Valuation for Life Economies

Accounting is an essential tool of business for measuring and reporting on progress and providing the information needed by decision-makers. In order to support regenerative, life economies, accounting needs to evolve to include more than just value that can be priced in financial markets. True Value Accounting represents an integrated approach to valuation and reporting that supports holistic wealth, values the Earth’s biodiversity and natural assets, and recognizes the impact of social and cultural capital on human well-being. There is immense value held in thriving ecosystems and healthy social networks, and including these sources of wealth in decision-making brings a new focus on abundance. The better these types of capital are stewarded and developed, the more abundance increases for everyone.

Decentralized finance is based on thinking that goes beyond conventional financial markets and pricing systems. The sharing economy exists outside of global markets and would be worth
trillions of dollars if we were to try and put a price tag on all of the invisible acts of caring that happen every day. More formal ways of accessing alternative forms of exchange include time banks, crowdsourcing, open source, peer-to-peer lending, and digital bartering. Local digital currencies backed by real goods and services are now used around the world, and with the advance of technology such as the internet of things and geographic information systems, decentralized banking backed by our planet’s biodiversity is opening up the possibilities for a new era in regenerative finance that works in support of Life.