Sustainable Prosperity Research and Policy Network

Introducing Sustainable Prosperity 
Over the past few decades, the environmental challenges facing Canada have grown in scale and complexity faster than our efforts to contain them.  Across the country, we're already feeling the impacts of climate change; this year the arctic ice cap was almost 33 percent smaller than its average size from 1979 to 2000. And current reports put the area of forests under pine beetle attacks in British Columbia at 13.5 million hectares.  We're also feeling the impacts of high levels of air pollution in major Canadian urban regions such as Vancouver, Toronto, Montréal and Saint John which directly affects the health of millions of Canadians.
 
The operating system of our modern world – the capitalist market – is an incredible tool.  It links billions of producers and consumers every day, generating price signals that help people around the world decide what to make and what to buy.  But when it comes to conserving Earth’s natural environment, our markets are badly broken: we don't pay the true environmental costs of making, using and getting rid of stuff. 
 
Indeed, everywhere we look, we see products whose prices don't reflect the true costs of their production. Local food often costs more than imported food, because we don't pay for the climate change caused by getting it to our tables or the damage to soil and water from poor farming practices. Recycled paper usually costs more, too, because we don't pay for the loss of virgin forests or for the water and air pollution from making non-recycled paper. So well-intentioned Canadians continue to make millions of rational economic decisions every day that add to our environmental challenges.
 
This would be serious enough if the world economy were set to continue to grow at its current pace. But, in fact, it is set to expand exponentially.  So it's imperative that we start making markets work for the environment.
 
How do we inject natural values into our economic system?
There are many examples of market-based environmental policies already being used; in Canada we are lagging behind many other countries in putting these policies into practice. They fall into two main categories:
 
  1. Creating markets for nature's environmental services that we now treat as free.
  2. Adjusting fiscal policy to better integrate environmental costs and benefits. By fiscal policy we mean the way government collects money (through taxes, royalties and user fees) and spends money (e.g., through programs, grants, tax credits, exemptions, refunds and rebates, and accelerated capital cost allowances).
SP's Role
SP’s job is to develop workable solutions that move us towards a future where the most ecologically restorative choices that Canadians make in their daily lives are also the choices that cost less. We are a network of concerned individuals from a wide range of professions who want to move Canada towards an economy that values our natural world and is positioned to compete in the global, greener economy of the future.
 
We inject ideas into public dialogue in compelling and nonpartisan ways, through:
  • Advanced research: through our network of academics, SP directs research that examines how economic policies impact our environment.
  • Innovative conversations: we bring unusual suspects together to shape a vision of a sustainable and prosperous Canada. 
  • Smart solutions: We pioneer and champion forward-looking initiatives to shift public policy toward sustainable economics.

 

 

 

 

Home