Taking the debate on nature's value to the valuers [A follow on funding bid based upon the AHRC Research Network on 'Debating Nature's Value']

This project takes the critical debate on the project of seeking to numerically capture nature's value, a debate that has been occurring in the academy and with some practitioners, fully to those responsible for doing that numerical-economic valuation.

We will engage with those responsible for delivering a new key government policy - that of the economic valuation of nature - with a view to informing and potentially critiquing/modifying that policy. The project follows up our Research Network on the same topic by bringing the ideas that were crystallized in that Network directly to the attention of Parliamentarians and other policy-makers, via dialogue with the accountants who will be key in the implementation of that policy.

The project will build on the discussion papers, book and academic papers, which explored the discourse of 'natural capital' as a mode of valuing and evaluating nature that emerged from the Research Network. (These comprise the findings of our Network, partly crystallised in the 'Glossary of terms' we produced (https://www.anglia.ac.uk/global-sustainability-institute-gsi/research/global-risk-and-resilience/debating-natures-value/glossary-of-terms ).)
These already-existing outputs/ resources will stimulate the beginning of a series of new discussions that we will host in London and that will cascade further around the UK's accountants who will be responsible for computing the value of "natural capital". The key deliverable will be a report based on these dialogues that will be presented to Parliamentarians and to our top-level contacts at DEFRA, including Michael Gove.

The timetable we envisage is realistic:

[Dec 2018 Initial discussions and planning amongst network members and with ICAEW, prior to the grant's official start.]
Jan to Aug 2019 Papers, seminars, briefing document; interim documents shared where appropriate with civil servants, Parliamentarians, Ministers.
Sept to Nov 2019 Production of final report
Dec 2019 Presentation of final report to Parliamentarians at a special 'Chatham House rule' meeting of the 'Limits to Growth' and 'Agroecology' APPGs.

The project will be led by: Dr Rupert Read (PI (of the DNV network)), Prof Aled Jones (Co-I (of the DNV network)), and Richard Spencer (Head of Sustainability at the ICAEW, and a key player in the Natural Capital Coalition).

The project details have been developed in close collaboration with ICAEW, which will provide rooms for the seminars, access to its membership, and relevant contacts, including with the Natural Capital Coalition (currently based, helpfully for our purposes, at ICAEW HQ).

The AHRC Research Network on Debating Nature's Value to which this is a Follow-on-Funding bid brought a number of academic disciplines - the creative arts, philosophy, theology, literary studies and environmental humanities - into a debate traditionally dominated by economics and biophysical sciences. This bid reveals the way in which the Arts & Humanities have something unique to contribute to this issue (and, by analogy, to various similar further issues). We seek to bring about a thoughtful change in policy-makers' understanding and conduct with regard to 'natural capital'; and we seek thereby to illustrate that and how the kind of >questioning< that our disciplines bring concretely to bear is otherwise missing. This kind of fundamental questioning - e.g., of the metaphorical and potential political consequences of conceptualising nature as a kind of capital, or of ecosystems as essentially providing human beings with 'services' - is of a kind that only Arts and Humanities accomplish. Our project shows the relevance and influence of Arts and Humanities in the corridors of power; it shows how subjects that are sometimes seen as 'lightweight' or other-worldly can be seen and felt to be influential, and uniquely so.
...And all this, at what is (because of Brexit) a crucial moment in the history of this (crucial) issue.

Here is a key example of our Network in action, with a view to Impact: http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/environmental-audit-committee/25-year-environment-plan/written/79050.html . This was evidence we submitted to the Environmental Audit Committee.
>It encapsulates the kind of perspective we will bring to the dialogues we are now aiming for in this Follow-on bid. Commission a short series of short discussion papers on the uses and potential implications and potential pitfalls of "natural capital" framed in the language of accountants. These papers will emerge from the recently-concluded Research Network / from participants therein.
> Hold a series of seminars at ICAEW headquarters in London, based on those discussion papers.
> Produce a briefing document (based on the upshot of the seminars) for circulation around ICAEW members to encourage local discussions in ICAEW branches.
> Produce and publish a report for policy-makers drawing on the key results emerging from all of the above.
> Present that report (a jt. presentation by ICAEW members and project academics) to key Parliamentarians, including the Secretary of State for the Environment, at a session of the APPG 'Limits to Growth' at Westminster (most likely a joint session with the APPG Agroecology); and at a session for civil servants in Whitehall.
> Produce a short series of short films and multi-media items to publicise the events and outcomes further - and for use by busy civil servants, politicians and other policy-makers, some of whom (in our experience) would rather watch a short film on their devices while in transit than wade through written documents, however pertinent.