Natural Prosperity
Natural Prosperity is one element in the larger prosperity initiative of the IGP, looking at the meaning and measurement of prosperity in communities and nations around the world. It is based on the recognition that well-functioning, healthy ecosystems are key to sustaining and improving global and local prosperity and building regenerative wellbeing based economies.
Natural Prosperity is a measure of the interdependence between human health and wellbeing and the wellbeing of the rest of the natural world. It lies at the core of our new Prosperity, People and Planet Master’s programme to tackle the integrated climate, ecological, social, and economic emergencies.
We cannot deal with climate change as a problem that is solvable without transforming our economies and societies to ones with a new vision of prosperity and sustainable wellbeing.”
Professor Robert Costanza, Professor of Ecological Economics and global pioneer in the field of Ecological Economics
About Prof Robert Costanza
Professor Costanza leads our Prosperity, People and Planet Msc and is a core faculty in natural prosperity and ecological economics.
His work focuses on understanding our planet as an integrated, complex system. It recognizes that the economy is embedded in society and the rest of nature, and it cannot be understood or managed effectively without this integrated perspective. That is what the transdisciplinary field of ecological economics, which he helped to create, has been about. In particular, he has worked on understanding, modelling, and valuing natural capital and the ecosystem services it provides, to show that their contributions to sustainable human wellbeing far exceed the contributions of marketed goods and services as measured by GDP.
He has also worked to understand and measure the integrated wellbeing of humans and the rest of nature and to create a shared vision of a world that can provide sustainable wellbeing and motivate the changes needed to get there.
About Prof Jacquie McGlade
Jacquie McGlade is the Professor of Sustainable Development and Resilience, and Lead of the Prosperity Co-Lab for Africa at the Institute for Global Prosperity. Her research encompasses the knowledge systems that express the dynamics of our planet, its ecosystems, geophysical processes and interactions that human societies have with the natural world to survive and prosper. She is especially interested in climate change, ocean health, food-biodiversity systems and the circular bioeconomy and issues of uncertainty, resilience, complexity and the information dynamics of large networks.
Her innovative technology for the measurement of soil carbon sequestration has been awarded a US patent. This could help the farming industry worldwide make a significant contribution towards achieving the sustainability goals.
Previously she was UN Environment’s Chief Scientist, Director of Science and Chief Statistician, and Executive Director of the European Environment Agency.