Project description

Summary

This project will provide a research forum in which economics, public policy and educational perspectives on natural capital can be shared, compared and combined. The seminar series on which it is based will pursue a linked sequence of research questions, bringing structured insights into the character of individual and social learning processes to bear on the use of the concept both as an analytical tool and as an exploratory metaphor. This will yield practical ideas for behavioural change towards the sustainable use of natural resources. It will also indicate directions and topics for a new cross-disciplinary research agenda in this field.

Background / Rationale

Sustainable development requires that human demand on the Earth's ecosystemic capacities remain constant over time. The idea that natural resources and systems can be treated as a form of capital underpinning human production of goods and services offers a way of operationalising this requirement, since sustainable development must require a certain minimum level of such capital to be maintained. Much recent work in ecological economics has focussed on identifying natural capital stock, measuring its value and comparing these measures meaningfully over time.

But to think of natural systems as capital is to think metaphorically, extending a form of discourse from one area of experience where it works straightforwardly to one where its application is exploratory, illuminating but also, perhaps, problematic. Metaphorical thinking is a centrally characteristic feature of social and individual learning, and the value of the natural capital concept as an analytical framework for economic policy is closely tied to the ways in which it can be used heuristically, to make ongoing sense of our experience as citizens, consumers or policy-makers. If we are to use environmental-economic framings effectively in shifting human behaviour towards sustainability, it is therefore crucial to think about them in terms of how they can serve as learning tools, and how individual and social learning with such models are related.

Research approach

The project will bring together for an extended dialogue researchers and policy-world actors with an economic-policy perspective, and those interested in education for sustainability. At each seminar, four or five prepared and pre-circulated papers will be discussed, with key points from these discussions collated and circulated to inform the later stages. Draft seminar presentations and discussion summaries will be posted on the project website with feedback, comments and ongoing discussion; this will help to involve interested potential users in the ongoing research process. Revised versions of seminar papers will also be posted on the web in due course.

Envisaged final outputs include, as well as the Final Report to ESRC, an edited sequence of seminar papers and topic summaries for general dissemination via the web, refereed journal and possible book publication, together with production and distribution of at least two policy briefs directed respectively at the environmental-economics and educational policy and practitioner communities. We will also outline further work needed to enrich understanding of natural capital along the lines of the research concept.

Intended outcomes

We hope that the project will generate a new cross-disciplinary programme of research into the heuristic and learning dimensions of economic and other sustainability models, leading to better understanding of the use of economic and scientific models as learning tools in the development of environmental policy, and of the role of education and lifelong learning in relation to sustainable development. We also hope that outputs from the research will contribute to the more effective use of the natural capital model in practical policy- and decision-making, linking with
• recent work on critical natural capital criteria for sustainability;
• the use of natural capital concepts informally for purposes of planning, management and public consultation; and
• current work on aspects of secondary, further and higher educational curricula and lifelong learning programmes relevant to sustainable development.