A positive future vision where we can welcome 9 billion people to a planet with a flourishing economy and environment. Utilising recognised market mechanisms, our ‘infinite economy’ hack recalibrates price to embed the value of life supporting ecosystems to deliver a vastly expanded global marketplace of 9 billion capable citizens.

1. Towards 9 Billion
“Infinite economy for a finite planet”
Joss Tantram
Partner, Terrafiniti LLP
Long Finance Spring Conference - Bank of America
Merrill Lynch, 1st March 2012
Making business sense of sustainability

2. Discussion overview
• The future that is coming
• The challenge of the real world
• Towards 9 Billion – a positive vision
• It’s all about price
• Hacking the price function – 3 concepts
to place at the heart of value
Making business sense of sustainability

3. “If you don't know where you’ve come
from, you don't know where you are.
If you don't know where you are, you
don't know where you are going.
If you don't know where you are
going, you are probably going wrong.”
Terry Pratchett
Making business sense of sustainability

4. The future that is coming
• 9 billion people are coming.
• Resource scarcity – in energy and water but also rare
metals and natural production.
• Our current system gives rise to unintended and un-
priced consequences that threaten our ecosystem.
• However, we are capable of conceptualising and
achieving great things, moving mountains, feeding
populations, greening deserts and making leaps of
imagination and innovation.
• We are adept at financial and mathematic wizardry –
using fantastically complex and clever models and
approaches to assessing and assigning value.
Making business sense of sustainability

5. The challenge of the real world
Ecological systems are:
• Dynamic and complex, capable of rapid change.
• Determined by physical conditions.
• Have no absolute “right or wrong” states.
• Have varied hugely over time, hospitable conditions for
species are not guaranteed.
• Only partially understood, vastly more complex than
human models are able to map.
• Capable of being affected by and affecting human
activity.
Making business sense of sustainability

6. Towards 9 Billion
A world of 9 Billion capable citizens:
• Citizens capable of making economic choices and
economic plans.
• Citizens would need to be highly connected, well
educated.
• Markets would need to:
• Prioritise stability, personal and societal wellbeing.
• Focus on the sustainable use of scarce resources.
• Preserve and enhance natural capital and
ecosystem services.
• Utilise abundant and renewable resources.
Making business sense of sustainability

7. Towards 9 Billion
Achieving a world of 9 Billion capable citizens:
• Requires us to value the future as highly as we value
today.
• To align common interest and self-interest.
• To assess economic behaviour as likely to either support
or undermine that future and use this to determine the
value of that behaviour.
• To re-engineer how we define price.
Making business sense of sustainability

8. It’s all about price
• Price is a fundamental component of our
economic and financial architecture.
• Price is a concept arising from a combination
of supply and demand, statistics and
sentiment.
• But price is not the same as value.
• Price values the present as more valuable than
the future.
• Price struggles with the priceless – human
wellbeing, healthy & thriving ecosystems.
Making business sense of sustainability

9. Hacking the price function
3 concepts to place at the heart of price:
• Value abundance rather than scarcity – scarce things are
only of marginal utility in a world of 9 billion capable
citizens – either natural or managed abundance is
inherently more valuable in this context.
• Cultivate natural vitality – use the planet’s natural
restorative and productive abilities and learn from and
utilise natural production techniques as the basis for our
technological and industrial models.
• Value interdependence – nothing happens in our modern
world without the actions of others. We need to recognise
and balance this interdependence so that our quality of life
is not bought at the cost of someone else’s.
Making business sense of sustainability

10. Further information
Email: joss@terrafiniti.com
Towards 9 Billion Blog: www.terrafiniti.com/blog
A fuller overview of the Towards 9 Billion concept:
http://www.managementexchange.com/hack/to
wards-9-billion-infinite-economy-finite-ecology
Making business sense of sustainability