From 1970 to today, humanity has consumed 170% of the Earth's regenerative capacity. A third of global wetlands disappeared between 1970 and 2015. Yet GDP, the key indicator of economic progress, completely ignores the deterioration of the natural capital: a serious mistake, if you consider (for example) that 72% of European companies directly depend on at least one service “provided” by the ecosystem. Partha Dasgupta, economist at the University of Cambridge, in his new book "Natural Capital: What's the World Around Us Worth" argues that this accounting blindness is no longer an option. Measuring only production and income is like counting roulette wins without counting the money spent. This is why we're losing so badly.
(A quick aside before I continue: this is NOT a paid review, it was NOT requested, and I DID NOT receive money or a free copy for it. I bought the book because the topic interests me and I decided to tell you about it on my own. PS: There is NO commission on the link either; I only included it in case you're interested. I'm not against collaborations, but if I were, I'd let you know.)
When economic growth ignores natural capital
The economic models that have dominated the last seventy years are based on a simplification that was reasonable for the time: we produced value by combining human labor, skills, and physical goods. Nature? It was abundant, infinite, free. A negligible detail. In the 1950s this hypothesis made sense. The forests seemed inexhaustible, fish filled the oceans, the soils regenerated crops effortlessly. But what was a practical simplification it has become a structural blind spot.
Dasgupta explains it with a football metaphor: Imagine a team that measures success only by goals scored, ignoring those conceded. It may think it's winning 1-0, while perhaps it's losing 5-1. This is exactly what national accounting systems do with natural capitalThey celebrate agricultural production while ignoring soil erosion. They applaud the fishing industry while ignoring collapsing stocks. They celebrate quarterly GDP while wetlands disappear.
Secondo the estimates prepared by Dasgupta, since 1970 the human question about nature exceeds the planet's regenerative capacity by 70%. We're not living off the "interest" of natural capital. We're burning capital itself. And no one's reporting it on the balance sheets.
The invisible debt in the national accounts
Setting the price of a brioche is simple: ingredients, labor, rent, taxes. The result: one to five euros. But how much is the pollination that made wheat possible worth? Or the water cycle that irrigated the fields? These ecosystem services are priceless, don't appear on receipts, and don't enter national economic accounts. Yet they are the foundation of every productive activity.
Il Sixth Report on natural capital in Italy, published by the Ministry of the Environment in 2024, certified that 58 out of 85 terrestrial ecosystems are at risk. Seven are in critical condition, twenty-two are in danger, and twenty-nine are vulnerable. Approximately 20% of the country's territory is subject to significant environmental pressures. Yet when ISTAT calculates quarterly GDP, these losses are nowhere to be found. It's like running a business without recording the depreciation of its machinery.
When businesses discover they depend on nature
An analysis by the European Central Bank Part 2023 revealed a surprising fact: 72% of the 4,2 million non-financial firms in the eurozone directly depend on at least one ecosystem service. Not only that: qNearly 75% of bank loans granted to these companies finance activities that are highly dependent on the functioning of natural ecosystems. Agriculture, food processing, construction, tourism: sectors worth trillions of euros rest on ecological foundations that could collapse without warning.
Biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation therefore pose a growing threat not only to the environment, but to global financial stability. According to the European Commission, investments in nature restoration they can generate from 4 to 38 euros of economic value for every euro spent. In Italy, ecological redevelopment could generate benefits of €2,4 billion against costs of €261 million: a ratio higher than the EU average. But to invest you must first know how to measure.
Dasgupta proposes a radical paradigm shift: moving from GDP to “inclusive wealth”, which accounts for all capital assets (produced, human, natural). Only in this way does what is happening become visible: because while produced and human capital grow, the natural capital it deteriorates rapidly.
The first attempts to put nature in the budget
Some countries have begun to experiment with environmental accounting systems. Netherlands, Canada e Colombia They are developing statistical frameworks that treat ecosystems as assets: they measure their stock, track their depreciation (or appreciation), and calculate the services generated. In the private sector, Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures pushes companies to include risks related to biodiversity loss and dependencies on natural resources in their financial reports.
In Italy, a report presented at COP30 in November 2025 revealed that 78% of large Italian companies recognize that protecting nature strengthens the resilience of their business model. But only 42% systematically monitor impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems. The problem remains the one identified by Dasgupta: nature, being silent and mobile, escapes the market logic that struggles to price it.
Natural capital as a last resort
Dasgupta closes the book with an uncomfortable consideration: every ton of fish caught, every cubic meter of water withdrawn for irrigation, every hectare of forest converted to cultivation It is a levy on assets that must remain intact to ensure future returns. Overfishing inflates GDP one quarter, but depletes the spawning stocks that sustain next year's catch. Draining wetlands creates productive farmland today, but erodes the flood protection and nutrient cycling that make that agriculture possible tomorrow.
The constant tension between the immediate return on natural capital and the ecological conditions that make it possible is the central contradiction of our time. As long as accounting systems treat the conversion of natural resources as costless profit, companies will continue to celebrate growth numbers while the systems that made that growth possible silently collapse. The correct perspective, Dasgupta concludes, should focus not on immediate profit but on long-term profitability. This means securing future economic benefits while safeguarding the conditions that make them possible.
It's a bit like stopping counting just the goals scored and starting looking at the ones conceded too. Before the game ends badly.
