture, mining), to imposing some protections (pollution control), and ultimately to a mindset that is starting to recognise the environment as an essential protection for us, as humans, as much as for every other species on the planet.
If human self-image has rather recently made that journey, it is an unanswered question whether our 18th century economic and financial system has kept pace, or indeed can keep pace. Perhaps the gears are shifting, but far too slowly.
The financial world is complex to an infrequent visitor, with its own arcane language, and inspiring little trust with the public. Perhaps it sets out to mystify, like the oracles of the ancient world, but it is important for everyone, environmentalists particularly, to ensure that the financial and the natural worlds co-exist in harmony.
The financial world has its own demographies. For example, institutional investors, such as pension funds, are broadly conservative and risk-averse. Great and steady profits have been made historically in developing coal, iron, cotton, sugar, steel, oil, gas, mining and derivative products like vehicles, mobile phones, and attendant services like banking, advertising, mass media and social media. So, why change? Other investors, like banks, can be a little more adventurous, occasionally seeking out the next possible opportunity, but they expect a higher rate of return on their money. Neither is, therefore, in an ideal position to grasp the developing opportunities in green or nature-based investment. The UK has a fairly strong venture capital sector, aimed at early-stage commercialisation, most often in tech companies. Venture capitalists expect a very high rate of return, perhaps 30 percent pa, due to the inherent risk levels, and would be very unlikely to be interested in any aspect of green or nature investment, where returns are generally rather low.
The UK is good at finance, isn’t it?
The UK is traditionally poor at investing. Private sector investment is just 10 percent of GDP, the lowest of all the G7 nations. The equivalent public sector investment is 3 percent of GDP, consistently below the G7 average. This public investment has additionally declined significantly, partly due to multiple privatisations (e.g. gas, rail, transport, water) but also due to subsequent weak regulation of the new private providers. The UK also fails to invest in innovation, research and development, standing at less than 2 percent of GDP – well behind our major international competitors.
There are many reasons offered for this weak drive to improve business productivity and innovation, including ready availability of low-skill and cheap labour, lack of mobility, uncertain Government policy, low growth, poor communications, a slow planning system, unstable tax regimes, and poor management skills. This dismal combination leads to short-termism and low economic competitiveness.
In the environmental sector, the UK has one of the lowest rates of public investment committed to climate change, just 1.2 percent of GDP compared to the European top-performer, Germany, at 5.2 percent. This is despite the UK Climate Change Committee emphasising that achievement of net zero would boost the UK’s GDP by 2 percent by 2030 and 3 percent by 2050. In addition, the economic multipliers of green energy are very much larger than for fossil fuels.
Even though public investment is just 15 percent of total investment across the OECD countries, analysts agree that long-term, stable public policy and reliable public-investment signals are essential in order to crowd-in private investment. This is evidently not happening in the UK, whereas the recent US Inflation Reduction Act, for example, has guarantees of public sector support for up to 10 years ahead.
Another hindrance is the tradition that the UK investment market is generally more interested in income generation, whereas the US market is more about growth companies and increasing stock value. The US is therefore regarded as a better location for raising the necessary capital to back innovative sectors, such as the green economy and nature markets.
However, climate tech investment in the UK has soared from $177 M in 2014 to $3.5 Bn in 2023. The City of London is ranked number two, globally, for climate tech investment. Around 30 percent of UK venture capital investment went to climate tech.
Reflecting initiatives in England, Scotland has designated two Green Freeports – intended to boost a sluggish economy by enhancing investment, and therefore innovation, through tax benefits and several other incentives, including simplified customs procedures. However, there are already deep concerns expressed about the potential for criminal activities in Freeports in England. In Scotland, concerns are expressed, more specifically, about the standards applying to businesses to be truly green. The policy intention is clearly to support the just transition to net zero, but is yet more fiscally-liberal deregulation really the right way to deliver the socially and environmentally better future we seek? History would suggest otherwise.
How much cash is needed? Well, lots
According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), the top four global risks over the next decade are all climate and nature related, specifically extreme weather, climate impact on Earth systems, biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse, and natural resource shortages. The connection between nature and the economy is becoming firmly established. It is widely recognised that 55 percent of global GDP depends on healthy ecosystems.
Morgan Stanley has estimated that global climate damage amounted to $650Bn for the period 2016-18, while Swiss Re reckons that global GDP will be smaller by 11 to 14 percent under a +2 to +2.6º C future climate. For Europe, the decline of GDP would be 8 percent.
So, a major shift in global investment is necessary and urgent, even as pure self-interest for financial markets themselves. About $4 Tn per year is the required investment by 2030 to meet the Paris Agreement for the clean energy transition.
But there are huge potential rewards as well. The WEF estimates there is a $10 Tn business opportunity from nature-positive policies.
These figures may seem very large, but not in comparison to $250 Tn held globally in financial assets, which are therefore relatively mobile, and this is very much greater than any available public sector capital. Another $235 Tn of private capital is invested in physical assets. At CoP28 in Glasgow the GFANZ was created involving 450 investor institutions, with $130 Tn assets, to accelerate the decarbonisation of the global economy. The so-called “Glasgow Breakthroughs” also committed 40 countries to revolutionise their steel, agriculture, hydrogen, vehicles, and power sectors to achieve a net zero future. This should offer a huge investment opportunity.
There is every incentive to invest. For example, the UK Climate Change Committee has recently suggested that there is now a positive financial return on climate investment of around +2 percent GDP by 2050. Meanwhile, the Office of Budget Responsibility predicts that public debt will grow very considerably if there are no further emissions reductions. “The case for public investment in green industries, to catalyse investment by businesses, is overwhelming.” according to the Institute for Public Policy Research.
The European Investment Bank has offered its own recommendations for increasing investment, particularly to set a clear and ambitious path for the green economy; to embrace the catalytic effect of public investment; to use various risk-absorbing financial instruments (e.g. credit, underwriting); to reduce administrative barriers; and to increase technical skills and enhance support for innovation. The Bank itself has declared a €1 Tn climate fund through to 2030, addressing both climate and biodiversity.
The US Inflation Reduction Act is intended to deliver a 40 percent cut in emissions with $400 Bn being invested over 10 years. This is the kind of long-term, stable fiscal framework that is repeatedly quoted as the foundation for mobilising private capital.
So, there are some positive, but weak, signs. The global green finance market is still only 4 percent of total, but it is at least growing very fast. It currently stands at 6 percent of stock market value, being worth over $4 Tn. In the UK, the green economy is reportedly worth four times the manufacturing sector. While, in Scotland, one third of all job growth from 2015 to 2019 was in the green economy.
However, Scotland remains destined to miss its statutory 2030 climate target. Investment opportunities must be provided in the failing transport, building heating, agriculture and land use sectors. A strong push is necessary on electric vehicles, especially commercial. Also required is an aviation decarbonisation plan, and public transport must be improved. Building retrofit has plummeted, and there is a need to greatly accelerate installation of heat pumps. Forest and peat restoration need to more than double from current rates. Farm support needs greater clarity and focus on the net zero just transition. Consumption emissions should also decline faster and recycling is off-track. Too much waste incineration occurs, particularly without heat capture, and the landfill rate remains too high. Green hydrogen production and carbon capture infrastructure seem both to be stuck in the slow lane, while there is also no plan for bioenergy. It is thought that the Scottish Government missing its targets, adjusting policy timetables, as well as withdrawing some environmental policy initiatives, are all undermining the certainty required for confident private investment. For example, the Just Transition Fund for NE Scotland, pitched at £500 M over 10 years, has just been cut by 75 percent for the coming year. The Flexible Workforce Development Fund has also been scrapped and the Green Growth Accelerator has been paused due to fiscal constraints.
Green bonds were an early stimulus in the nature and climate markets, but traditional investment still very much predominates. Perhaps the best-known open market for bonds is provided by Abundance (no endorsement implied) which offers a range of fairly small local council investment opportunities, with respectable returns (say 5 percent), over a fixed period. The funds are normally used for the likes of solar generation, EV charging networks, and energy efficiency retrofit.
But there are some headwinds in private sustainability investment at the moment: a rise of anti-ESG forces (ESG is environmental/social/governance and is a measure of the sustainability of a business); backward steps on climate action; increased (or increased confusion around) greenwashing; lack of agreed standards in key ESG data; and some under-performance lately in ESG securities.
Going green – renewable technology is only the start
Investors are keen to support proven new technologies which may explain why wind and solar power have done pretty well – admittedly with initial pump-priming and longer-term incentivising tariffs from public funds, provided through stable government backing. The current Contract-for-Difference (CfD) mechanism offers guaranteed prices for renewable electricity generation supplied to the grid from both solar and wind sources. However, the technology is now so successful, and so relatively cheap, that some suppliers provide energy directly to users through a power purchase agreement (or PPA), obviating the need for public subsidies.
However, the next round of UK wind power auctions will still be supported with £1 Bn of public funds through CfD. There has been a total of £300 Bn UK public + private investment since 2010 in low-carbon technologies, and another £100 Bn private funding is expected up to 2030.
About 14 GigaWatts (GW) of renewable energy capacity has been installed in Scotland, so the total historic capital investment may have been about £30 Bn, providing an attractive return-on-investment of around 8 to 10 percent per year.
Scotland recorded £10 Bn output from the renewable energy sector in 2021 and 43,000 jobs were supported. But questions are asked about the final destination of much of the profits from such a successful industry. Scotland, itself, has little investment. Only around 1 GW of generation is community or locally owned. In local terms, it can be argued that this is an exploitative industry, despite its green credentials and despite payments, by some operators, of the voluntary community benefit, which now totals more than £20 M per year across Scotland. But, locally owned developments provide over 30 times more local benefit than those held by private operators.
The Scottish offshore wind power Strategic Investment Model will be provided with £500 M of Scottish Government capital over 5 years – so public support continues, hopefully, to attract additional private investments in infrastructure, particularly ports. Proposals so far have a capital value of £6.5 Bn. This is a result, no doubt, of Scottish Government’s convening power and financial commitment. There is even a possibility of attracting Vestas to build wind generation equipment in Scotland. Scotland’s own nascent wind construction industry failed many years ago. It has very recently been announced that a £25 M Scottish Government grant is expected to bring in a £350 M private investment in undersea cable fabrication. There is no doubt the strengthening of electricity grid interconnections, both on land and at sea, will require very significant investment over years to come.
Home energy storage systems have recently become VAT-free so there is some growing prospect of the necessary investment being attracted. Additionally, Aira (no endorsement intended) is introducing an innovative deal to pay a monthly fee for domestic heat pump installation, rather than finding the up-front total cost, and the company foresees a £150 Bn per year market in Europe.
The UK green and renewable sector has an annual turnover of £70 Bn, of which renewable electricity alone comprises £30 Bn. Scotland’s proportion of the total is around £13 Bn per year. The associated total UK employment is 270,000 jobs in 2022 with 25,000 in Scotland. Unquestionably, investment from public sources, as the risk-reducer, and subsequently from the private sector, has been of enormous benefit overall: environmentally, socially and economically.
Helping nature help us
The Global Biodiversity Framework was agreed at CoP15 in Canada in 2022, setting the ambition to restore 30 percent of terrestrial & marine ecosystems, to phase out or reduce damaging public subsidies, by $500 Bn per year, that continue to harm biodiversity; and to mobilise $200 Bn per year beneficial investment from private & public sources. Additionally, transnational companies & financial institutions must monitor, asses and report on the risks & impacts on biodiversity of their own operations.
It has been estimated that Nature, globally, needs $400 Bn per year invested within a very short timeframe. Currently, only $150 Bn per year is forthcoming, of which only about $20 Bn comes from the private sector. Clearly a step-change is needed.
The G20 nations invest $130 Bn per year on nature-based solutions, while analysis suggests $550 Bn per year is needed by 2050. In contrast, huge amounts are still invested in nature-damaging development – for example, $278 Bn since 2015 was lent by European banks alone. This is despite some regulatory efforts such as the EU Deforestation Regulation, designed to prevent trade in key products which contribute to forest degradation, but regrettably it doesn’t directly impact the finance sector at all. Shockingly, in 2019 alone, the world’s fifty largest investment banks invested $2.6 Tn in sectors which are primary drivers of biodiversity destruction.
A recent review of global investments in nature-based solutions (NbSs) clearly identified NbSs as a new and emerging institutional asset class. From 88 transactions analysed, 90 percent of the projects derived income from commodities, (e.g. timber, agricultural produce), 24 percent from downstream cost savings (e.g. water quality), while 43 percent had stacking within these separate categories (e.g. both timber and carbon credits). Several recommendations were offered to ensure this new market might work better and more productively. Investors need to gain more ecological expertise and need to work more effectively with blended (private + public) finance; there should be improved standards and increased transparency in reporting; public policy needs to be supportive and stable; importantly, trusted intermediaries are required to scope projects and to aggregate smaller projects in order to create packages large enough (say >£10 M) to attract corporate investors.
Rapidly increasing greenwashing within the financial sector is likely to jeopardise the potential benefits of institutional investment in nature-based solutions. One of the major income sources is from traded carbon-credits and the credibility of these is also being questioned, due to businesses often finding it more convenient to offset emissions, rather than to put in the effort to reduce them at source. Serious accusations are also growing that many credits are highly dubious. Much stronger regulation is essential.
The concept of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) is now in force in England, offering the prospect of very gradually, and for future developments only, reversing many decades of biodiversity destruction, and thereby setting a pathway for some limited recovery. This nature market potential is expected to be around £200 M per annum with a predicted total benefit, social and environmental, worth around £11 Bn over 10 years. That seems like a very attractive multiplier to most people, but not necessarily to investors and to property developers, who predominantly seek quick financial gain. However, there is also an ongoing review of the tax position of nature markets which may, ultimately, provide additional incentives.
In Scotland, a headline-capturing estimate has been published, and subsequently questioned, that a £20 Bn investment is needed over the next ten years to restore biodiversity – this country being one of the most nature-depleted in the world. The Scottish Government has committed only £0.5 Bn over 5 years. It’s clear that 20x more is required, and that will have to be private funding, since there is no other source.
As a result, NatureScot has teamed up with private investors to seek up to £2 Bn over 30 years to regenerate woodlands. Investments will be guided by a set of stated Principles. It is clearly important, at the same time, to deliver community benefits. However, this plan, overall, even if delivered in full, still seems to be inadequate for the task. So much environmental and social damage has been inflicted over previous decades and centuries, that there is now a massive environmental deficit.
Instructively, Gresham House has rapidly become Scotland’s third largest landowner across 160 properties, acquired over just the past decade. Gresham House is a corporate alternative asset manager, recently bought out by Searchlight Capital Partners, a global private equity firm with no apparent policies on environment or on sustainability. Land ownership is, yet again, being further concentrated in Scotland, driven by a profit motive, with no cultural connection and potentially negative environmental consequences. It feels to some commentators akin to the risk of another Clearance. It is indeed surprising that only 0.25 percent of Scotland has been procured, so far, under the community right to buy legislation, despite 20 years of such powers being available. One obstacle is that a significant number of land transactions are completed off-market, with no public notification – therefore barring any opportunity for community buy-out. But legislation is being planned to block some of these loopholes and to provide greater community involvement.
It is starkly evident that much stronger regulation is certainly required to prevent potential exploitation of Scotland’s land resource.
Even so, injection of truly beneficial private capital is currently hindered by several other subsidiary considerations, including a lack of skilled staff, a lack of tree nursery capacity, and an abiding lack of confidence in long-term public policy.
The argument has also been made that alternative approaches to progressing environmental benefit may be equally valid, including better aligned government agency priorities, community-based joint ventures with public agencies and private investors, deployment of biodiversity bonds, well-targeted investment by the Scottish National Investment Bank, and radical reform of the Scottish Government subsidy for coniferous plantations.
Biodiversity credits being aligned with programmes for rewilding of currently overgrazed and despoiled land (e.g. the Tayvallich estate) could be worth tens of billions in annual revenue by 2050. Ultimately rewilding may be a cheaper and environmentally more beneficial option than forestry plantation, although the two approaches can work constructively together.
To limit eutrophication and its detrimental impacts on biodiversity, Scotland has adopted a nutrient balance sheet rather than following England’s nutrient credit scheme, created as a market-based solution to ensure no additional nutrient pollution occurs in specific sensitive catchments. This mechanism is reckoned to increase a typical new-build house price in England by several thousand pounds. Natural England has pioneered a statutory system for the sale and purchase of nutrient credits in the Tees catchment while, elsewhere, some private sector providers (no endorsement intended) offer their own nutrient credits. This imposition on house-builders has proved controversial and the UK Government recently tried to abandon nutrient neutrality, but was defeated in the House of Lords.
Scotland, at some point, may follow England’s lead in adopting a legal requirement for biodiversity net gain (BNG) but, in the meantime, the concept of “positive effects for biodiversity” is mentioned in the Planning Scotland Act 2019. In effect, BNG can already be required by planning authorities and Scottish planning policy will “seek benefits for biodiversity from new development where possible, including the restoration of degraded habitats and the avoidance of further fragmentation or isolation of habitats.”
A green economy must be a circular economy
It is regularly quoted that 90 percent of global biodiversity loss and half of greenhouse gas emissions are driven by the extraction and subsequent processing of raw materials. The traditional linear model of our economy, or take-make-use-dispose, must be ended. By definition, a green economy is a circular economy – driven by renewable energy and rigorously minimising the extraction of new raw materials through sharing, leasing, reusing, repairing, refurbishing and recycling of all products.
Currently, we extract well over 100 Bn tonnes of materials globally every year, of which only 8.6 percent actually enters the economy. That extraction rate is accelerating, while the associated greenhouse gas emissions amount to 70 percent of the global total. It’s estimated that emissions could be cut by 50 percent with widespread adoption of a circular economy model.
Regrettably, it’s found that only 7.5 percent of the global and of the UK economy is currently circular, while other sources suggest an even lower figure of 1.3 percent applies to the Scottish economy. Disappointingly, only about 1 percent of investment in the UK economy is targeted at circularity with half from venture capital, although mid-market private equity interest is growing.
The circular economy appears to be a priority for the Scottish Government but its latest proposals are weak and unconvincing. In the past, opportunities have been missed to create a strategic network of a small number of nationally-owned, and appropriately located resource hubs – hosting private-sector waste reception and management, recycling and energy plants, alongside downstream synergistic businesses making use of the resulting recyclates. The purely market-based and fragmented approach of the past decades has resulted in missed targets and slow progress in turning “waste” into a resource.
The recent UK Internal Market Act 2020 could now undermine any Scottish attempts to create its own progressive, and different, kind of economy. It has already killed off Scotland’s own efforts to introduce a national deposit return scheme. At the moment the UK attitude to circularity is weak, resting almost entirely on producer responsibility regulation.
Much, much more needs to be done.
So, what now?
It is clear that current financial and investor regulation is extremely weak, relying heavily on disclosure, comprising statements about how a financial prospectus “is likely to” or “may” need to be informed on climate and other ESG-related matters. There are outstanding criticisms of compliance, and even for breaches, it seems not much happens. Fundamentally, what if the investors don’t care anyway? This is in contrast to environmental regulation which sets binding numeric standards, against which regulated operators know they will be held accountable, in court if necessary.
It has often been stated that much more targeted and robust regulation of the financial sector is needed, to deter investment in environmentally damaging activities and to incentivise pro-environment practices.
Currently, the UK Companies Act 2006 places only a weak duty on company directors to have regard to “the impact of the company’s operations on the community and the environment”. This should urgently be strengthened to a duty to ensure that all decisions minimise the company’s impact on nature and on climate and minimise the use of raw materials and that all options are demonstrably explored to deliver multiple benefits. If our UK legislature genuinely believes there is a global nature and climate emergency then this new duty must be applied to all directors of companies either registered, or operating, within the UK. This would cut off, at source, the options to invest badly.
Much more geographically-strategic investment in nature is required, ending the current bidder-driven, uncoordinated, predominantly random, investment in biodiversity improvements. It is crucial to defragment our natural and semi-natural habitats, at large scale, across Scotland, and thereby to rebuild ecosystem services. Public sector funding needs to be targeted, based on potential habitat connectivity mapping. Private investment must be incentivised to do the same. It might be useful for trusted third-party advisers to act as brokers in structuring and validating investment offers, of sufficient scale and also of environmental and community credibility, to attract major investors. Arguably, Community Land Scotland and Scottish Environment LINK could partner with an investment adviser to offer such a comprehensive service.
As biodiversity attracts an increasing financial value, it could be argued that there is a prescriptive servitude on any land-holding to ensure that existing and pre-existing free movement of flora and fauna, across habitats and ecosystems, remains undisrupted. It can readily be argued that a land-holding surrounded by degraded, near monoculture, deer and grouse shooting estates will inevitably suffer consequential and significantly depleted biodiversity value. Similar disputes have certainly occurred concerning the interruption of the free movement of deer, thereby devaluing income from sporting rights. If the law in this regard is unclear, then it should be clarified – since negative impact on commercial activity by neighbours is clearly actionable and commercial neighbour disputes are relatively common.
To speed up large-scale habitat defragmentation, NatureScot should be given powers to require wayleaves, or easements, to create biodiversity corridors linking isolated habitats. Such powers are already available to commercial utilities who want to establish underground pipelines or electric grid connections. This would be a much cheaper option than outright compulsory land purchase.
Very much greater effort is needed to drive forward the circular economy. Targeted use of s82 of the Climate Change Act, which empowers the Scottish Government to set the recycled content of any product manufactured or procured in Scotland, could offer indigenous businesses the chance to develop strong home markets and thereby to grow and become more competitive. Avoidance of non-compliance with the UK Internal Market would be a prerequisite and the approach could perhaps be tested with Scottish protected products (e.g. Scottish salmon or Scotch whisky), where the UK could not argue for any infringement. The Scottish enterprise agencies and the Scottish National Investment Bank should be involved in guiding and supporting the action. Certainly the recycled content of all public buildings and their fittings could also be prescribed, as has already happened in France where 50 percent must now be natural materials.
In a more voluntary approach, any individual business undertaking a basic internal environmental assessment is likely to increase productivity, competitiveness and profitability. Perhaps that too should become a legal requirement in Scotland? But, at greater scale, the Scottish Government should proactively broker sector-wide, cross-business, non-competitive, partnerships to modernise the Scottish economy and take advantage of being ahead in the absolutely inevitable global journey towards circularity. The Scotch Whisky Association did just that many years ago, greatly contributing to one of Scotland’s few economic success stories.
Success is what we all seek. Success, in a time of global emergency, is surely defined by striving for a way of living in balance with the planet.
In doing that through investment in the green economy and in nature markets, there is no sign, as yet, of Adam Smith’s invisible hand guiding us along this meandering path to a truly sustainable economy. There are only passing glimpses of his so-called enlightened self-interest. We may have a clear view of the destination, but there is no road to get there. We must build it.
- This article is part of a series from the RSE’s Environment Community of Interest. The aim is to stimulate informed public debate on the many aspects and elements of this complex and vexed subject. We’d love to hear your thoughts about this piece, email us on publicpolicy@therse.org.uk.
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