Corporate sustainability efforts have done little to improve biodiversity. Source: www.theguardian.com
GR: The Guardian article is about assigning value to nature so that businesses can incorporate nature in their accounting. Aldo Leopold wrote about this 66 years ago. He pointed out that it would be impossible to assign value to most species of wild animals and plants. “Of the 22,000 higher plants and animals native to Wisconsin, it is doubtful whether more than 5 per cent can be sold, fed, eaten, or otherwise put to economic use. Yet these creatures are members of the biotic community, and if (as I believe) its stability depends on its integrity, they are entitled to continuance” (Leopold 1949: 210). In my opinion, the “ecosystem-services” concept for preserving nature is so far from reality as to be meaningless. We simply lack the data to assign value to species and groups of species in natural settings. We need eyes on the ground and in the sea.