Seminar on Leveraging Sustainable Development for Community and Economic Development

1. Seminar onLeveraging Sustainable Development for Community and Economic Development Weitz Center, session Monday 31.1

2. Time layout

3. Session Aim Inspire promotion of environmental and economic change Build awareness to the opportunities the environment represents for economic development

4. Mass species extinction rates, currently approaching 1000 times the normal rate Human-induced climate change Extreme inequality of human societies: “Globally, the 20% of the world’s people in the highest-income countries account for 86% of total private consumption expenditures—the poorest 20% a minuscule 1.3%” Approximately 1 billion people suffer from hunger and. Yet, some 1.2 billion suffer from obesity One billion people live on less than a dollar a day. Yet, just a few hundred millionaires own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people. Increasing Problems

5. Times of Change • The number of nonprofit organizations dedicated to conservation and the environment rose faster than the number of nonprofit groups overall since 1995, growing by 4.6 percent per year • Green politics and environmental policy are major issues on the political agendas of both developed and developing countries • Environmental claims have now: • Extensive media coverage • Increased financial resources • A global network of activists • The environmental movement can also claim important successes in the legislative and regulatory arenas

6. Sustainable development seeks to meet the needs and aspirations of the present without compromising the ability to meet those of the future. Far from requiring the cessation of economic growth, it recognizes that the problems of poverty and underdevelopment cannot be solved unless we have a new era of growth in which developing countries play a large role and reap large benefits. (Our Common Future, Chapter 1: A Threatened Future, section 49) Solution: Sustainable Development Definition OECD: Sustainable development refers to development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs It assumes the conservation of natural assets for future growth and development.

7. Sustainable Development

8. The quest for Sustainable Development • The dominant discourse of ecological concern • Growing recognition that it is a necessity • The advantage of the first to implement

9. Economy and sustainable development • Lack of accounted Externalities: • The benefits of natural or social capital depletion can usually be privatized, however the costs are often externalized • The environmental costs of economic activities are often scattered and displaced from where the economic activity is been taking place

10. Economy and sustainable development • Displacement in time: • the depletion of natural and social capital may have non-linear consequences. Consumption of natural and social capital may have no observable impact until a certain threshold is reached. A lake can, for example, absorb nutrients for a long time while actually increasing its productivity. However, once a certain level of algae is reached lack of oxygen causes the lake’s ecosystem to break down suddenly.

11. Economy and sustainable development • The real value of the environment: • Natural capital is often undervalued by society. Markets do not incorporate the real cost of the damage to eco-system services such as desertification prevention, or the climate stabilizing function of the Amazonian forest • Multi-functionality of many natural resources. Forests, for example, not only provide the raw material for paper (which can be substituted quite easily), but they also maintain biodiversity, regulate water flow, and absorb CO2

12. Major methods for valuing ecosystem services in monetary terms • Avoided cost - Services allow society to avoid costs that would have been incurred in the absence of those services (e.g. waste treatment by wetland habitats avoids health costs) • Replacement cost - Services allow society to replace costs that otherwise need to be mitigated by man-made systems (e.g. restoration of a watershed vs. construction of a water treatment plant) • Factor income - Services provide for the enhancement of incomes (e.g. improved water quality increases the commercial take of a fishery and improves the income of fishers) • Social value – Ecosystem services have social value (e.g. value of ecotourism experience, or organic agriculture) • Hedonic pricing - Service demand may be reflected in the prices people will pay for associated goods (e.g. real-estate pricing in the vicinity to nature) Adapted from: Farber, S.C., R. Costanza and M.A. Wilson. 2002. Economic and ecological concepts for valuing ecosystem services. Ecological Economics 41: 375-392

13. The opportunity • Reflecting the real value of the environment in commodity and service pricing • Innovative economics – traditionally, ecosystem services are not included in business plans. Including of ecosystem services value creates stronger business proposals • The multi-factuality of ecosystem services can leverage new programs, public support, and funding Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director: "In the past only traditional sectors such as manufacturing, mining, retailing, construction and energy generation were uppermost in the minds of economic planners and ministers of finance, development and trade. TEEB has brought to the world’s attention that nature's goods and services are equal, if not far more central, to the wealth of nations including the poor--a fact that will be increasingly the case on a planet of finite resources with a population set to rise to nine billion people by 2050,”

14. Group work

15. Task Present an idea for a local economic development program that incorporates the ecosystem services perspective. The program may be a new initiative or fresh dimension/component of an existing program. Time 25 minutes Group work

17. Conclusions • Multidimensional Benefits: • Programmers for sustainable development may have several positive impacts – generating income and enhancing ecosystem services. Understanding of this multidimensionality may be used as a leverage for economic development. For example: Forestation and tree planting can prevent soil erosion, provide a resource – timber, and marketed as carbon credits.

18. 1. Multidimensional Benefits - Fundraising • Mission investment – traditional investment that seek to create profit. These investments are focused on a defined purpose. • Grantmaking – receiving funds from a philanthropic source. No monetary returns are expected

19. 2. Inter-country alliance • Maintaining ecosystem services may be a good common ground to create alliances and cross border cooperation, e.g. Africa’s Great Green Wall

20. 2. Inter- country alliance - The Great Green Wall The Great Green Wall (GGW) is a strip of multi-specie Vegetation linking Dakar to Djibouti over alength of 7000 km with a width of 15 km, linear and continuous as much as possible.  • Desertification yearly damages: • 20 million Tons of grins • 42 $ billion • about 2 billion people effected The great green wall – from Djibouti to Senegal passing through Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Mauritania.

21. 3. Utilizing the social value of ecosystem services • The price tag of commodities and services are reflected by their economic value and their social value. For example: Organic agriculture, fair trade, locally made, ecotourism, etc’. The understanding of this link can be used as a factor for greater economic returns.

22. 4. The true value of resources • Incorporating the price of ecosystem services may change commodity pricing. It may raise prices of basic commodities as sugar, coffee, cacao, etc’.

23. Second session Ofir Avigad

24. Third session some examples from Israel Economic progress is of little value unless it has a positive impact on people’s lives and is not based on long term damage to the environment

25. Local food – Kfar Manda Buying local food is a growing trend. This initiative offers a weekly service of fruit and vegetable home delivery to residence of the city of Karmiel. The produce in grown by local farmers in traditional methods. A strong link is been established between the consumer and the producer

26. Community Composting A locally initiated project collecting organic wastes from the residence of Kerem Maharal (535 people). The organic waste is about 35% of total home waste production. The local council participates in funding the project. This saves yearly 100 ton of landfill waste. The compost generated is used in local agriculture.

27. The Good Energy Initiative An NGO committed to reduce Greenhouse Gas source production, and to support Israeli energy independence by means of energy efficiency and alternative technologies. The GEI is a social venture investing revenues in non-profit social/environmental activities, and it is the only active voluntary carbon offsetting body in Israel.

28. Useful links • http://www.teebweb.org/Home/tabid/924/Default.aspx • http://bankofnaturalcapital.com/ • http://triplecrisis.com/ • http://www.ecosystemservicesproject.org/ • http://www.uvm.edu/giee/publications/Nature_Paper.pdf • From Israel • http://www.goodenergy.org.il/language/en-US/En/Home.aspx • Keeping in contact • http://sustainabilityconsulting.co.il/ • http://groups.google.com/group/sustainable-development-network

29. Thank you