The value the world books for Natural Capital

The most valuable asset in the global economy doesn't appear on a single balance sheet.

In 35+ years in agriculture and food, I've learned one rule the hard way: "the things we don't price are the things we destroy."

"More than half of global economic value depends, moderately or highly, on nature — soils, water, pollinators, forests." Tens of trillions of dollars of output resting on assets we carry at zero. Not because they're worthless. Because we decided not to look.

Every mispricing I've seen in my career eventually corrected. None of them corrected gently.

And this one is already turning: 80% of Europe's natural habitats are now degraded; regulators are beginning to treat biodiversity loss as a matter of financial stability and national security; and for the first time, nature loss is being shown to lower the creditworthiness of entire nations.

Nature is moving from the footnotes to the balance sheet. The only question left is whether you revalue it deliberately — or let the market do it for you, in a fire sale.

Over the coming days I'll share why the way we currently finance nature is about to repeat an expensive mistake, and what we're building to get it right. It starts with refusing to call nature "free." It never was.