Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
In1979, René Passet published a of water and air, the supply of goods,
medicines, food, fibres and other materials,
groundbreaking work on environmental
as well as religious and cultural aspects of
economics, “L’économique et le vivant”, in
our relationship with living systems. The
which he represented the world as composed
ensuing challenge is to take them into
of three concentric spheres: the ecosphere or
account towards sustainable development.
economic sphere, the sociosphere or social
A conference at the Elysée Palace in
sphere and the biosphere or living world,
February 2007, arranged by President
which encompasses the other two. These
Jacques Chirac, assigned the same degree of
spheres, says Passet, are not autonomous:
priority to biodiversity and climate change on
matter, energy and information are
the international political agenda and
exchanged between them. This representation
envisaged the need for reform of the ways in
of the world, though schematic, is extremely
which economic activity worldwide is
interesting as an illustration of the
regulated. A proposal was made to create a
interdependence of the economy and society
global ecological organisation for this
with the biosphere. Passet’s conception has
purpose, which would co-ordinate all UN
the additional merit of presenting the
agencies’ policies.
biosphere as a whole, which fits with the
The Stern Report, published in 2006,
current scientific understanding of
assessed the economic consequences of
biodiversity.
inaction with respect to climate change by
Up until 2005, the year of the Paris
the year 2050 and created quite a stir.
Conference on “Biodiversity, Science and
In 2008, the European Commission,
Governance”, it was common to hear people
building upon the MEA, undertook a similar
say that biodiversity was too complicated an
project to assess the costs of inaction if the
issue for businesses to get involved with,
2010 target of halting the erosion of
except perhaps as sponsors of some
biodiversity is not met (which we know it will
environmental initiatives lead by non-
not be...). The group in charge of this project
governmental organisations. It was different
has released an interim report with
from the issue of climate change, for which
instructive preliminary results for businesses.
an accounting unit was available, the tonne
Its initial results, although expected to
of carbon. Biodiversity was seen as an
evolve, are fraught with significance: the
exogenous constraint, to be addressed by
degradation of ecological services may
helping preserve some charismatic species,
represent as much as 7% of world GDP in
which would in return be beneficial to the
2050 or 13,938 billion Euros a year.
company’s reputation.
Accordingly, reconciling economic
A lot has changed since 2005!
activity with biodiversity calls for a twofold
The Millennium ecosystem
initiative: encouraging businesses to take
assessment (MEA), published in May 2005,
action and developing new tools for them
has had a considerable impact, especially in
to do so. “Integrating biodiversity into
proposing a shared logical framework for
business strategies” is designed to meet this
analysing ecosystems and developing a
dual need.
typology of “ecosystem services”, those
services humans derive free of charge from
the functioning of ecosystems: the regulation
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BIODIVERSITY
The evolution of the hierarchy of issues, from Founex to Paris. Biodiversity underpins the interactions between
social, economic and environmental issues.