Costing the Earth

How to Fix Finance to Save the Planet

Eric Archambeau

• Publisher: whitefox Publishing
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9781915036490
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Time is running out in the race to slash carbon emissions and repair biodiversity, with the goal of reaching net-zero by 2050 remaining as elusive as ever. _x000D__x000D_In Costing the Earth, leading impact investor Eric Archambeau argues that rather than making media-friendly pledges and grasping low-hanging fruit (such as aviation taxes), world leaders must radically overhaul finance instead._x000D__x000D_Only by aligning investment decisions with the UN's 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and ensuring that industrial and services companies measure and incorporate in their P&L statements the full environmental and social costs of their operations – costs that are currently passed on to taxpayers or absorbed by Nature – will we stand a chance of achieving the breakthroughs we need. _x000D__x000D_Zeroing in on the agri-food sector, one of the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption and biodiversity loss, Archambeau dissects the many hidden problems caused by our current financial system. _x000D__x000D_As the stakes continue to rise and the window for action narrows, Costing the Earth makes the case that the only viable and sustainable way to achieve net-zero is to adopt the model pioneered by impact investors, which takes the three Ps – profit, people and the planet – into account when valuing a company or tracking its performance. Only then will business leaders all over the world be incentivized to place sustainability and the regeneration of the planet's resources at the heart of their operations and decision-making.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: A brief history of humanity’s impact on earth – and the collapse of our current model
• Chapter 2: The big accounting flaw
• Chapter 3: The outdated foundation model: Beyond philanthropy
• Chapter 4: Impact investing in climate tech: Vanishing packaging and plastic-eating bacteria
• Chapter 5: Burning the library of life: Biodiversity and how to stem the tide of unprecedented loss
• Chapter 6: Farming: We are what our food ate
• Chapter 7: Industrial food for thought: ‘It’s not the cow. It’s the how’
• Chapter 8: Waste not, want not: From toxic rivers to compostable shoes
• Chapter 9: Gut instinct: Health, gut and germs
• Coda: Five transitions for reconciling capitalism and ecology
• Sources
• Acknowledgements
• About the author
• Index