Let’s treat the economy and the ecology equally
Our economic system doesn’t give any value to the environment, so we shouldn’t be surprised that most of us contribute to destroying it, even if it not what we want in theory. Going against this trend usually means getting less from the system: I buy organic, so I must spend more or get less for the same price, I take the train so it takes 2, 3 or 4 hours more than flying, my soap, my biscuits, my peanut butter without palm oil cost more than the ones with palm oil, my vegan steak costs the same or even more than a beef steak even though it causes 60 times less CO2 emissions etc. Consumers are most of the time not informed of the eco-friendly alternatives to everyday products or services, they are not incentivized to purchase them, and behaviours very detrimental to the environment such as participating in a barbecue, driving a nice, excessively heavy car or flying still have a high social value.
Let’s start tackling our issue #1 at last
We have begun to talk about climate change, to recognize that it’s an issue, to measure it and to try to fix it in specific areas, but we haven’t started tackling it on a large scale, i.e. systematically. Systematically means that everyone is affected, that we are all in the same boat, that we don’t have to think twice before using the system and that it’s fair to all its participants, just like the VAT for example. Our main system, the economy, still gives no value to the environment.
We only care ultimately about the things which have a value to us. Of course, if you ask anyone, they will tell you that the environment has a value to them, while they might eat meat every day, not recycle their trash, drive a car in the city or fly when they could take the train. Having a value in an economic system means having a price. If we want to save the environment, we must align the interests of the economy and the ecology, as they are divergent in the current system, and the economy will always win as it generates and manages value. It is more important to us to pay our rent at the end of the month than to still have a breathable air, healthy forests and oceans in 30 years. I give a couple of ideas as to how we could give value systematically to the environment in this article on the market ecology as well as this one on reconciling the economy and the ecology.
I think we must treat the environment on a par with the economy if we want to defeat or at least slow significantly down climate change. It means that we must develop and implement an ecological equivalent to every policy, concept, process etc. we have been using in the economic realm for decades or centuries. This idea actually already exists: it’s called environmental economics and is well documented on Wikipedia. I bring my own ideas and proposals to the topic through this article and the two above-mentioned ones. Here are a couple of examples of the environmental economics tools and their equivalent in “traditional” economy presented as a table:
Introducing dual accounting and market ecology
Common is a new generation loyalty system based solely on CO2 emissions spared by its members throughout several activities, from mobility to food, according to the principle “1 kg of non-emitted CO2 = 1 greencent”. The greencent, Common’s loyalty point, always stands for a reward for having spared 1 kg of CO2, no matter the place, the person or the activity. Greencents are then accepted by partner businesses who use Common as a marketing tool: letting Common members pay with their eco-friendliness is a strong marketing argument and differentiation actor to them. Let’s imagine that a partner makes the following offers against greencents:
Apart from being a new generation marketing tool for their partners, Common provides them with a report every month according to the dual accounting system: in the local currency for their marketing budget and in saved kg of CO2 for their marketing. Let’s take the above displayed offers as an example and imagine the restaurant sold the following number of offers over a given month:
You can see in this table that we count the marketing expenses for Common partner and the CO2 savings resulting of the offers they sold on Common a given month. We consider that Common members made the effort of collecting greencents to be able to purchase the offers proposed by the partner: we attribute thus our partner the resulting CO2 savings in the dual accounting system. In this example, Common members saved 129 kg of CO2 to purchase 43 times the offer “Fruit”, which cost €43 to the partner as they received 129 GC instead of €43: Common members purchased fruits only with GC.
Another example: if one bakery sells a bun for 3 GC and their competitors in the area do it for 2.5 GC, assuming they are of the same size and quality, then the “more expensive” bakery may eventually price their bun down to 2.5 GC to stay competitive. If the bun is normally offered for €1, then Common has made it possible to establish a relationship between a reward for not emitting 1kg of CO2 and a value in local currency. In this example, 1 GC is worth €0.40. Common has made it possible to monetize CO2 and thus integrate the environment into the market economy: the market ecology has come true.
