In order to sway these decision-makers, the concept of sustainability and environmental conservation need to be translated into a monetary figure. Fortunately there are some answers, some of which are provided by the World Bank

THERE EXISTS A STRONG CASE FOR ENVIRONMENTALISTS to work within the capitalist economic system, valuing nature as a means to ‘mainstreaming sustainability’ and integrating the triple bottom line. With the machinery of decision-making geared towards economics, how can we account for the real value, in a common currency, of sustainable development? The World Bank has suggested a methodology, Adjusted Nett Savings (ANS), to make this calculation. ANS takes the economic production of a country subtracted by the consumption of fixed capital involved in the process to providing a nett economic value-add.