Several thinkers (including, for example, Boyd 2020 and Hazel Henderson) have suggested that the concept of real capital  – or multi-capital – be introduced into the political economy to aid decision-making at policy level as well at corporate level. This may overcome one of the failings of standard economics: Policy makers often rely on economists to provide their decision bases. However, one of the failings of standard economics  when preparing decision bases for policy makers, is that anything that cannot be valued in money is seen to have no value or little value. The Earth does ..read more

Economic growth sound great! But as with all growth you have to ask yourself what it will look like when it’s fully grown. So too with the “economy”. I’m not talking about the monetary system that produces tokens and circulates these tokens around between citizens, companies, governments and back. I’m talking about the arrangement for keeping a roof over your head, food on your table and a load of other essential services. Economic maturity is very much, but not exclusively, Built Capital maturity I’d like to suggest that economic maturity has much to do with infrastructure maturity. That is t ..read more

The last article explained that, if you are looking to develop policy to drive the circular economy, then it is useful to divide supply chains up in their industrial classification. You need to look at one in particular, the keystone holding it all up – C, manufacturing. And in manufacturing, you need to focus on built capital – the capability and performance of the actual infrastructure used in manufacturing. Manufacturing can drive the circular economy The reason for this is that the manufacturing infrastructure in place has the capability of determining to a large extent the behaviour and ..read more

Fortunately for us, Sweden keeps a pretty comprehensive set of statistics 1 on how its industry performs. It takes a while to retrieve them and put them together at the highest levels, but the exercise reveals som particular insights about how the developed world works. You could say that supply chains represent the workings of the global super organism. When you look at the system from above, you see some glaring disconnects. It gives a good idea of who is doing what to the planet, and who is earning the money from it. They are definitely different industries, if not different people. This is ..read more

Based on official statistics it is possible to put together a high-level balance sheet for Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions and uptake. It does raise some interesting questions as to how the statistics are set up, but let us look at the overall picture – to better understand how the country can fulfil its ambition to be climate neutral by 2050. The table explained Column(1) itemises the various sources/sinks of CO2. Column 2 is the amount of CO2 sequestered (as a positive). Sequestration is seen as an asset.  On the liabilities side, the CO2 of biological origin, are in column 3 and fossil or ..read more

Real capital defined Real capital is defined as: Something that is used in the production of goods and services to society, but not used up.  Note that capital is necessary but not sufficient to provide services. The capital is utilised in the production system. There are several categorisation methods, but I prefer the following as described in the table below: Natural Capital: The living layer we all rely on as well as the layer beneath our feet with the minerals and other substances from the lithosphere, natural systems like the climate and water cycle. Built Capital: All man-made t ..read more

Last year, some realizations hit me hard. For me, 2023 really saw the beginning of the end of what we might call the industrial way of life. For many years I have advocated transitioning to sustainability. Below I outline why I now think it is too late, instead the focus should be on mitigating the effects of destabilized weather patterns. It looks like several tipping points may be inevitable. At least we must prepare. Economics as practiced is badly prepared. Just witness the debacle of Nordhaus economics Prize for his work that maintains 3 degrees of warming will not affect GDP. We cannot f ..read more

One way to reduce fossil fuel in products is to, as suggested by The Swedish Sustainable Economy Foundation, introduce a progressive tax and dividend on fossil fuel. It works like this: all import or production of fossil gets a levy on it as it enters the economy. This levy increases with time, and will not stop increasing until the goal of defossilizing the economy is met. This is a market solution where the market is expected o offer cheaper, non-fossil options. It is expected the amount of the levy will be passed on to consumers, so they will see products that need fossil input for producti ..read more

This video describes the types of industries that make up supply chains, and points at the areas where they need to adapt to circularity and sustainability ..read more

ABSTRACT This report looks at the consequences of the recent IPCC synthesis for municipal authorities in their longer-term planning. Although the main focus is Sweden, the report should be relevant to municipalities in other countries.  It suggests that given the warming already locked in, as well as the lack of measures in place, municipalities should prepare for weather pattern instability as well as to be ready for fast changes in political will. The report suggests following the advice of strategist Igor Ansoff to set up capabilities to deal with a turbulent operating environment. Thi ..read more