The value of Earth, i.e. the

net worth Net worth is the value of all the non-financial and financial assets owned by an individual or institution minus the value of all its outstanding liabilities. Since financial assets minus outstanding liabilities equal net financial assets, net ...

of our planet, is a debated concept both in terms of the definition of value, as well as the scope of "

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

". Since most of the planet's substance is not available as a

resource Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our needs and wants. Resources can broadly be classified upon their ...

, "earth" has been equated with the sum of all

ecosystem services Ecosystem services are the many and varied benefits to humans provided by the natural environment and healthy ecosystems. Such ecosystems include, for example, agroecosystems, forest ecosystem, grassland ecosystems, and aquatic ecosystems. Th ...

as evaluated in

ecosystem valuation Ecosystem valuation is an economic process which assigns a value (either monetary, biophysical, or other) to an ecosystem and/or its ecosystem services. By quantifying, for example, the human welfare benefits of a forest to reduce flooding and erosi ...

or full-cost accounting. The price on the services that the world's ecosystems provide to humans has been estimated in 1997 to be $33 trillion per annum, with a

confidence interval In frequentist statistics, a confidence interval (CI) is a range of estimates for an unknown parameter. A confidence interval is computed at a designated ''confidence level''; the 95% confidence level is most common, but other levels, such as 9 ...

of from $16 trillion to $54 trillion. Compared with the combined

gross national product The gross national income (GNI), previously known as gross national product (GNP), is the total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of a country, consisting of gross domestic product (GDP), plus factor incomes earned by foreign ...

(GNP) of all the countries at about the same time ($18 trillion) ecosystems would appear to be providing 1.8 times as much economic value as people are creating. The result details have been questioned, in particular the GNP, which is believed to be closer to $28 trillion (which makes ecosystem services only 1.2 times as precious), while the basic approach was readily acknowledged. The

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

gives the total gross domestic product (GDP) in 1997 as $31.435, which would about equal the biosystem value. Criticisms were addressed in a later publication, which gave an estimate of $125 trillion/yr for ecosystem services in 2011, which would make them twice as valuable as the GDP, with a yearly loss of 4.3–20.2 trillion/yr. The BBC has published a website that lists various types of resources on various scales together with their current estimated values from different sources, among them

BBC Earth BBC Earth is a brand used by BBC Studios since 2009 to market and distribute the BBC's natural history content to countries other than the United Kingdom. BBC Studios is the commercial arm of the public service broadcaster. BBC Earth commercia ...

, and

Tony Juniper Anthony Juniper (born 24 September 1960) is a British campaigner, writer, sustainability advisor and environmentalist who served as Executive Director of Friends of the Earth, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. He was Vice Chair of Friends ...

in collaboration with The

United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre The UN Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) is a collaboration centre of UN Environment Programme, based in Cambridge in the United Kingdom. UNEP-WCMC has been part of UN Environment Programme since 2000, and has r ...

(UNEP-WCMC).

References

{{reflist Ecosystems Economic indicators

See also

References