Nature's Fortune How Business and Society Thrive by Investing in Nature

Environmentalism has traditionally been anathema to business. To most corporations, nature is merely the source of commodities--raw materials--to be extracted and sold. Short-term profits override long-term environmental consequences; sustainability is sacrificed for the bottom line. The green lobby is a petty annoyance, a fly to be squashed under the great force of capitalism. And the ill-will goes the other way--environmentalists are generally scornful of big business and its ruthless, single-minded search for profit; they are skeptical of any "green" initiatives a corporation might sponsor. But economic growth and the well-being of nature are not mutually exclusive. In Nature's FortuneCEO of the Nature Conservancy (and former Goldman Sachs banker) Mark Tercek and conservation biologist Jonathan Adams argue that profit and environmental stewardship need not be competing ends, and that in fact, saving nature is the smartest investment any business or government can make. Tercek and Adams show that the responsible stewardship of natural resources is now of utmost economic importance for people who do not traditionally consider themselves environmentalists. Farmers, ranchers, loggers, fishermen, miners, corporate executives, and investment bankers must begin to properly value the natural systems their business depends on--and account for them on their balance sheets. After all, whether you're talking about company assets or natural resources, success in business and conservation ultimately both depend on properly assessing value. This idea is slowly but surely taking hold in unexpected corners. For instance: In Iowa, the unprecedented occurrence of three 500-year floods over a 17-year period awakened the corn farming community to the reality that the area's economic future was dependent on the conservation of floodplains. Thus a broad coalition of unlikely collaborators, including sportsmen, farmers, conservation organizations, business leaders, and elected officials, worked together to pass the largest conservation ballot initiative in the country, an amendment to the Iowa state constitution that would create a fund to reduce, prevent, and mitigate the impacts from future flooding. In the largely red state of Iowa, the amendment received more votes than the Republican candidate for governor. Nature's Fortunewill tell the story of a new kind of conservation--bold, flexible, innovative, financially sophisticated, and relevant from megacities to small towns to trackless wilderness, from the developed world to the remote countryside. It is a revolutionary guide to the world's economic--and environmental--well-being.

Mark R. Tercek is president and CEO of the Nature Conservancy. Tercek was previously a managing director and Partner at Goldman Sachs, where he led various business units and later was tapped to build and lead the firm's environmental strategy. He lives in Washington, DC.

Jonathan S. Adams is a science writer and conservation biologist. The author of The Myth of Wild Africa, The Future of the Wild, and co-editor of Precious Heritage, he lives in Rockville, Maryland.

All proceeds from Nature's Fortune benefit The Nature Conservancy.