WHITNEY WEBB: Wall Street now monetizes nature
Last month, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced it had developed a new asset class and accompanying listing vehicle meant “to preserve and restore the natural assets that ultimately underpin the ability for there to be life on Earth.” Called a natural asset company, or NAC, the vehicle will allow for the formation of specialized corporations “that hold the rights to the ecosystem services produced on a given chunk of land, services like carbon sequestration or clean water.” These NACs will then maintain, manage and grow the natural assets they commodify, with the end of goal of maximizing the aspects of that natural asset that are deemed by the company to be profitable.
Though described as
acting like “any other entity” on the NYSE, it is alleged that NACs “will use
the funds to help preserve a rain forest or undertake other conservation
efforts, like changing a farm’s conventional agricultural production
practices.” Yet, as explained towards the end of this article, even the
creators of NACs admit that the ultimate goal is to extract near-infinite
profits from the natural processes they seek to quantify and then monetize….
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