Planetary Accounting: translating global environmental limits into local action
November 2021
We have the diagnosis: our planet’s in a critical state. The prescription needed to restore planetary health? According to Kate Meyer, founder of the Planetary Accounting Network and Beca’s Business Director Sustainability, we need targets that encourage local, regional, and national action.
In this webinar replay Kate explains how Planetary Accounting’s science-based environmental targets translate the global challenge into actions we can all take to conserve and restore our planet. Kate is joined by our thinkstep-anz Technical Director Jeff Vickers who explains the link between Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Planetary Accounting.
A sneak preview of the webinar. The full webinar recording can be downloaded below.
Key takeaways from the webinar
- Planetary Accounting translates global environmental limits (planetary boundaries) like climate change and biodiversity loss into science-based, environmental budgets that encourage action.
- There are nine planetary boundaries, all based on science. (Climate change is just one of them.)
- The nine boundaries define the size and urgency of the task ahead – but not what we need to do.
- Planetary Accounting’s environmental budgets bridge the gap.
- They show us the action we need to take, and can be scaled to guide individuals’, organisations’, regions’, and countries’ day-to-day and strategic decisions.
- Environmental budgets work in the same way as financial budgets: they help people manage the impacts of their lifestyles.
Q&A with Kate
1. Do the planetary boundaries change with culture?
No - they are scientifically determined environmental limits that define the ‘safe operating space’ for humankind. However, the way we apply and talk about the Planetary Boundaries can and should differ with culture.
For example, at PAN we see significant value in applying a te ao Māori (the Māori world view) lens to Planetary Accounting - not only as a way of better communicating these concepts locally - but also as a way to incorporate more of a story telling approach that connects people more broadly to the challenges ahead.
2. The planetary quotas don't quite line up with the indicators in the current LCA standards (i.e. EN15978). Have you done any work aligning the quotas to the existing LCA standards?
Yes. We are currently working on a set of conversion factors and hope to publish these next year.
3. Is there a plan to get the ocean to feature more, beyond ocean acidification?
The oceans do feature in the Planetary Boundaries and in Planetary Accounting beyond ocean acidification.
For example, in addition to the limits for carbon dioxide emissions (which impacts ocean acidification) the limits for nitrogen, phosphorus, water, and waste all also relate to the ocean. One area we will review in the next update is how we could consider ocean biodiversity. The indicator currently used is a land-use proxy so doesn't look directly at activities like overexploitation of fisheries which is a major driver for biodiversity loss.
4. How does the planetary boundary framework allocate 'budget'? Is it on a per capita basis? How does this system set limits appropriate to the receiving environment / national context?
We don’t allocate budgets on a per capita basis. We have derived global budgets that can be broken down (allocated) through many mechanisms. We support people using Planetary Accounting to identify the most appropriate mechanism for their specific use case. Sometimes this is a per capita allocation but often it is not.
5. I love the way Planetary Accounting ties together pretty much everything we should be working towards – LCA, Doughnut Economics, Science Based Targets, fiscal responsibility. How do you see Circular Economy principles in comparison?
There is a lot of alignment with circularity. I see circular economy models as a key mechanism to help us return to the Planetary Boundaries. The Planetary Accounting limit for imperishable waste is net-zero. This is only achievable in a circular economy.