| |
Natural capital: metaphor, learning and human behaviourResearchers
Robin Grove-White
William Scott
John Foster Institution
Lancaster University
University of Bath Summary
of Project
Project Update
Researcher
Profiles
Researcher Contact Details
Publications
Annual
progress report - 2003 (pdf format)
Summary This
seminar series will provide a research forum in which economics, public policy
and educational perspectives on natural capital can be shared, compared and combined.
It 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. The
series will be jointly organised by the Centre for the Study of Environmental
Change (now part of the Institute for Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy)
at Lancaster University, and the Centre for Research in Education and the Environment
at the University of Bath. Four two-day seminars over the twelve-month period
will include academics, policy-world and other users, and guest keynote speakers. 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. Key
research questions - How has the concept of natural capital
been envisaged hitherto, by whom, and why?
- How far has it
been extended, metaphorically or otherwise, from its initial base in environmental
economics?
- What implications have these developments of
the concept had for its practical and theoretical operationalisability?
-
In what senses might natural capital be regarded as an importantly heuristic,
rather than simply a descriptive or analytical concept?
- What
would be the implications of recognising, and making specific provision for, this
conceptual status - for example, in the areas of learning and teaching about sustainability;
advancing sustainability policies; and the development of economic theory and
insight?
Research approach
This 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 a project website (link: www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/ieppp)
as a way of inviting comments and involving interested potential users in the
ongoing research process. Revised versions of these 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 might 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.
Project
Update - October 2003 The project has now been
running for eight of its twelve months, and has held research seminars in April
and June and a workshop in September. It has produced a good deal of written material
in connection with each of these - for which, see the project website at
and link to the Discussion Pages. The two research seminars were devoted
to exploring the originally-announced broad themes, respectively the origins and
politico-economic context of the natural capital metaphor, and its bearing on
issues raised by environmental education and learning. Two more specific themes
emerged from the discussions in the first seminar: - The "value-action
gap" between expressed environmental concern and actual pro-environmental
behaviour
- A possible new metaphorical concept of natural capital value, based
on the recent corporate strategic concept of "real options".
These
received further exploration and discussion in the second seminar, which focussed
on environmental learning and the learning society. John Foster and Steve Gough
also gave a presentation on our developing thinking to the "What is the Environment?"
seminar staged in late June for Social Science Week by the EHB Programme. The
September workshop concentrated on laying the detailed groundwork for two Working
Papers, exploring the possibilities offered by a "real options" inflection
of the natural capital metaphor in relation to learning for sustainable development
and environmental planning and decision-making. Draft versions of these Working
Papers will be presented and discussed at the final seminar scheduled for 20th/21st
November in Bath. Their main findings will also be summarised in two Policy Briefings
to be launched in the New Year, at an event specifically intended for research
users.
Researchers 
Robin Grove-White
Robin Grove-White is Professor of Environment and Society in the Institute for
Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy at Lancaster University, where he was
previously co-founder and Director of the Centre for the Study of Environmental
Change. His concern since entering academia in 1987 has been the pursuit of new
approaches to environmental research, developing cross-disciplinary collaborations
across the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities, and fresh patterns
of creative interaction with a wide range of 'user' bodies in the policy and NGO
world. He has published widely on these themes. A former Director of CPRE, Robin
is currently a member of the Agriculture and Environment Biotechnology Commission
and Board Chairman of Greenpeace UK. 
William Scott
William
Scott is Director of the Centre for Research in Education and the Environment
at the University of Bath. He edits the international refereed academic journals
Environmental Education Research and Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education,
is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and a member of the Research Commission
of the North American Association for Environmental Education. His research is
focussed around a critical examination of the role of formal education and other
learning processes in addressing ecological and sustainability issues, in particular
the philosophical, ethical and practical (pedagogical and evaluative) questions
raised. He has conducted a range of externally-funded research, development and
evaluation studies on behalf of government, industry, NGOs and other agencies. 
John Foster
John Foster
is Research Fellow in the Institute for Environment, Philosophy and Public Policy
at Lancaster University. A former Associate Director of the Institute, he has
worked in management and consultancy as well as academia. He edited Valuing Nature?
Economics, Ethics and Environment (London: Routledge, 1997), based on research
exploring the conceptual and socio-political assumptions of environmental economics
for the ESRC Global Economic Change Programme. His more recent research interests
have been in ecocriticism and sustainability education; he has published on the
ways in which a sustainable society and a learning society presuppose one another,
and the kinds of relation between scientific, social-scientific and humanities
modes of education which they together imply.
Contact
Details Robin Grove-White
Institute for Environment,
Philosophy and Public Policy,
Lancaster University,
Lancaster LA1 4YG
William
Scott
Centre for Research in Education and the Environment,
Department of Education,
University of Bath,
Bath BA2 7AY.
John
Foster
Institute for Environment,
Philosophy and Public
Policy,
Lancaster University,
Lancaster LA1 4YG
Publications Project
Update (pdf)
October 2003 Policy
briefing note (pdf)
| |
