Changing how we think about economic growth and nature
Earlier this year, Sri Lanka’s census and statistics department released a new version of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) calculation. The existing National Accounts had been ‘rebased’ from the year 2010 to the year 2015. In explaining the re-basing, the department noted that “a number of improvements” to GDP compilation was done, the first item on the list was ‘Inclusion of generated value addition from the reclaimed land of Colombo Port city project’. It further went on to note that, “The GDP levels increased significantly over the period of 2015-2018 as a result of the[…] reclaimed land of Colombo port city project”, and “by the year 2019, the land reclamation had been completed and as a result […] the GDP growth rate was lower when compared to 2018”. The fact that the creation of an 269 hectare artificial land parcel attached to the capital, with sand extracted from nature, materially changed the country’s GDP base was startling. It triggered within us, again, a growing discontent we have felt for a while on how we think about economic growth and an unease with how we assess progress. For some years now, stemming from a love for the natural world, interest in biodiversity, and enthusiasm for photography, we had begun to think about critical issues with our current approach to economic growth. To be sure, neither of us are environmental scientists, ecologists, or experts on nature. But we realised that in our own professional worlds of economics and finance in Sri Lanka, there was little mainstream understanding of the threats faced by the natural world and their knock-on effects for our prosperity, health, and well-being. Particularly, there was little appreciation for the value of nature - for instance the emerging agenda of the valuation of natural capital.