General

14th Apr 2021

The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review Final Report 2021

Started by Martin White

The Dasgupta Review is an independent, global review on the Economics of Biodiversity led by Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta (Frank Ramsey Professor Emeritus, University of Cambridge).

The Review was commissioned in 2019 by HM Treasury and has been supported by an Advisory Panel drawn from public policy, science, economics, finance and business.

The Review calls for changes in how we think, act and measure economic success to protect and enhance our prosperity and the natural world.

Grounded in a deep understanding of ecosystem processes and how they are affected by economic activity, the new framework presented by the Review sets out how we should account for Nature in economics and decision-making.

The Review’s headline message highlights that humanity now uses the resources of 1.6 Earths, as calculated by the National Footprint and Biocapacity Accounts. Perhaps most crucially, it acknowledges that the economy is a subsystem of the biosphere. Some of the key summaries include;

“Our economies, livelihoods and well-being all depend on our most precious asset: Nature.”

“Ensure that our demands on Nature do not exceed its supply, and that we increase Nature’s supply relative to its current level.”

“Change our measures of economic success to guide us on a more sustainable path.”

Inger Andersen, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme;
The message from the Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity is loud and clear: we must fix our relationship with the natural world or destroy human prosperity, well-being and our future. And it is with this knowledge in hand that in 2021 we must seek to join up the climate and nature agendas, and arrive at an ambitious, measurable and accountable post-2020 global biodiversity framework. To secure nature is to invest in our own self-preservation.

You can find out more information and read the actual report by downloading in various summary forms here;

www.gov.uk/government/publications/final-report-the-economics-of-biodiversity-the-dasgupta-review