"When natural waste treatment provided by wetlands, grasslands, and forests has been eliminated by their conversion into urban areas, communities can construct water and waste treatment facilities. But is substitution of other forms of capital for natural in society's interest?"
Nancy Olewiler, The Value of Natural Capital in Settled Areas of Canada, 2004
Over the past few months I've had the opportunity to do some research and writing on climte change and how this is going affect real estate values and land uses in BC. This is the second of three pieces I've put together a synopsis of what I've found. It's important, given the high value our mid-southern Vancouver Island communities place on the development and real estate industry, to look at climate change through this lens. It is, after all, our "one big idea" for sustaining household incomes and civic budgets after we've fumbled with our natural resource industries.
Several years ago the BC Real Estate Association embraced a "Quality of Life" (QoL) approach. Yes, the optics are good. But the industry also understands that communities with a higher-than-average quality of life are attractive to home buyers and investment.
That's good news for any of us who own homes or businesses in the southern part of BC. Relative to much of the country -- and most of the world -- we enjoy the benefits of a host of QoL assets: economic, social, and political stability, attractive and accessible environments, and moderate climate. The bad news is that some of our assets are being eroded by climate change.
As I mentioned in a previous column, our "old business as usual" has provided a fairly healthy QoL, reflected in relatively strong real estate market values. But the model is starting to break down.
Economist Nancy Olewiler is not alone when she suggests that the breakdown is due poor accounting practices. "No company would stay in business long if its management did not know how much product was being produced, how much it cost to produce it, or the market prices
for the product. Why," Olewiler asks, "should we treat our natural capital – capital that sustains life on the planet – any differently?" Taking natural systems for granted, we have failed to see them as assets to be assessed, invested in, treated as profoundly valuable to human communities.
Olewiler is one of several researchers making a strong business case for the re-valuation of these systems. Not only as supportive of our existing QoL, but as effective tools for mitigating the effects of climate change. Their work begins the accounting and re-valuation process: identifying and quantifying environmental services that the land base provides for human and non-human life. A partial list of these services includes:
• Improving the quality of surface and groundwater;
• Decreasing water and waste treatment costs;
• Stormwater management and flood mitigation;
• Increasing recreational opportunities;
• Providing aesthetic values;
• Decreasing net greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions;
• Improving air quality.
Some of the metrics are already being done and we have approximate values for services provided by natural systems. A few examples include:
• Current estimates suggest that intact oceanic and land-based ecosystems have the capacity to absorb between 50-60% of human-created greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions;
• BC forests play a vital role in storing carbon (it takes approximately 20 years for a newly planted forest to be a net carbon sink; coastal forests peak their carbon intake between 30-120 years of age, but continue to provide a net carbon storage benefit well into 400-500 years of age);
• The waste services of lower Fraser Valley wetlands are estimated at approximately "$230 million per year in foregone treatment costs alone, and their value is many times higher if the
infrastructure capital costs are added."
We can always, as Olewiler says, replace a disrupted a wetland with an engineered water and waste treatment system. But this is probably a poor exchange, given the other services a wetland may give the community. Using that kind of "old business as usual" approach will eventually rob our communities of the QoL assets the wetland originally provided.
The impact of our "old-business-as-usual" approach, like extreme weather events and gradual and/or chaotic climate change, may not effect market values or homeowner equity immediately. The longer-term chill most likely will. Globally, the insurance industry is responding to the bottom-line impact of these phenomena. Coastal BC's recent experience with two 1-in-200-year storms within 18 months (2003-2005) cost millions of dollars. These costs are driving the insurance industry to take a "new business as usual" approach. Without adequate responses to climate change from government (ie. regulations regarding where and how development and building takes place, investments in "hardening" of protective systems), the industry is saying some homeowners and businesses may find themselves unable to afford the cost of insurance.
Climate change is forcing a re-thinking of our business assumptions at many levels: risk assessment, adaptation strategies, mitigation strategies -- and an increased appreciation of the value to our communities of healthy ecological systems. Climate change scenarios indicate that when faced with stresses, intact ecosystems are the most resilient. Carbon sequestration research tells us that these ecosystems are already our best tool in our kit when dealing with
climate change. Maintaining the integrity of these ecosystems -- through investment in conservation and rehabilitation -- is vital for human QoL. The business case, motivated in part by the costs of the "old business as usual" approach, for moving aggressively in this direction is growing. Concurrently, we need to be developing practices in business, government, and even in our households that include an accounting for natural systems.
The bottom line? If we are serious about sustaining quality of life in our neighbourhoods and communities, we need to revalue, account for, and husband our "natural capital." And we need to do it quickly.
-- 30 --
This column was originally published in The Island Word, September 2008.
(c) hanspetermeyer.ca / 2008
0 comments:
Post a Comment