The Economisation of Nature and its Services

The path to salvation or the wrong track?

The Economics of Biodiversity, the final report of the review commissioned by the UK government and led by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta, received very widespread and largely positive coverage in the media when it was published in February 2021. It is perhaps the most powerful single statement to date of the principle widely known as the ‘economisation of nature and its services’, which many see as representing the conquest of capitalism by ecologism, and the deferential reception it received in the mainstream media even leads some to believe that the argument is over and the future of economics, and hence of politics, is bright green. But is that really the case? Professor Reinhard Loske, Professor of Sustainability at the Cusanus University in Bernkastel-Kues, Germany, argues that the idea that the ‘economisation of nature’ represents the one and only path to salvation should be viewed much more critically. Significantly, his response was published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the voice of the German establishment. This gas is a translation of that article by Ray Cunningham.