Loading...
 

The Value of Trees

One White Bit Why do we underestimate it?

One White Bit (see keywords including measurement, money, accountability)
One White Bit
One White Bit Noun Timber 6325125 Noun Money 100963 Noun Mangrove Tree 6416832

What do we mean by value?

  • Value is a tricky word when we confuse it with price.
  • Scientists like to explain the world in quantities, rather than qualities.
  • Politicians use numbers to manage communities (e.g. taxes & monetary incentives).
  • Large organisations think in numbers in order to balance the books.

One White Bit 1=1

Numbers are self-identical...

  • Humans like things to be simple & predictable.
  • And money is useful for trading things that are inert.
    • (e.g. dead things that are similar enough to be quantified).
  • The process saves time because we can all agree with the arithmetic.

One White Bit Noun Timber 6325125 Noun Equals Sign 2881184 Noun Timber 6325125

...each tree costs money

  • Local councils need to justify the removal of trees that threaten buildings.
  • It is convenient, therefore, to account for them as simple identical units.
  • This enables them to claim that they have planted more trees than they removed.

Money is fungible

  • The monetary system hides the inconvenient complexities of trees.
  • Whereas money was designed to be fungible, living trees are limited by their ecological context.
  • Fungibility is a design feature of accountability that makes little sense within systems of responsibility)

One White Bit Noun Tree 1005142 Noun Not Equals Sign 2881209 Noun Tree 1005142

...we try to make timber seem fungible

  • Numbers help us put a price on timber but don't help us to value trees.
  • Trees may look identical on paper but each grows differently & supports different life forms.
  • They are alive until we break them down into standard units for pricing (e.g. as materials).
  • But when we regard things as the same we overlook important ambiguities and irregularities.

One White Bit Noun Biodiversity 5255195 One White Bit Noun Arrows 2131504 Noun Mangrove Tree 6416832

...living trees support biodiversity

  • However, as each tree is unique its role in the whole ecosystem is also unique.
    • E.g. a well established tree is likely to have more amenity value than a sapling.
  • The species of a tree helps to determine its value as host to a range of insects and animals.
  • Removing it may have a negative impact on the biodiversity of local ecosystems.
    • (see an ecological definition of wisdom)

One White Bit Noun Tree 1005142 Noun Calculator 1753048 Noun Tree 1949005 Noun Calculator 1753048 Noun Tree 3563740 Noun Calculator 1753048 Noun Tree 3563747 Noun Calculator 1753048 Noun Tree 3563754

...the transition from value to price

  • Managing remotely (e.g. from an office desk) means ordering by classification, then counting.
  • Insurance contractors estimate the likelihood of trees causing damage to people or property.
  • They may coerce Councils to reduce these perceived risks by recommending removal.

One White Bit Noun Biodiversity 5255195 One White Bit Noun Arrows 2131504 Noun Mangrove Tree 6416832 One White Bit Noun Arrows 2131504 Noun Clearing 2285721
One White Bit beyond price One White Bit amenity value One White Bit wholesale pricing

...the transition from value to price

  • Some of the perceived negative liability value of a tree can be retrieved by converting it to timber.
  • In effect, each unique, living tree becomes quantified according to standards of unit pricing.

One White Bit Noun Timber Transportation 4447188 One White Bit Noun Arrows 2131504 One White Bit Noun Circular Saw 492604 One White Bit Noun Arrows 2131504 Noun Timber 6325125
One White Bit distribution One White Bit homogenization One White Bit utility value

'Priceless' amenities (beyond value)

  • Saying that something is beyond value doesn't clarify the issue in a practical way.
  • When we remove trees we hope to convert their amenity value to commodity value.
  • A tree's amenity value reflects a human-centred value system - i.e. its capacity for:
  1. One White Bit intercepting rainfall
  2. One White Bit reducing air pollution
  3. One White Bit carbon sequestration
  4. One White Bit storm water attenuation
  5. One White Bit urban climate adaptation
  6. One White Bit making cities look more attractive
  7. One White Bit local air cooling (shade / evaporation)
  8. One White Bit reducing water pollution from rainwater runoff

Economic complexities

  • Trees sequester carbon from the atmosphere at different rates over their lifetime.
  • The amount depends on many factors, including:
  1. One White Bit the species of the tree
  2. One White Bit the age of the tree
  3. One White Bit the size of the tree
  4. One White Bit the health of the tree
  5. One White Bit the location of the tree
  6. One White Bit the tree's exposure to light.

Huge discrepancies

  • Local councils, planners, landscapers and management companies face increasing budgetary pressure.
  • They are also increasingly responsible for report on and reducing their carbon emissions. 
  • Unfortunately for them, the value of one tree can be over 100 times the value of another.
  • And most carbon offset methodologies do not sufficiently account for this.
  • They use averages to calculate a tree’s impact over long time periods.

One White Bit Noun Timber 6325125 One White Bit Noun Arrows 2131504 One White Bit Noun Calculator 1753048 One White Bit

The Good News

  • Fossil fuels economies trade on the inauspicious logic of the Law of Diminishing returns.
  • By contrast, trees grow in size and performance with virtually no additional financial investment.
  • In amenity terms they therefore behave in accordance with the Law of increasing returns (see Brian Arthur).

Further Reading

  • Arthur, W.B., 1994. Increasing returns and path dependence in the economy. University of michigan Press.
  • Arthur, B. (1996) ‘Increasing returns and the new world of business’, Harvard Business Review, July/August 1996, p. 100
  • Corning, P., (2003), Nature's Magic: Synergy in Evolution and the Fate of Humankind, Cambridge University Press, NY, USA, 2003
  • Gollier, C. (2013). Pricing the planet's future: the economics of discounting in an uncertain world. Princeton University Press.
  • Graeber, D., (2011), Debt: The First 5000 Years, Melville
  • Jackson, Tim (2009). Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet. Sustainable Development Commission.
  • Maturana, H., & Varela, F., (1980): ‘Autopoiesis and Cognition; the realisation of the Living’, in Boston Studies in Philosophy of Science, Reidel: Boston.
  • Rapley, J., (2017). Twilight of the Money Gods: Economics as a Religion and How it all Went Wrong, Simon & Schuster
  • Romer, P., M., (1986) Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth, Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago
  • Jackson, Tim (2009). Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet. Sustainable Development Commission.
  • Pimm, S. L. (1997). The value of everything. Nature, 387, 231-232.
  • Romer, P., (1991), Increasing Returns and New Developments in the Theory of Growth, In Equilibrium Theory and Applications: Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium in Economic Theory and Econometrics, edited by William Barnett et al.
  • Simmel, G., (1900), The Philosophy of Money”, Routledge; New York & London, p. 259

This content is licensed under the terms of the Copyright.